The simple mindset shift to become a better school marketer.

I think we’re all guilty of focusing our attention on the wrong thing as marketers at times...

We want to impress people with how wonderful our product (i.e. school) is.

We want potential families to hear about the great work we are doing.

We believe that by showing how good we are at X, Y and Z, they will choose us over that competitor up the road.

As marketers, it's common to focus on pushing out messages that the school wants prospective families to hear.

But this approach can miss the mark by failing to address the needs and desires of the families themselves.

To be better at our jobs, we need to shift our focus from what messages we want them to hear, to identifying what they want/need to hear from us.

It’s a subtle shift, but if you can approach your marketing with this mindset, then you’re in a much better position to connect with families who are a right fit for your school.

That's where the concept of a customer avatar comes in.

Now, before you roll your eyes and switch off, hear me out (after all, I did promise to make you a better school marketer in the title of this article).

What is an avatar, anyway?

A customer avatar or, in our case, a parent avatar is a detailed description of our school’s ideal parents, including demographics, interests, goals, challenges and pain points.

By creating a parent avatar for our school, it enables us to craft messaging that resonates with the right people, rather than wasting time and resources trying to appeal to everyone.

This simple yet powerful switch will lead to increased parent satisfaction (hello MMG survey!), loyalty and positive word of mouth.

If you do the avatar work, it will organically influence everything you do as a marketing professional moving forward - it will not only help you to find your ideal audience, but ensure your marketing resonates deeply with them.

Avatars are not just demographics.

I bet you have a fancy demographics report that tells you where your current families all live as well as other data about employment, income, religion, education etc.

If you’ve got a really good one, and I’m willing to bet you do, it will also tell you how many prospective families are living in your catchment and where to find them.

Having this data is important, but it doesn’t tell the full story.

Here’s the reason why:

Just because a family with the right income lives in your catchment, doesn’t necessarily mean they want what your school has to offer.

Ouch.

But we see it time and time again, don’t we? Students travelling past umpteen other schools to go to the school they and their parents have chosen for one reason or another.

So, why did they choose THAT school?

I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t because of where they live or how much money they earn or how old they are.

There was something intangible that drove them to choose that school.

If you are relying solely on demographics to create your avatars, such as age, gender, income, and occupation, then you’re missing the most important data of all...what’s in their heart.

Sure, there are going to be families who choose a school because it’s just up the road from where they live.

But when you are marketing independent schools, you are dealing with families who care deeply enough about their child’s education to want to invest tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of their enrolment.

Choosing a school is a major life decision about the most precious thing in the world to parents: their children.

That’s why a good avatar is much more than just demographics.

It needs to go beyond surface-level characteristics and dig deeper into what our prospective families really care about and their key drivers in the decision-making process.

Download your free Parent Avatar

If you’re still with me, but you’re thinking that maybe this whole parent avatar thing sounds hard, then let me assure you that it’s not.

To put my money where my mouth is, here’s a link to download a copy of my Parent Avatar from the Strategic School Marketing Framework so you can see how easy and effective it is.

FREE PARENT AVATAR DOWNLOAD

Now I’m going to share with you the magic trick to make avatars easy: don’t try to create some mythical person from out of thin air.

Think of an existing parent at your school – one that believes in your school’s vision, mission and values, who is a brand champion and who you wish you could clone.

Create an avatar for that person.

You can use the information you already know about them or, to make it even easier, you could invite them out for a coffee and have a conversation to find out firsthand what drove them to choose your school.

Do it for a few of those parents and you’ll have a much better understanding of how to connect with more people like them.

A word of caution

Some people get hung up attracting people who have the exact same demographics as what’s on your avatar.

I’ve had the conversation with someone just couldn’t get their head around the fact that we weren’t looking for all the 43-year-old doctors in town with twin daughters.

This is precisely why you can’t focus on the demographics alone.

Having the demographics information at the top of the avatar worksheet is a way for us to try to understand our audience better, but it’s the bottom section of the avatar that you’ll find the most useful information to inform your marketing.

Final word

If I could give you one final piece of advice, it would be to stop talk talking at prospective families and start talking to them.

We know that parents are taking, on average, two to five years to make a decision, so start a conversation with them.

Understand and embrace the fact that not everyone is in your ideal audience.

Attracting people who are a wrong fit for your school is a recipe for withdrawals, poor culture and negative word of mouth.

Use the information that you’ve gleaned from understanding your audience to influence all your marketing initiatives and you will naturally become a better school marketer.

Bianca Coleborn is Director of Marketing at Faith Lutheran College, Plainland and the Founder and Director of School Marketing Manifesto, home of the Strategic School Marketing Framework - grab your copy today before the price increases by $1,000 on Wednesday 23 March.