Finding and marketing your school’s unique value: Independent and Private schools have a lot to offer to its students and the community as a whole. It’s a task to make sure that both groups know why the school is different.
These differentiators are called Unique Value Proposition (UVP) in marketing terminology. It is a crisp and clear statement describing the benefits of your offer. Understanding this is essential for any school that wishes to market its brand.
Begin by thinking ‘Why?’
To find out what makes your school unique, try to think about “why” before shifting to “how”. When you think why you do it? Then you will realize what the motivating factors are for the stakeholders. The answer to this question will create a solid foundation of your marketing campaign.
The Top 4 Unique Value Marketing Methods
- Use the current resources
Your current students and their parents are the greatest marketing assets of your school. Schools forget about their existing relationships with these people when they are boosting enrollment whereas, the true marketing is by word-of-mouth.
Your community should be aware of what you are up to and should be a fan of it. Make them feel special and feel like they are part of something big.
Some schools create an ambassador program and use this population to do marketing.
- Prepare Long term and short-term marketing plan
Figuring out the UVP of your school is just one step, but figuring out what you can do with it is also important.
You will like to create one long term strategy for increasing the reputation of school and effectively reach prospective families. Once you have figured out the long way map, you will get ideas about the short term goals such as campaigns, and drives.
- Be Accessible
While schools yet make use of traditional ways such as advertisements like Yellow Pages ads, signboards, and notices, it is equally important to get online presence.
Social media reviews can boost your enrollments in a spur and more people are likely to find you as it is convenient.
Getting online may require some amount of work, but you can start by registering with national and regional independent associations. For example, Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI), the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) and National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), and create social media handle as well such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
- Invest in the brand
Your school should be your brand, an extension of your value proposition. The brand is unique to you and your audience needs to be aware of this. There are some tips that will surely help your business grow.
- Stick to one logo –never use more than one logo for different school programs.
- Only use one tagline that is the perfect form of the message you want to convey.
- Keep consistency in brand elements, colors and design elements.
- Get professionals to help you in this matter. Relying on some parent or amateur designer can backfire.
- High Quality of photos should be used.
Whenever you prepare marketing materials, be sure that these branding elements are clearly visible.
