Marketing is a Medium-term Strategy

     Many schools have begun to realize that there are two things a school must do to ensure a long-term viability for their school - 1) Fill every desk (in other words, focus on enrollment) and Seek outside sources for funds (in other words, focus on development).  Our nature always thinks that there are two sides to every story, and if these are long-term strategies, then there has to be a short-term strategy.  The short-term strategy that most schools look to is Marketing.

     Marketing drives both long-term strategies, since one focus serves to attract parents not currently involved with the school, while the other focus shares the achievements and accomplishments of the school and its students with alumni and other constituent communities.

     But if you've been a frequent visitor to the SchoolAdvancement Web site, you'll realize that this logic is flawed.  There are never two sides to every story, situation or coin...there are at least three.  With that in mind, Marketing is not a short-term strategy - it's a medium-term strategy.

     Back in 1985, I was hired as the Program Director of a public radio station.  It was owned by a University and featured everything - NPR programming, jazz music, classical music, opera, ethnic music, old-time radio programs, long-form interviews, and other public affairs programming.  I was charged with the task of getting more listeners for the station so it could raise more monies from fundraising (the on-air marathons) and rival the community-based public radio station that focused on Classical music for underwriting dollars.  The station manager wanted to promote the station with billboard campaigns...but the product was not only a patchwork whose audience changed with every program that aired, but student announcers had a tendency to mispronounce names of leaders of nations around the world as well as names of classical composers (the "classic" example was Johann Joseph Fux - if one didn't know the proper German pronunciation, a student announcer could lose the station it's license!).  We had to get our programming streamlined first, so that if someone tuned in, they stayed for quality programming, rather than sticking around to hear what would be the next mistake a student could make.

     How does this relate to our schools?  Would you market your school to new parents if your Kindergarten classroom's roof was leaking?  Would you hold an open house if the heat wasn't working?  If your achievement scores were below the local public school's, would you be proud to share that information with your prospective families?  Sometimes, you have to fix the product before you can market it.

     Even if everything is "right" about your school, it make take time to develop a marketing plan and implement it properly.

     So are there short-term strategies?  Are there things schools can do right NOW?  Yes!  Remember that all five of these elements make up Advancement's DREAM acronym (Development, Retention, Enrollment, Asset Management and Marketing), and if two are long-term strategies and one is a medium-term strategy, that leaves two short-term strategies - Retention, and Asset Management.  Retention means keeping the students that you currently have - and it requires different thinking than attracting new ones.  As for Asset Management, you need to capture all your school's revenue streams - especially tuition.  Parents need to take their tuition obligation seriously, and now more than ever before, using a third-party tuition management company makes a great deal of sense.

     Both of these strategies drive marketing - Asset Management works to allow you to budget some funds to successfully implement a marketing plan.   Retention keeps involved parents in your school and therefore provide the best marketing strategy that money can't buy - positive Word of Mouth.  I'll soon be publishing some of these retention strategies, so keep visiting SchoolAdvancement.com for updates.  As for Asset Management, you know what company I'm going to recommend to you.  Drop me an email to mikez@schooladvancement.com and I'll tell you why.

© Michael V. Ziemski, SchoolAdvancement, 2010 (Original Publication Date: 20100208)

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