Creating a Marketing Plan - Part 1 of 12

      This is the first of a 12-step program to create a marketing plan specifically for your school.  You may choose to use this material in a variety of different ways, such as:

• Assigning each week to a staff member over the summer so that everyone will have something to work on;
• Waiting for all 12 parts to be posted, then downloading them all into one document so you can have a complete set before starting work, or
• Joining the SchoolAdvancement eCommunity so that you can receive an email each week when the next part is posted.

     These 12 parts are designed to be short "thought-starters" which get you to think about how they relate to your school, with an assignment relative to what you need to do in the ensuing week to prepare for the next part (sounds just like a class, doesn't it?).  The "Objective" of this 12-week course is to begin to think about AND DO what you need to do to begin to effectively market your school in order to increase enrollment.  That's the first idea that needs to kept in mind - marketing has to have a purpose.  If you think of products that you see advertised on television, different commercials have different purposes.  Let's take GEICO (which is short for Government Employees Insurance Company) for instance.  Right now, there are four ad campaigns - the Gecko, the Caveman, the Celebrity Spokesperson, and the Stack of Money.  Each has a particular purpose - the Gecko is for awareness, the Caveman is for ease of application, the Celebrity Spokesperson is for the personal testimonial regarding claims processing & service satisfaction, and the Stack of Money is for low cost.

     Most Catholic schools don't have the budget to be this diversified.  Let's face it - if we spend money on marketing, we want to see results...which usually means an increase in enrollment. 

     Lots of schools think that if they can get enough money together to get a billboard, it would be a great way to market the school.  Indeed, it is - but not to increase enrollment.  It's a great awareness building tool, to let people know, "Hey, we're still here."  Its greatest effect is on contributors to let them know that their gifts are helping to keep the school open.

     But you can bet that one of those contributors might say, "I gave you $2000 and you bought a billboard for a month?"  That is precisely why you need a marketing plan.  When you can plan your work and work your plan, your actions can be explained as part of a strategic initiative to increase enrollment.

     The good news is the most effective marketing method to increase enrollment is inexpensive (nothing is free), and the second-best is even more inexpensive (and is guaranteed to help the most effective way).  We'll talk about the goals and the methods used to achieve those goals for your school in comparison to the four GEICO "treatments" in the upcoming weeks.

     As for this Part 1 of 12, just like any other collegiate course, the first week won't be that difficult.  Maybe you'll want to pull a team together so that you can work on this over the summer, and have your plan ready to go as the 09-10 school year begins in August.  There's no text to buy, but I will pass along some links for additional reading from time to time, as well as some suggestions of texts you might want to add to your library of resources.

     Okay, scratch that last part - let's make that, some suggestions of text you might want to obtain, read, highlight key points, glean some new insights, and THEN add to your library of resources.

     Here's the main point of Part 1 - it's something to remember as you move forward through these 12 weeks and beyond, so I'll put it in bold print: Your school is a community; it is NOT a family.  In educational circles, learning groups are referred to as "the community of learners."  In a faith-focused light, your parish might be termed a family, but when we're talking about school, it's a community.

     If you've been checking out the weekly Marketing Matters for some time, you'll recall the four "marks" of a Catholic school - Faith, Academics, Community and Experience.  They combine to form the acronym, FACE.  When parents seek out your school, they're looking for a safe and caring community for their child - since THEY are the family.  Parents treasure their children, and if they're not willing to give them up to another family, why would they want to give them to a "family" with 100+ kids?  And how does that translate into personalized care and instruction?  Remember that the Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the father and mother as the primary educator of their children.  To call your school a "family" usurps that responsibility...and if we want our children to be more responsible, we have to teach their parents to be responsible as well.

     We can carry the family analogy further - Jesus is the bridegroom, and his bride is the Church.  I've heard it said that the Church, itself, is the "community of believers."  Therefore, the family relationship is created when Jesus is joined with His community of believers.  In a family, there is always some type of paternal and maternal relationship involved.  Anything less and different is, as we hear today, a "new" kind of family.  In that light, some administrators would argue that there are many kinds of families involved in our schools today.  If that is true, then stating that the school is a family is tantamount to trying to fit families into another type of family structure that really doesn't exist, or, is itself a different kind of family.  It makes much more sense to say that many types of families make up a community.

     Perhaps the distinction can most readily be seen in terms of support.  The community is supported by all the members based on their ability to contribute, and even by people outside of the community that once were members; the family is usually supported by a breadwinner with others making varying degrees of commitment as long as they're living under the same roof.  When members of the family leave, the family core usually provides support to the member that left until they can make it on their own.  The family provides a support dynamic opposite to that of the community.

     Why is it important to know this distinction?  It helps to remember that old adage, "United, we stand; divided, we fall."  When too many people start to worry about themselves do whatever they want to do, and leave the community, the community is weakened.  With a family, you are always a member.  If it were true that we are family, then it wouldn't matter if one or two (or twelve) parents decide on their own that they can't afford the increase in tuition and make the decision to withdraw their children.  If we are family, they might be back next year - but rarely do they return.  Therefore, when a decision is made for the good of the community, and someone says, "I don't want to do that, so I won't," the strength of the community is undermined.  The decision of one member of the community affects every other member of the community.

     Your assignment - if you wish to work on this project as a team, assemble the team.  You'll be forming another community within a community.