INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOL MARKETING How can communication and surveys enhance your Word of Mouth Marketing? May 14 th , 2019 1
ABOUT BRIGHT MINDS MARKETING AND NICK LEROY • Bright Minds Marketing o Boutique marketing firm specializing in helping schools improve their student enrollment. o Over 60 private, charter and public school clients in 9 states • Nick LeRoy, founder and principal consultant o 2 years as ED of the Indiana Charter School Board o 15 years as a global marketing executive with Eli Lilly & Co. o MBA (with honors) from Emory University 2
OUR SERIES Date Topic 10/16/18 @ 12:00 Introduction: Understanding the foundations of enrollment marketing 11/13/18 @12:00 Operations: Utilizing Data to Shape and Inform your Enrollment Marketing 12/11/18 @ 12:00 Operations: Your environment and your customer 1/8/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Inbound marketing and building your culture of marketing 2/12/19 @ 12:00 Marketing: Lead nurturing and social media 3/12/19 @ 12:00 Recruitment: The school tour 4/9/19 @ 12:00 Retention: From first to last day 5/14/19 @ 12:00 Retention: Surveys and communication at your school 3
YOUR RESOURCES https://www.doe.in.gov/grants/school-marketing-and-webinars 4
OUR REALITY TODAY 5
COMMUNICATION SHAPES YOUR BRAND 6
YOUR BRAND IS THE CORNERSTONE OF WORD OF MOUTH MARKETING • Happy and knowledgeable families = higher retention • Happy and knowledgeable families will tell their friends the right things about your school Your goal: Parents who know the school, love the school and actively encourage their friends to attend the school 7
WHO ARE THE TARGETS FOR YOUR COMMUNICATION • Parent o Generally the decision maker in the younger grades / Shifts to an influencer in the later grades o Operates with incomplete information but with a long term focus • Student o Level of influence increases by age / Can be the decision maker in the later grades o Short term focus, can have more complete information (but biased) • Community stakeholders o Serve as influencers, long term investment o Incomplete knowledge about your school 8
MISALIGNMENT ON COMMUNICATION I wish the school would communicate We will put this better information on page 78 of our handbook. Everyone reads it! We will post this on Twitter, Facebook and put it on our website as well as a take home for the student I wish you would just read the #*&! communication 9
COMMUNICATION IS ONE PART OF THE PARENT’S PERCEPTION OF YOUR SCHOOL What the What their What their school tells friends or the student them internet says tells them Their Their interaction interaction with other with the school teachers personnel 10
AVERAGE SCORES ON COMMUNICATION FROM 28 SCHOOLS Q: How would you rate School X’s communication 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% 4 Traditional Public school 10 Charter School surveys 14 Private School Surveys surveys Parents 36% 41% 35% Administration 52% 68% 58% Staff 42% 54% 58% Parents Administration Staff 11
WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES IN EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION • Customers are bombarded with information – difficult to cut through the clutter • The “Curse of Knowledge” • Cultural hesitancy by schools to be seen as “bragging” • School’s don’t effectively manage the communication function o No communication strategy o Lower prioritization o Nobody “owns” it o Don’t utilize the channels that parents use o Don’t analyze communication for its effectiveness 12
IDENTIFYING OUR PERCEPTION OR COMMUNICATION GAPS How do you know what your parents think of your school and if you are changing their perceptions? 13
THE POWER OF SURVEYS 14
WHY CONDUCT A SCHOOL SURVEY - Surveys tell you how (un)happy your constituents are with the school / workplace - Offer insight into gaps between your intent and what stakeholders believe - Test hypothesis of what you consider to be your strengths and what your parents perceive as strengths. Are these moving? - Shows your constituents that you care about their opinions and their feelings 15
DO IT YOURSELF OR PAY TO HAVE IT DONE? • Free software to do surveys: Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Survey Hero • School survey questions: NAIS ($500/non member), Survey Monkey (Free), QuestionPro (Free) 16
CONSIDERATIONS IF YOU DO IT YOURSELF • Respondents may not feel it is truly anonymous • Question writing can be both an art and a science • What does good look like? • Analysis and synthesis of data takes time and some expertise 17
YOUR TERMS IN SURVEYING • Sample size o Try to get at least 50 respondents for each group • Response rate o The higher the response – the more indicative of the true feelings / perceptions. o 40 – 60% of parents / 80 – 90% of staff • Quantitative vs. qualitative questions o Both have their uses 18
DIFFERENT TYPES OF SURVEYS YOU CAN RUN • School climate survey • New parent survey • Graduating parent survey • Student satisfaction survey • Non-enroller survey 19
STEPS IN CREATING A SURVEY 1. Write out your objectives 2. Write your questions Make sure that your questions align with your objectives 1. Use the proper type of question (qualitative vs. quantitative) 2. 20
RECOMMENDED KEY TOPICS Parents Staff • Academics • All questions asked of the parents o Top of mind, subjects, considered response • Staff resources • Differentiated learning • Work life balance • Student development • Support from administration • Non Academic areas (Counseling, Extracurriculars, student/teacher ratio, communication) • Overall quality of education 21
THE ONE QUESTION THAT YOU SHOULD ALWAYS ASK: NET PROMOTER SCORE • “On a scale of 0 – 10, how likely are you to recommend X School to a friend or colleague?” • “On a scale of 0 – 10, how likely are you to recommend X School as a place to work to a friend or colleague?” 22
ADDITIONAL TOPICS TO INCLUDE • Marketing channel used to research the school • Preferred method of communication • Priorities over the next few years • Demographics o Grade of the child at the school o Tenure at the school o Tenure as a teacher 23
HOW MANY QUESTIONS SHOULD YOU WRITE? • Try to limit your survey to under 30 questions • Surveys that were longer than 7 – 8 minutes saw their completion rates drop by 5 – 20%. • Be very wary of scope creep Source: Survey Monkey 24
STEPS IN CREATING A SURVEY 1. Write out your objectives 2. Write your questions (qualitative vs. quantitative) 3. Select your platform 4. Program your questions (set up any skip logic) 5. Design your survey communication plan 25
COMMUNICATION PLAN • 1 month prior – communicate that a survey is coming out, estimated length of time to complete and the importance of the survey. o Consider setting up incentives for participation • 1 week prior – repeat communications regarding the importance of the survey • Field day (Monday) – send out the survey using multiple channels • Reminder #1 – Wednesday, Reminder #2 – Friday, Reminder #3, Tuesday, Reminder #4, Friday. o Close survey on Sunday night 26
STEPS IN CREATING A SURVEY 1. Write out your objectives 2. Write your questions (qualitative vs. quantitative) 3. Select your platform 4. Program your questions (set up any skip logic) 5. Design your communication plan 6. Field your survey 7. Review and analyze your results 8. Compare against appropriate benchmarks 27
DEVELOPING YOUR BRAND COMMUNICATION STRATEGY 1. Develop your list of key beliefs or perceptions you want to create as a result of your survey responses 2. Identify which of those beliefs you want to: C reate, C hange, R einforce 3. Identify what data points can impact those beliefs 4. Identify the tactics that you will use to share that data 28
CCR BELIEF MAP Belief Audience Change, Create, Data points Tactics Reinforce “Charter school X Parents Change, Create, State letter grade, 1. Post banner with latest state A rating • Community Reinforce NWEA (school) 2. Create an understanding NWEA scores to • has excellent scores, send out to parents (highlight our school academics” Rankings in online scores above average) • sites, 3. Monitor US News and Niche rankings – send I-Learn growth scores out email and social media posts about our • ranking 4. Solicit parent testimonials on academics to post on website “Charter school X Parents Reinforce # of cameras, 1. In September and March, our principal blog • Front door and visitor will talk about security features of the school • is a safe protocols 2. We will post pictures from our school safety environment” Interview with school audit onto our Instagram and Facebook • resource officer page Charter school x Parents and Create, Reinforce Success of our sports 1. Long blog post that talks about the benefits • students teams of clubs or extracurriculars on student has strong Number of kids development • extracurriculars playing sports (%/#) 2. Interviews of our extracurricular (special) Number of teachers on Facebook • afterschool programs 29
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