Searching for the purple duck
To be effective with any content marketing strategy, you’ve got to develop a distinctive — as opposed to distinct — point of view for the story you’re telling or the value you’re delivering at your school.
To be effective with any content marketing strategy, you’ve got to develop a distinctive — as opposed to distinct — point of view for the story you’re telling or the value you’re delivering at your school.
In this episode, we dive into the topic of AI and how it can be used in your school marketing. We discuss a Hubspot article surveying over 1,000 marketing professionals to discover trends in AI usage. We share our thoughts on how your school marketing team can use AI to become more efficient and be able to free up your team to focus on the parts of the job they love.
Good schools will often be good at communicating their vision. They will tell a good story when it comes to delivering on their promises. But I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we started to express our institutional vulnerability a little more. Or as Brené Brown suggests in her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, maybe we should start, “ … pay[ing] attention to the space between where we’re actually standing and where we want to be,”
In this special interview episode, we are joined by Tom Olverson, a veteran school head of 27 years across the United States and is now a specialist search consultant, as well as mentoring school Heads. He is also the author of “Leading through strategy – how business principles can help independent schools thrive”. He talks us through strategy and what ‘winning’ looks like for schools, as well as sharing some of the principles from the for-profit world that Heads often overlook, which can help their school thrive.
No-one says, “I’m going to be unfair to this person today, brutal in fact, even though they don’t deserve it or it’s not helpful.”
Few people say, “I know that this person signed the contract and did what they promised, but I’m going to rip them off, just because I can.”
In the world of independent schools, clear communication isn’t just beneficial — it’s pivotal. The pitfalls of misinterpretations, ambiguous roles and inconsistent messages can profoundly inhibit a school’s growth on all fronts. Schools, like all organisations, face challenges in achieving effective communication. And it’s holding them back. This episode we discuss the significance of communication in school marketing and provide tips on paving a way forward for your school communications.
Human beings are often more effective when we’re a bit self-effacing. “I think,” “Perhaps,” or “I might be missing something, but … ” are fine ways to give our assertions a chance to be considered.
In this special interview episode, we are joined by Dan Oshinsky, owner of Inbox Collective, an email consultancy that helps brands grow audiences, build relationships and gets results through email. We discuss the future of email marketing and the differences and similarities between brand email marketing and school email marketing. Dan shares how to make your marketing emails feel more personal to establish a connection with your target. Finally, we discuss which metrics are the best for you and how to interpret those metrics.
Before you decide to work with a creative team, particularly on a major project, try your best to meet with prospective candidates in person. More so than a call or video chat, this lets both parties see the other in action. You get to read each other’s body language. You get to have small talk, which can be the foundation for a (work) friendship. And one of you gets to see where the other works, which obviously can tell you a lot about a person and their organisation. Just as crucially, a face-to-face meeting can set the tone for all that’s to come. Here’s a simple plan to get things going in the right direction.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s only partially true. Brad and Scully discuss this further in this episode, delving into how – within the school marketing context – your second chance is to iterate and improve before your next opportunity for another first impression. In today’s interconnected world, the battle for enrolment begins online. As prospective parents commence their intricate journey of selecting the best school, their first stop is usually your school’s website.
I am by nature a curious person — one of those kids in the class who constantly annoyed their teachers with the question “Why?” Why does this mathematical formula apply to triangles? Why did Napoleon invade Russia? Why do I have to rule a line down the left side of the page rather than the right?
In this episode, we are joined by psychologist Dr Matt Pfeiffer to discuss his model TXcel Education, which aims to enhance the educational effectiveness of teachers. TXcel is a professional development model which uses surveys to allow teachers to receive a range of feedback and help them enhance their teaching effectiveness. Matt talks us through the development of the model, as well as how TXcel is used in practice in schools. Finally, we discuss the connection between marketing and communications and quality of teaching and what this means for school Heads.
