INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOL MARKETING How can - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1

INDIANA DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CHARTER SCHOOL MARKETING

How can communication and surveys enhance your Word of Mouth Marketing? May 14th , 2019

2

ABOUT BRIGHT MINDS MARKETING AND NICK LEROY

• Bright Minds Marketing
• Boutique marketing firm specializing in helping

schools improve their student enrollment.

• Over 60 private, charter and public school

clients in 9 states

• Nick LeRoy, founder and principal

consultant

• 2 years as ED of the Indiana Charter School

Board

• 15 years as a global marketing executive with Eli

Lilly & Co.

• MBA (with honors) from Emory University

3

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

4

YOUR RESOURCES

https://www.doe.in.gov/grants/school-marketing-and-webinars

5

OUR REALITY TODAY

6

COMMUNICATION SHAPES YOUR BRAND

7

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

8

WHO ARE THE TARGETS FOR YOUR COMMUNICATION

• Parent
• Generally the decision maker in the younger grades / Shifts to an influencer in the

later grades

• Operates with incomplete information but with a long term focus
• Student
• Level of influence increases by age / Can be the decision maker in the later grades
• Short term focus, can have more complete information (but biased)
• Community stakeholders
• Serve as influencers, long term investment
• Incomplete knowledge about your school

9

MISALIGNMENT ON COMMUNICATION

We will put this information on page 78 of our handbook. Everyone reads it! We will post this

• n Twitter,

Facebook and put it on our website as well as a take home for the student I wish the school would communicate better I wish you would just read the #*&! communication

10

COMMUNICATION IS ONE PART OF THE PARENT’S PERCEPTION OF YOUR SCHOOL

What their student tells them What the school tells them What their friends or the internet says Their interaction with the teachers Their interaction with other school personnel

11

AVERAGE SCORES ON COMMUNICATION FROM 28 SCHOOLS

10 Charter School surveys 14 Private School Surveys 4 Traditional Public school surveys Parents 36% 41% 35% Administration 52% 68% 58% Staff 42% 54% 58% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Q: How would you rate School X’s communication

Parents Administration Staff

12

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
• No communication strategy
• Lower prioritization
• Nobody “owns” it
• Don’t utilize the channels that parents use
• Don’t analyze communication for its effectiveness

13

IDENTIFYING OUR PERCEPTION OR COMMUNICATION GAPS

How do you know what your parents think of your school and if you are changing their perceptions?

14

THE POWER OF SURVEYS

15

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
• pinions and their feelings

16

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)

17

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

18

YOUR TERMS IN SURVEYING

• Sample size
• Try to get at least 50 respondents for each group
• Response rate
• The higher the response – the more indicative of the true feelings /

perceptions.

• 40 – 60% of parents / 80 – 90% of staff
• Quantitative vs. qualitative questions
• Both have their uses

19

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SURVEYS YOU CAN RUN

• School climate survey
• New parent survey
• Graduating parent survey
• Student satisfaction survey
• Non-enroller survey

20

STEPS IN CREATING A SURVEY

• 1. Write out your objectives
• 2. Write your questions

1.

Make sure that your questions align with your objectives

2.

Use the proper type of question (qualitative vs. quantitative)

21

RECOMMENDED KEY TOPICS Parents

• Academics
• Top of mind, subjects, considered

response

• Differentiated learning
• Student development
• Non Academic areas

(Counseling, Extracurriculars, student/teacher ratio, communication)

• Overall quality of education

Staff

• All questions asked of the

parents

• Staff resources
• Work life balance
• Support from administration

22

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?”

23

ADDITIONAL TOPICS TO INCLUDE

• Marketing channel used to research the school
• Preferred method of communication
• Priorities over the next few years
• Demographics
• Grade of the child at the school
• Tenure at the school
• Tenure as a teacher

24

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

25

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

26

COMMUNICATION PLAN

• 1 month prior – communicate that a survey is coming out, estimated

length of time to complete and the importance of the survey.

• 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.

• Close survey on Sunday night

27

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

28

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: Create, Change, Reinforce 3. Identify what data points can impact those beliefs 4. Identify the tactics that you will use to share that data

29

CCR BELIEF MAP

Belief Audience Change, Create, Reinforce Data points Tactics “Charter school X has excellent academics”

Parents Community Change, Create, Reinforce

• State letter grade,
• NWEA (school)

scores,

• Rankings in online

sites,

• I-Learn growth scores
• 1. Post banner with latest state A rating
• 2. Create an understanding NWEA scores to

send out to parents (highlight our school scores above average)

• 3. Monitor US News and Niche rankings – send
• ut email and social media posts about our

ranking

• 4. Solicit parent testimonials on academics to

post on website

“Charter school X is a safe environment”

Parents Reinforce

• # of cameras,
• Front door and visitor

protocols

• Interview with school

resource officer

• 1. In September and March, our principal blog

will talk about security features of the school

• 2. We will post pictures from our school safety

audit onto our Instagram and Facebook page

Charter school x has strong extracurriculars

Parents and students Create, Reinforce

• Success of our sports

teams

• Number of kids

playing sports (%/#)

• Number of

afterschool programs

• 1. Long blog post that talks about the benefits
• f clubs or extracurriculars on student

development

• 2. Interviews of our extracurricular (special)

teachers on Facebook

30

CASE STUDY LAKEWOOD CATHOLIC ACADEMY

• Lakewood Catholic Academy is a non-parish Catholic school

that competes with many other Catholic schools in northern Ohio

• Their academics were on par but they were trying to

differentiate their school with their approach to social justice and community service

• Their survey scores showed that parents didn’t understand

everything that they did as it related to service

31

CASE STUDY LAKEWOOD CATHOLIC ACADEMY

32

CASE STUDY: BISHOP CHATARD HIGH SCHOOL

• Bishop Chatard High School competes with Cathedral, Brebeuf and North Central High

School to be the premier high school in northern Indianapolis

• Chatard identified that families believed that the academic performance of Chatard

was inferior to its’ competitors

• Chatard embarked on a multi-channel effort to reinforce the academic excellence of its’

school

• Focus on academic programs during back to school night
• Heavy promotion of academic programs during recruitment activities
• Modified website testimonials to prioritize academics in front of faith
• What they didn’t do? Change a single thing in their curriculum or academics

33

THE RESULTS FROM CURRENT PARENT SURVEYS

49% 53% 58%

44% 46% 48% 50% 52% 54% 56% 58% 60% 2016 2017 2018

Question: Do you believe that Bishop Chatard High School provides a superior academic experience to other high schools in your area?

Question: Do you believe that Bishop Chatard High School provides a superior academic experience to other high schools in your area?

3% growth (+25 students) over the past 3 years

34

SURVEY BEST PRACTICES

1. Set clear expectations for your research 2. Do it every year with the same questions 3. Tell them it is anonymous and make it anonymous 4. Communication is key to driving response rates 5. Keep the questions limited and actionable 6. Release the results (with an action plan)

35

YOUR RESOURCES

https://www.doe.in.gov/grants/school-marketing-and-webinars

CONTACT US FOLLOW US

THANK YOU!!!

Facebook.com/brightmindsmarketing @brightmindsmktg 531 W. 83rd Place, Indy, IN 46260 317-361-5255 nick@brightmindsmarketing.com www.brightmindsmarketing.com