Q: Biggest Challenges for Private School Communications
/Greetings, InspirED team! I'm the guest speaker at this month's Inglecress Incubator, our leadership development program for aspiring school administrators at our school. I asked the cohort of participants to rank THEIR burning marketing questions, and this was their top choice: "What are the biggest challenges facing independent school communicators today?" Naturally I have my take, but would love to hear from others. Lisa Ha
Chief Strategic Communications Officer, St. Anne's-Belfield School, Charlottesville, VA.
A: SIMMONS
Great question!
In speaking with your peers, I often find it's a lack of strategy and execution. There's a lot of confusion around developing the "communication plan." What platforms and mediums do we use? Who owns what part of the strategy? Do we let coaches tweet? Parents? What about students?
Step one is to develop a comprehensive game plan on what to communicate, how to share the information and how often, and who are the responsible parties for all aspects of the plan.
The other issue is often the execution. Short-staffs need to outsource some aspects. Software is necessary to create efficiency, to schedule content, and provide feedback, etc.
My recommendation is to take a step back and look at the plan from a high level. Look to learn what's working, what's not, what's missing, and where opportunities for greater efficiency and engagement lie.
Then you can work on tweaking it based on resources, budget, etc.
Best of luck!
A: CLAEYS
From a website perspective, a big challenge facing school communications and marketing teams revolves around keeping on top of your website content and making sure it is up to date and fresh.
Oftentimes, schools forget about their websites as they are busy with more "active/direct" marketing efforts, but your website is the front porch of your school — it is often the first thing visitors see.
Creating a process where members of your team, or even selected members of your community, check on your website every month to make sure the content is still accurate can make a big difference in avoiding embarrassing mistakes with outdated information.
While you're at it, freshen up the look of your website every quarter with a few new photos. We recommend creating calendar reminders just to look at your website so you don't forget.
