Marketing Your School

1
Marketing Your School

• Why market your school?
• What are you marketing for?
• Students Funds Public Relations

• What is special about your school (message)?

• What could be considered deterrents/obstacles to
  someone considering your school?

• What is your school's mission (message)?

2

• Who is your general audience and who is your
  target market?

• What are your resources?

• What is your school's capacity and where are
  the open seats?

• Are students leaving your school during the
  year and not returning?

3
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Marketing Advisory Council - A
• 8-12 people who work closely with the schools
  marketing efforts
• Made up of hired personnel, faculty/staff,
  parents and other volunteers
• Worker type individuals who make things happen
• Meet 2-3 times a month
• Action oriented

4
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Marketing Advisory Council B
• 40-60 people who meet three times for 2 hours
  each time in order to create the draft marketing
  plan for the school
• Marketing Advisory Council A surfaces the names
  and serves as small group facilitators

People invited should include
Faculty/staff Parents Perspective parents Feeder
source principals Parishioners
Alumni Students Recent graduates Past Parents and
Friends
5
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Consideration needs to be given to those with
  expertise in marketing, communication, public
  relations, journalism, desktop publishing
  printing, graphic design, sales, etc
• Use the 60-40 rule
• 60 of the people invited should be new
• 40 of the people should be involved

6
Creating the Marketing Plan

• The Invite
• Need to invite 80 people to get the ones you
  need
• The invitation should be personalized from the
  principal and/or the pastor
• A personal phone call from a credible and known
  person at the school should follow the letter
• Initial invitation should have the following
• Invite letter
• Agenda for the first meeting
• Goals and objectives of the process
• Dates of the three meetings

7
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Purposes and Goals
• To understand the historical perspective of why
  marketing is so key to the future internal and
  external
• To understand the marketing challenges the school
  faces
• To understand the mission, and the current state
  of the school
• To help create strategies that will build a
• Strategic Plan for Marketing the school
• To prioritize the top 7 strategies
• To help implement the key strategies for those
  who wish to stay further involved
• To attend three meeting

8
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Sample Planning Areas
• Database of Customers
• Internal Marketing (Role of faculty/staff,
  students, parents, alumni, etc.)
• Projecting the image
• Publications
• Outreach to Feeder Sources
• Prospect-Drawing Events and Activities

• Open House
• Communications Creations
• Advertising
• Marketing Gifts/items
• Video
• Outreach to media
• Marketing research
• Public relations plan
• Web site
• Student retention

9
Creating the Marketing Plan

• First Meeting Agenda
• Opening Prayer
• Introductions
• Purpose/Goals of Marketing Advisory Council B
• State of School message
• The History and Value Of Marketing Your Catholic
  School
• Overview of the 16 Strategic Planning Areas
• Small Group Work
• SWOT Study of Marketing efforts
• Present strengths, Present Weaknesses, Future
  Opportunities, Future Threats

10
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Second Meeting Agenda
• Opening Prayer
• Distribution of the SWOT work
• Small Group Work
• 16 planning areas
• First Sweep brainstorming ideas on how to make
  that area come alive
• Each small group does a First Sweep on all 16
  planning areas
• Small Group presentations

11
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Third Meeting Agenda
• Open Prayer
• Small Group Work
• Convert brainstorming (First Sweep) ideas into
  action strategies that begin with an action verb
• Do this for all 16 planning areas
• Across all 16 Planning Areas, multi-vote all
  action strategies in order to select the Top 7
  your small group will present to the large group
• Large Group Presentations
• Common Threads
• Evaluation and signup sheets

12
Creating the Marketing Plan

• Where now!
• Top 12 15 presented to MAC A
• Multi-vote to get top priorities
• Create written plan of Top 12 15 plus all the
  other suggestions from small groups
• Begin implementation of obvious action strategies
• Involve the people from MAC B who signed up to
  help
• Forecast the plan out for 1 1/2 years
• Repeat process every other school year
• Keep MAC A in place all the time