KTJ 2.0

‘I’m moving to Malaysia. I’m going to be the principal of an international school there.’

‘Alice Smith?’

‘No. Kolej Tuanku Ja’afar.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘South of KL. In the countryside.’

‘I’ve been to KL.’

You wouldn’t believe how many times I had a conversation like this in the eight months between my appointment as Principal of KTJ and my arrival in Malaysia. And this was coupled with a realisation that Malaysia was one of the fastest growing international school markets in the world. This was, and still is, not solely because of demand, but because it is easier to set up a school in Malaysia than in many other Southeast Asian countries and because land is relatively cheap - a lack of demand is not the reason for so few international schools in Tokyo!

So, I was joining a well-established school with a long and distinguished heritage, but I could see the market was getting crowded and it was going to be extremely competitive.

The obvious thing to do is to increase your marketing, but there are some caveats to this. Firstly, KTJ is a charity and its charitable objective is to provide high quality education to its students. We are not a business and so we should be spending as much of our money as we can on education. So, our approach needs to be cost effective and to contribute to our community. Secondly, does marketing of schools really work? Schools that are full don’t market, right? They rely on word of mouth and when you are searching for a school for your child, word of mouth really matters. It is one of the most important and expensive decisions you will ever make as a parent. So, you’re not going to be influenced as much by a flashy billboard as you are by a fellow parent who advocates a particular school.

I was very lucky that KTJ already had many strong advocates amongst its staff, parents and alumni. But this is one of things that I felt we could still strengthen. And central to this was appointing a Digital Marketing Officer, Toria. In the early days, Toria’s key function was to push out news stories to our current community. This might seem like an easy task, but when you have multiple platforms - Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube - it is not straightforward. You have to be able to write good copy and take great photographs as well! We were lucky to find Toria and her role has evolved over time. During the pandemic, it feels as though she has been running a mini-Netflix production house, churning out videos for our YouTube channel. Take a look.

So, how does Toria market the School? Well, basically she ensures those in our community know what’s going on. This is important for any number of reasons, but it certainly helps to make people feel good about what we do. I sometimes joke that I only find out about some of the stuff that goes on here through Facebook, and there is an element of truth to this, as there is so much going on. Our social media accounts are mainly followed by those who are already part of our community and so this may not feel like marketing, but what it does is provide ‘ammunition’, if you like, to our community of advocates and allows them to spread the word of our successes.

I am very proud of how this element of the School has developed over the past year and a half, but it is not the whole story.

More recently, we have appointed a Director of Marketing and Admissions at senior leadership level to lead these elements of the School. Jag has come from a similar role in a university and his job is to provide strategic direction. His first goal has been to establish strong branding for the School, because word of mouth is great, but it needs to be backed up by a clear idea of what we stand for. Indeed, some of this work started before Jag arrived with the development of a new ten-year strategic plan, Vision 2030. The KTJ guiding principles were key to this, and in particular our three core values, integrity, empathy and mutual respect. And what the team has done under the direction of Jag is create a clear expression of this brand in colours, images and text.

Of course, what brings these elements of advocacy and branding together is a school’s website. We have recently launched our new website with the help of Interactive Schools. It is both an expression of what the School is and where we want to go, but like any school website it has to tread a fine line. The school website is your shopfront - it is where new customers to your school go first. But it is also there for current, and even former, families of the school. It is where parents can check out the latest news, find the term dates and look up fees for next term. 

So, how have we walked this tightrope? Well, firstly we have thought carefully about what information needs to be front and centre. Current parents most commonly want to find things like the school’s term dates or phone number. Therefore, there are buttons for term dates button and the school phone number at the bottom of every page. From a mobile, you can simply click on the phone number and call the School immediately. The most important policies and those relevant to those thinking of joining our community are posted on our website, but those which parents are more likely to only look up occasionally are located on our iSAMS Parent Portal, which they can link to directly from our website.

When it comes to prospective families, the Admissions pages are key. We want to provide as much information as clearly as possible, so that parents can make an informed decision. Of course, viewing the website is only part of the process and these pages need to also be a call to action to engage with our admissions team to find out more.

For our community as a whole the website should also be a place where they can find news about the School. This is why all our social media posts are embedded in the website and these can be filtered so that the viewer can get the information which is relevant to them.

But what’s most important about a website is its feel, and this is something that is hard to define. We wanted our website to evoke our values and our community spirit. I think we have achieved this. A new strapline, ‘Make it’, has certainly helped to express very succinctly what we aspire to for all our students. At the same time, a number of new features have helped to highlight our sense of community, our warm welcome and our heritage. These include dedicated alumni pages, introductory videos delivered by key members of the school community, and an interactive timeline which charts the history of the school.

And all of this has been achieved within a slimmed down website!

Our thanks go to Interactive Schools, with whom we have worked over a number of years. Interactive Schools are an award-winning, global marketing agency based in the UK, who specialise in working with schools on branding, websites and social media. Their wealth of experience has been a key to the successful launch of ktj.edu.my 2.0.

#MakeItWithKTJ #KTJBritishEducation #KTJCommunity #30YearsofKTJ #InteractiveSchools #iloveboarding