smj podcast

The competition is getting tough, enrolment enquiries are stalling or your school doesn’t stand out anymore … it’s time to rebrand, right? Wrong. In this episode, we discuss the damage a misguided attempt can do, along with what you need to consider before embarking on a rebrand.

It’s not in the formal job description, but inspiring your communications and marketing team is vital to your success. How do you go about such a task when you are not a professional marketer yourself? Spoiler alert: the key is to be inspired yourself. We discuss how to do that and give you tools to be both inspired and inspiring.

“Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room,” Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has been quoted as saying. But how do you know what that is? In this interview, Meltwater’s Client Strategy Manager, Rhianna Busler, discusses how they collect and analyse online news and social media to find out what others are saying about you, along with what you can do about it.

What does sending a man to the moon have to do with independent school marketing? How can Heads lead their school’s customer experience initiatives with few established reference points? We look at five reasons why NASA’s moonshot was successful and why the efforts of school Heads to create and sustain meaningful improvements in their customer experience often fail.

Phil Cook has 28 years’ experience in the tertiary education sector, most recently as Vice President for Enrolment at Lee University in Tennessee. In this interview, the newly appointed Executive Director of the North American Coalition for Christian Admissions Professionals shares his considerable wisdom on the trends emerging in education marketing, communication and enrolments, and what they mean for Australian school Heads.

When your Board suggests you solve your school’s enrolment challenges by “just getting us out there,” you know it is not that simple. In this episode, we discuss why and give you a step-by-step framework for explaining it.

How do you react when you hear ‘the media’ is on the phone? For many Heads, panic immediately sets in and they can be inclined to hide under their desk. So, how do you spot the difference between a simple enquiry and a potential crisis? PR and media expert John Le Cras joins us to discuss his five red flashing lights that will help you determine which is which.

It’s been said that ‘communications and marketing are the same thing’ and that ‘marketing communications have not fundamentally changed.’ Myths or facts? We delve into the whys and wherefores of both, unpacking what you need to know about them as the school Head.

In this interview, Steve Cuno — author, copywriter and self-professed ‘marketing know-it-all’ — discusses whether he’s a marketing sceptic and why you should take intuition out of your marketing decisions. He provides tips for school Heads in how to embrace scientific marketing, unpacking insights from his book, “Prove It Before You Promote It”.

What are the differences between visual identity, brand and logo? Why would a school want to consider its visual identity and maybe even change it? In this episode, we talk you through the what, why and how.