In marketing your school, the Head of School is typically the first face that a prospective parent associates with the school. Therefore it is imperative to showcase your school’s leadership.
The two most important reasons to do this is worth noting:
- REMIND – It is always helpful (and even necessary) to remind your current families of who the administration is at your school. Depending on the size of your school, this is more important. If you are 200 students, perhaps you have more interaction with the Headmaster in the hallways than if your school has 1500 students. For the larger schools, parents typically interact more with teachers, coaches and the principals. If you have administrators over development, enrollment management and curriculum, these are key executives that often go unseen by your current families. Especially important for the Head of School is to be visible on social media, via a blog, Twitter, Instagram or even using Facebook Live to communicate to families.
- INFORM – While you may be very familiar with the face and voice of your school’s president, remember that your prospective families are not. Keep a list of important facts about the HOS’s experience, educational background, expertise, successes, and some of his/her personal traits and share them often. Have a social media calendar that puts a spot each month to feature some aspect of your school’s administration. They are the front-line voice and face for new families.
Now let’s explore some brainstorm ideas on how to showcase your administration (especially the key visible players such as Headmaster, Principals and Coaches).
- VIDEO – Whether you are using Facebook Live, Periscope, YouTube or Instagram video, put your administration out there for people to see! If your administrator is “good on camera” (comfortable and a great communicator), do creative and funny things as well as informative sessions (although keep them brief). If they are not necessarily the best in front of a camera (and some of us are not), use video editing to play a lot of b-roll video so the audience is hearing the administrator but looking at other pictures of your school. Recording presentations or webinars is one way to achieve this if going LIVE terrifies you!
- BLOG – I am still a proponent of a Head of School having a written blog. This is not a place to write 2000 word essays on her educational philosophy. It is a place to share brief stories of student success, institutional success, inspirational stories or personal illustrations that remind/inform families of his/her background. You can write philosophical posts, but keep them brief and break them up into a series of shorter posts with a lot of bullet points and pictures to improve the likelihood of someone reading them.
- AUDIO – President FDR is famous for his “Fireside Chats”. These audio messages provided the President an opportunity to speak directly into the homes of families. Using audio recording and publishing tools like Soundcloud or Podbean (I use both for some random audio messages and for our monthly school marketing podcast), you can publish a 5-, 10-, 20-, or even 30-minute audio message that consistently puts your voice into the minds of your new and current families. Again, use these to do parent/student/alumni interviews or speak to student and institutional successes.
This communication strategy is critical when I help schools install a customized marketing system for their school. If you would like to learn more about my “9 Steps to Marketing Your School” program, signup for this FREE on-demand presentation.
