A Virtual Conference To Help You Become A Better School Marketer!

In our sometimes sterile digital world, we all naturally crave authentic interaction with people that we can relate to. It is one of the things that keeps us human. So it is no wonder that the marketing world has recently adopted video as its golden child, as it is the most effective tool we have in our marketing and communication toolbox. In this session, we are going to explore how we can effectively use video in every facet of our school's marketing and communication efforts, while avoiding some of the pitfalls that can come along. Our goal as school marketers is not just to create pretty videos that entertain people. Our goal is to combine video and technology to connect real people with real people. We aim to use the tools at our disposal to connect prospective families with your admissions staff with the end goal of creating trust and fostering conversations that turn into relationships. We will look at each step of the video marketing process from strategy and setting goals, to crafting brand messages and telling compelling stories, to using video as a part of a personalized journey, to finally talking what kinds of videos are most strategic. We will also examine the role of professional, in-house, and community sourced video and the importance of each of those in your video strategy. We will end with a "Ask Me Anything" Q&A session and we will start with a TikTok dance session to "Video Killed The Radio Star".

We all struggle with making social media a priority in our everyday work at the school. But it is important! This presentation will walk you through time-saving strategies that the team at #SocialSchool4EDU uses to manage social media for more than 90 schools across the country. Andrea will share tools, tactics, and boundary-saving sanity tips to help you make a bigger impact with your school's social media efforts, while also saving you a ton of time.

Learn why one school has focused its social media efforts on Instagram and on an admissions-specific Instagram account separate from its main school account. In a year where many admissions offices are recruiting virtually, this is more important than ever! How do you get started? How do you create and cultivate content? How do you partner with your marketing & communications office so that you both win the social media game?

Do you deliver a cookie-cutter education? Of course not! Explore ways to craft a personalized, end-to-end experience for your community - from the moment a family first discovers you to graduation and beyond. The secret sauce? Authenticity and creativity. And don’t be afraid to experiment!

There is no doubt that these are heightened times for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The civil unrest around police brutality and the energy of the Black Lives Matter movement, the rise in xenophobia during this global health pandemic which has also highlighted domestic issues of systemic inequity, and the intensity of a most heated national election. Our schools are not shielded from it, in fact, we've seen a focus on private schools through the Blackat and other such social media campaigns from alums and current students who are looking for schools to be more inclusive. As schools navigate this terrain, how can they communicate better about incidents that occur within the school and also send important messages about the school's response to national climate? How can we market and communicate in ways that mitigate against and even challenge our personal and institutional biases? How do schools maintain a broad appeal and stay out of taking political stances while also not being unresponsive to the moment? We will explore these questions with a focus on key strategies for marketing and communications during our time together. 

All corners of one campus with different logos, separate school colors, and different fonts. No two employees—out of 600—would have the same understanding of the school’s mission or story. A sorely outdated website. No real social media presence. No print materials to enhance admissions visits. No external marketing or advertising. All in an increasingly competitive environment.

Join Vanessa in this session to hear how during her time at Singapore American School the small communications and marketing team transformed dated and disparate branding into a world class visual brand, built a suite of digital and print assets, and went all in on content marketing--all with a small team and limited budget. By leveraging the talent and resources in the surrounding community and creating an innovative team atmosphere strongly guided by mission, the typical small school marketing team drew the attention of schools around the world and contributed to the school staying full when others were closing.

Every school’s reputation and enrollment demands effective communication or even the most valiant plans are at risk. More than ever, independent schools need to tell their authentic stories and tell those stories effectively across a variety of platforms. This is just one story of bringing all the pieces together.

In today’s virtual-first world, your school’s website (or digital campus) is even more important than your physical campus. From the first impression all the way to the application process — and acceptance — a prospective family’s online experience can be the difference between choosing your school over another. But are there sections of your website that matter more than others?

In this session, you will learn which areas of your website are most important to capture and move families through your admissions funnel, with five key changes you can implement now to increase traffic and improve conversions.

As more of our parents and students are jumping online, school districts have to market their districts using digital solutions. In this presentation, I discuss exciting marketing trends to delight your school district leadership team, board trustees', and your audience. Learn how your district can engage audiences and improve your marketing results. Jason will use real world examples to show how digital marketing will make a difference in your school district.

When the world shut down in the spring of 2020 as COVID-19 spread across the globe, schools scrambled to keep communities connected and engaged from a distance. School marketing and communications offices worked tirelessly to meet the increasing demand to develop top notch content and promote the extraordinary educators at their schools providing emergency remote instruction. Reaching families in new ways became more important than ever before.

In this session, you will learn how Oak Knoll School started its podcast, Academically Speaking, to captivate families during the wildest summer in school history and walk through the steps to create your own podcast.