BEST WAYS TO MARKET A SCHOOL...

It’s about that time of the year when parents get to decide the future of their kids by choosing the school most suited to them. Sadly with our social construct, this decision most times is left wholly to the parents who sometimes ignore a child’s abilities/ talents and choose a school based on their own liking. In my P.7 Vacation, I remember dreaming about Kings College Buddo several times only to end up at Kibuli Secondary School because “Take the child to learn about Islam” was the decision my dad sided with, not the fact that I loved Math’s and wanted to challenge myself further in a school well known to be good at that.

First forward to 2020, a lot of parents up to now still choose schools based on a wide range of decisions like; Ease of access to the school, performance, Teaching staff, Single sex or Mixed sex mindset, Cost of fees, Religion and referrals from friends & family being one of the most considered approach. However, almost all parents in Uganda have one thing in common, “I can’t choose a school based on a TV AD.” Over the years as more private schools prop up, the need to advertise in the education sector has grown. Now we see schools on TV, hear their Ads on radio, see them on billboards while some have gone as far as televising their projects such as; Spelling bee and debate competitions, Sports days and the like, all of which I still consider marketing initiatives.

“Having spent 4 years in gaining self-drive from a "strict" school (Seeta High School) a friend suggested to my dad that St. Lawrence would be nice change of pace and that it was good at building a child's people skills.”

Paul Atwine

“WOULD YOU CHOOSE A SCHOOL BASED ON A TV AD?” is the question I went asking different age groups, many of whom gave me a NO without hesitation.  I got all certain type of responses ranging from; “Ads are exaggerated” to “Ads are acted & sometimes they bring in actors to pose as teachers” with “I believe in traditional schools and those schools don't advertise” being the most received feedback. Let’s face it, traditional schools shouldn’t even be in this conversation because they’ve had years and years to establish a solid brand.

Poll Question

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“Depends on which school is advertising - if I was looking for a school and was considering Kabojja and Greenhill for example and Kabojja advertised, it will definitely stand a better chance than Greenhill since its top of mind. The final call wouldn't be taken without assessing further though, being a Marketer myself, I know too well not to trust my child's education with a school based on an ad.”

John Ssenkezi

However, not everyone is fortunate enough to beat the cut off points of some of these schools and even if they could, there are just too many students in Uganda and not so many schools. Traditional schools might not advertise but you can’t beat their “word of mouth” marketing strategy, from generations of now successful members of society who can’t stop talking about how they went to SMACK, Kings College Buddo or Gayaza, Nabisunsa and the like. This is a luxury private schools do not have YET, even if some actually end up performing better than our usual traditional schools (Namugongo, St. Mary’s Kitende, Seeta High School & the likes).  In the bid for private schools to assert dominance in the shortest time, they’ve had to implement a bunch of marketing initiatives with some producing the most basic of adverts and let’s face it, if you can’t craft a good enough AD, how am I as a parent supposed to entrust my students with you?

“I always see the AD for Craddle land school on either NTV or NBS and what catches my eyes is the poor teachers looking malnourished and unhappy with natural hair ... If I had a child it would not take them there”

Amanda Felly

If you’ve setup a new school or you’re an existing school looking to boost enrolment, you are going to have to do a lot more than a TV advert featuring S1 students singing and finalists seated in Labs forging conversations. Your marketing plan should at least have some of the pointers below so just have at it…

FYI: I’ll leave price point out because I was not able to gather enough information about this (My bad).

1. PERFORMANCE: Which has put schools like St. Mary’s Kitende, Seeta High School e.t.c on the MAP. It doesn’t really matter how new you are in the market, if you’re school is making it in the top 10 lists of PLE, UCE & UACE results year in year out, there isn’t a better marketing strategy than that. Sadly this depends on a whole lot of things from; Teachers, to students and the administration. Private schools of this generation go as far as “buying off“ bright students from up country schools & enrolling them into their establishment with a scholarships, knowing that it will of course pay off when the student makes it to the front pages as one of the top performers of that academic year. In my Form 5 at St. Mary’s Kitende, we had about 15 very intelligent students amongst us that our headmaster had intentionally poached from other schools, put them on scholarships to give them that motivation which would pay off in the long run. A EUREKA moment for some of you, RIGHT? Schools offer scholarships to their brightest students and call it “encouragement “YES, but it’s also a solid marketing strategy in the long run when these very students make it to the front page in the school’s uniform.

6 private schools in the top 10 UACE 2018 list

• ALUMNI PROGRAMMES: After performance, 2nd biggest decision making factor when it comes to schools is “WORD OF MOUTH “, nothing else will move this in a shorter time faster than an Alumni association. An ALUMNI PROGRAMME is basically an association of former students of a school, brought together under one roof. Alumni can serve as shining examples of the kind of people your school churns out, people that already have the trust of the general public. I mean look at Kings College Buddo’s alumni which consists of royals & kings (Edward Mutesa 2, Henry Wako Muloki & Muwenda Mutebi 2) and some successful Politicians (Betty Kamya, Olara Otunnu, Sam Kutesa, Jennifer Musisi…), influential enough in their circles in order to peddle that word of mouth and send more students your way. If people can look up to your alumni, people will definitely look up to your school as well but you have to get them in an association in order to enjoy all benefits that come with it. The association’s members can even come back to offer career guidance on big days like MDD or Sports day, something parents looking to enroll their other children into your school will definitely fall in love with. My best Alumni organization is the Gayaza Girl's Old Students Association

• INVEST IN COCURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: Because parents now know it’s not all about education but sometimes talent too. Schools like Kibuli Secondary School, St. Mary’s Kitende, SMACK & Namilyango are all investing heavily in their sports sector thus making news without even having to pay for it. If my child’s potential in football is really good & I’d love for him to harness it, I’ll probably choose St. Mary’s Kitende over any other school, just like if I wanted them to focus on rugby, I’d then probably go with SMACK or Namilyango. These schools participate in regional (Coca Cola school tournament) and sometimes international tournaments which are exclusively covered by the media, thus boosting the brand of your establishment without you having to “ACT”. I know some schools that go as far as offering scholarships to sportsmen “BACHUBA” because at the end of the day, these very sportsmen win them trophies & cash prizes which gets the establishment on the front page of a paper and for me, that’s a marketing WIN.

• TEACHING STAFF: When I was in school, my mom loved always having a teacher she was in direct contact with about my affairs. Your teachers have not only to be good at what they do OF COURSE, but also be able to establish personal relationships with the student’s parents. All the time I was in Kibuli Secondary School, I hated that it but no amount of complaining could ever matchup to the way the warden used to reassure my mom that “everything would be alright”. It’s not enough for the students to fall in love with their teachers, the parents have to as well. If it’s visitation day, have the teachers move around and interact with the parents, let them smile a bit here and there so that parents get that sense of warmth and assurance. Rude teachers for me have always been such a turn off and don’t think for a second that a parent will hesitate changing their child’s school after having a standoff with a member of the school’s administration.

“Of course on TV people only show and talk about interesting things but when you get into depth....that’s when your able to know the real situation. One thing I know about schools that advertise is....first they’re looking for students (that should be a Pointer that they’re not doing well if it’s not a new school) but of course this doesn’t apply to KPS and those other big schools”

Lynet Agasha

• ESTABLISH A DIGITAL FOOTPRINT: It’s 2020 and I can’t believe am still telling people that things like a WEBSITE & social media channels are now an ESSENTIAL part of any institution’s communication strategy. For any school wishing to compete with existing traditional ones in terms of enrollment, a website is a must have. This is an easy way of communicating the entire mission of the establishment without parents having to call in asking what the school is about. Have a site AND fill it up with content; blog posts from students, Student’s activities, teacher’s profiles, Alumni activities I mean everything about the school, EVEN THE ANTHEM. The school website can also be used to serve online admission forms instead of having to make parents pick physical forms, thus making it easier for them to enroll their child into your establishment. It will also attract new students who fall in love with the various co-curricular activities being displayed on the site and even recruit new quality staff. I for one would invest in a school website instead of the costly TV adverts alternative. Open up social media channels and keep the public updated about the activities revolving around the school. A plus is having your teacher’s setup LinkedIn pages, this way parents can actually have a professional interaction on social media with representatives of your establishment.
• KEEP IN TOUCH: Now 21st century private schools have gone as far as setting up apps for their schools and I don’t know a better way of keeping in touch than this one. In these applications, schools are making it possible for parents to track everything related to their child from; classes he is attending, whether he is late or not, number of punishments he gets in a term, milestones, results and so much more, all at the fingertips of a parent. Apps have so many ways you can utilize them but from a marketing/ advertising point of view, I’ve seen schools go as far as offering parents discounts on FEES incase they referred another parent to their school off codes & links available on apps (South African Schools). Want to track your child’s attendance? Kenya now has schools that have fingerprint sensors in class rooms, whose data can be sent straight to a school app so the parent will be able to know how the student is always late for morning prep. If you give this sort of power to a parent, I guarantee you they’ll enroll all their other kids into the same school and even be part of your “word of mouth” army unknowingly. Now apps are a whole different ballgame all together so you might have to consider settling for a weekly newsletter or just SMS blasts & whatsapp texts as an alternative. All in all, what you have to know is parents love it when you make the job of following up on their kids easier for them.

•  Establish a Brand in the Public eye: Now some might argue that all you need to do is perform well in order to have a good public image but I beg to differ. How about you utilize your teaching staff past just having to teach but also actively participating in community discussions revolving around the education sector? A lot of times, I switch on my TV and see people who know nothing about the education sector, debating issues about it yet our teachers are also just watching on. Have your biology teacher debate about the current state of environmental degradation as a guest speaker on either a TV or Radio show so that parents get to experience firsthand the talents manaing their children. Give your most eloquent students a chance to debate or comment about an issue they are familiar with on TV (of course with the parent’s permission) just to display that CLASS associated with your school. How about having your headmaster as a guest writer in one of the opinion columns of a leading paper in the country? From what I saw after interviewing a couple of parents, they need to witness for themselves that they are trusting the right minds as opposed to just being told “We have the best teachers, and the best headmaster”. If you have debate competitions at school, how about televising them and giving the public a glimpse of how good students at your school are in real life situations as opposed to a scripted AD. Those M.D.D competitions are some ways you get students to showcase their talents so invite a media station if you can just to show case how the school is harnessing children’s talents. Involve your school in public academic competitions like; Spelling bee competitions, Math quizes and the like.

“Probably not in UG- I already seem to know most of the schools and where I want my child to go. But if that school has something Unique that they feel can add value to my child- something beyond we have good laboratories, ekiffo kigaazi e.t.c, then I can give it a thought”

Muhereza Kyamutetera

If your goal is to spread awareness of the school, have at it with the TV AD but If you really MUST advertise to boost enrolment, script the AD from an emotional point of view by involving the students getting busy with various activities, alumni members’ testimonials and the staff not pretending to write something on the board, but telling the audience things like what drove them to become a teacher at the establishment in the first place. However I warn you that the biggest percentage of people I interviewed (20) and from my online poll (283 votes) will STILL not believe in it either way so I hope you supplement your marketing strategy with any other of the pointers I outlined.

Long article huh? Well that’s because I had to source a lot of data in order to come up with something concrete, just like Chris Bitti advised me about my previous article. Any submissions about this topic are of course welcome in the comment section and I can’t wait to hear from all of you.

Sources: watchdog Uganda, wikipedia, Alumni Networks, Private school