Why Independent Schools are flocking to Video to Raise their Marketing game
Alan Gardner
Helping Independent Schools Head Teachers & Marketing Directors make better videos | Video Marketing | Producer Director Editor
I’ve been doing some market research and finding out how Marketing Directors feel about video and how it’s served their businesses over the last year or so.?
The question I ask is “How would you rate video on a scale of 1 to 10?” Answers are generally 8 or 9.?
The reason they wouldn’t give video a 10 out of 10 rating is because compared with face to face (sales) meetings it’s not quite on a par.
When I ask them what they gap is they say things like “It’s 2nd?best – the only thing that beats it is face to face meetings.”
It’s understandable that Sales and Marketing professionals who’ve been dependent on the Actual meeting as a key part of their customer journey may have felt frustrated during these unprecedented times.?
Predictability versus Chaos
Independent schools are used to a very predictable marketing cycle relying heavily on Events and Open Days. So in order to maintain their pipeline they’ve had to adapt very quickly with digital alternatives.
As well as quickly learning to provide online teaching to their paying customers the most successful schools are also putting a lot of time, effort and budget into video for their homepage (brand) videos and devising innovative solutions for virtual tours.
“Video used to be optional – now it’s essential.”
Independent schools are using video not only as a medium through which to showcase their values, USP’s and academic achievements, but also as a way of showcasing their facilities and pastoral care to prospective parents and students – sometimes using a handheld camera on a gimbal travelling from room to room, or 360 degree photography.?
During lockdowns these schools have used videos as a viable substitute for face to face meetings and Open Day show-rounds. Because they’ve had to.
Sales and Marketing victories with video
As I said I’ve asked the Marketing Directors in my survey to explain the gap of 1 or 2. What’s also worth focusing on here is what constitutes the 8 or 9? Another way of asking that question is “What’s so great about video?”
How about the fact that independent schools have sold places to parents who’ve never actually visited the school??
That’s new. That’s radical. And ’s a clear victory for video over face to face selling.
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How about the fact that video can reach international prospective customers and convey the school’s values, USP’s and academic achievements, whilst the customer hasn’t had to step foot outside their home, much less incur cost of flights, hotels, car hire, and the time off work??
That’s a time and money cost-saving for parents and enables the schools to tap into new markets, particularly internationally.
New normal
A lot has changed thanks to Covid. And we’ve seen how technology has rapidly taken up the slack.
Communication technology has bridged the gaps that social distancing, travel bans, tiers and lockdowns created. Zoom has shown us that we can continue to conduct many aspects of business without the need for physical travel and face to face meetings.
Despite all this some people are still waiting for things to “get back to normal”.?
I doubt that’s going to happen, and businesses need to prepare themselves for a “new normal.” Marketing and Sales will utilise a hybrid combination of online and face to face offerings.
Hybrid expectations
Sure, it’s nice to meet people face to face as was standard pre-pandemic, but going forward I suspect the bean counters are will be unwilling to snap right back to old (expensive/ inefficient?) ways when we have proof of concept of virtual meetings being perfectly effective.?
I suspect the coming months will see successful businesses operating a hybrid model in which we take the best of both remote visual communication and also face to face meetings.?
Even if we go back increasingly to face to face meetings our customers have become used to the online offerings, and will now expect the digital corollary to be available to a high standard, on demand.
It looks like a hybrid online/offline approach is the logical way forward to futureproof??pipelines against any new disruptions, or variants of old disruptions.
What are your thoughts on how this hybrid approach is already being done successfully in your business, or businesses you interact with?
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3 年I have worked a lot on zoom already before the pandemic, still looking forward to a (less efficient and more time consuming ?? ) live meetings at least to some extent