2. A Marketing Plan that integrates the 4 P’s (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) Are these 4P’s relevant to schools? Are they equally important?
4Ps are more applicable when launching a new initiative than when reflecting the schools current status.
Price and promotion are sensitive issues in education.
Clearly defining the product – including what you are not – is key.
3. A segmented and differentiated campaign according to its position in the market and its value proposition. How distinct is the school’s value proposition? What do we mean by segmenting and differentiation in the context of schools?
Knowing what kind of school you are, what it is you are offering – and then targeting your marketing at an audience that is more likely to be open and attracted to this proposition and your activity set.
Differentiation and segmentation are age and sector-related.
Curriculum intent and purpose, the way curriculum has to set this up and the approaches to teaching, reporting and celebration need to be evident. They cannot just be words within a vision statement.
4. Marketing tools to build up strong and loyal relationships with your school community members. What is the nature of relationships with school community members and can they be strengthened through marketing tools?
Community events and rituals are opportunities to develop deeper relationships with the community.
Marketing tools as a way to deeper learning for the students already in the school, and attract new families to the school also.
Marketing can act as a way to align community values with what the school stands for.
Use marketing to strengthen ownership of the brand and stimulate dialogue rather than one-way transmission so that the school can become aspirational amongst the consumer peer group.
5. Involving your school community to co-create and generate contents to promote your school. Who can be involved in this co-creation process? By what means can this be done?
Could be done according to Roger Hart´s Ladder of Student Participation. It is probably not appropriate for students to be tokenised and used for marketing (which is what I feel most schools do), rather students should feel inspired by their school and want to generate content that shows off just how great they are, with the assistance of adults to guide them.
Taking note of school life, coments on social networks, trying to be attentive, dynamically, to what is relevant for each stakeholder..
Open social media for community stakeholders – the issue is loss of control over what gets published.
