Headmaster

There comes a time in the life of every school when the time is right to make a permanent record of the school’s history. This episode, we are joined by Associate Professor David Hastie to understand the pitfalls and the benefits of writing your school history. David takes us through the steps of approaching such a project, and shares his advice and his takeaways from his vast experience of writing histories for independent schools.

This episode, we discuss some of the jargon in the marketing industry to help school Heads interpret what they are hearing from marketers and understand the process behind what is going on in their schools marketing programs. We discuss all the terms you might often hear, from ‘brand awareness’ to ‘CX’ and try our best to explain in simple terms for your understanding and then give you practical examples in schools.

In this episode, we are joined by Tom Olverson, a veteran school Head of 27 years who is now a specialist search consultant with RG175 and a mentor to current school leaders. We discuss his book, Leading Through Strategy, How Business Principles Can Help Independent Schools Thrive, which explores his personal journey leading schools across the USA, the lessons he learnt and how to use strategy to find your school identity.

In the education sector the various functions of communication often get blurred, especially when it comes to branding and marketing. While related and interdependent, these are entirely different stages of communication that require different approaches. This episode, we discuss an article by Deroy Peraza that we came across, and we approached him to investigate how his article, Branding is expecting. Marketing is parenting applied to school marketing.

There is a lot happening in the modern school marketing landscape. It seems that every time you open a new browser tab there is a new tool or app that is going to ‘make your life easier’ and solve your enrolment problems. Of course, it’s not real. School communications and marketing are getting more complex, not easier. This episode, Brad and Scully provide a four-pillar framework on how to unlock your school’s value to prospective parents.

It has long been known that video is a powerful way to connect with your audience. But, as production becomes cheaper and tools get easier to use, how can schools cut through the clutter? This episode we are joined by filmmaker, speaker and educator Ryan Koral. Ryan specialises in documentary creation and we delve into why this visual medium gives viewers an emotional experience and leads them to take action. Most importantly, we learn how you, as a school Head, can leverage the format to yield great results for your school.

How does your school’s newsletter compare to the benchmarks of the industry, and do they really make a difference to what you are trying to do? Recently, imageseven’s Digital Marketing Specialist, Harrison Shearn undertook a comprehensive project to analyse the performance of over a quarter of a million school email newsletters. For the first time in Australia, Harrison’s findings have revealed some benchmarks for school email newsletters, which we discuss in depth to learn all there is to know. 

Is it possible for your school to stand out in a sea of sameness? This episode, Brad and Scully discuss the idea that to be effective with any content marketing strategy, you have to develop a distinctive – as opposed to distinct – point of view for the story you’re telling or the value you are delivering at your school. We investigate how being only distinct limits our ability to stand out and how by being distinctive, your school can be the ‘purple duck in a room of brown mallards’.

This episode Brad and Scully discuss the case for school magazines and why it is important not to dismiss the idea of print publications. We discuss how the long form content of Prospectus’ and other school publications work differently from the ‘bite-sized’ content that is so often associated with digital communications, and how school Heads can use these hand-in-hand to get the best communications results for their schools.

In the final part of this four-part series with Maria Kadison, President and CEO of EdwardsCo, we discuss how to execute and align all the brand initiatives to form your school’s public presence and form one strong, cohesive brand strategy. We investigate how to streamline your messaging and narrow down your marketing to your key messages to reduce confusion amongst your potential customers.