Since this magazine launched, I've gotten to interview hundreds of superintendents and other district leaders about how they think about school marketing. The most common things I hear are: 1) "Marketing is really important right now!" and 2) "I have no idea what I'm doing."
This makes sense. As a school leader, your training is in school administration, not private sector marketing. (If you took a class on education marketing in your graduate program, please let me know—|haven't found it in any curriculum.) But the more our team explores the topic, the more I believe that school leaders understand marketing better than they think.
Even in the private sector, most companies get one crucial point about marketing wrong. They think it's about tactics, when what really matters is influence. If you can shape how people think and feel about a topic, you control the conversation. The best marketers set themselves apart from their competitors by forming real emotional connections with their audiences.
If connection and influence are a marketer's best tools, then maybe working your way up from the classroom to district leadership is actually the best marketing training you could ask for. If your goal is to rally the community around the cause of public education, you're not really marketing. You're leading.
We'll tackle this idea head-on in "The Advocacy Marketing Manifesto." The article explores how educators can strategically shift the conversation around their schools by doing what they already do best, connecting. In "Seeking Seniors," we'll use these same ideas to show you how schools can engage older citizens in their communities.
I'm also super excited about a new project we launched a few months ago: SchoolCEO Conversations. Through short, 15-minute phone calls, we've been reaching out to our subscribers to learn how they implement school marketing in the real world. Lots of what you're about to read came out of these calls. If you would like to take part in this project, please email me at editor@schoolceo.com.
This issue marks the end of volume one of SchoolCEO.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the magazine, speak with us, or send a message of support.
It means the world to us.
Since this magazine launched, I've gotten to interview hundreds of superintendents and other district leaders about how they think about school marketing. The most common things I hear are: 1) "Marketing is really important right now!" and 2) "I have no idea what I'm doing."
This makes sense. As a school leader, your training is in school administration, not private sector marketing. (If you took a class on education marketing in your graduate program, please let me know—|haven't found it in any curriculum.) But the more our team explores the topic, the more I believe that school leaders understand marketing better than they think.
Even in the private sector, most companies get one crucial point about marketing wrong. They think it's about tactics, when what really matters is influence. If you can shape how people think and feel about a topic, you control the conversation. The best marketers set themselves apart from their competitors by forming real emotional connections with their audiences.
If connection and influence are a marketer's best tools, then maybe working your way up from the classroom to district leadership is actually the best marketing training you could ask for. If your goal is to rally the community around the cause of public education, you're not really marketing. You're leading.
We'll tackle this idea head-on in "The Advocacy Marketing Manifesto." The article explores how educators can strategically shift the conversation around their schools by doing what they already do best, connecting. In "Seeking Seniors," we'll use these same ideas to show you how schools can engage older citizens in their communities.
I'm also super excited about a new project we launched a few months ago: SchoolCEO Conversations. Through short, 15-minute phone calls, we've been reaching out to our subscribers to learn how they implement school marketing in the real world. Lots of what you're about to read came out of these calls. If you would like to take part in this project, please email me at editor@schoolceo.com.
This issue marks the end of volume one of SchoolCEO.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to read the magazine, speak with us, or send a message of support.
It means the world to us.