Transcript Marketing Guide: Communicate your strengths and attract

Marketing Your School
Agenda
Objectives
School marketing 101
Communicating about your school
Developing marketing materials: Working session
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Objectives
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
Review why school marketing is important and how you can use it
to attract quality candidates that are a great fit for your school.

Identify the best ways to communicate your school’s strengths and
your focus on student achievement to prospective teachers,
community members and students that you meet at recruitment and
interview events

Anticipate questions that candidates may have about your school
and develop thoughtful answers to address them

Develop materials that can help you communicate your school’s
strengths and your focus on student achievement at recruitment and
interview events
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Agenda
Objectives
School marketing 101
Communicating about your school
Developing marketing materials: Working session
© TNTP 2012
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How do you currently share information about your school?
WHAT do you currently use to market your school?
WHEN do you market your school?
WHO markets your school? WHO is your intended audience?
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A strong school marketing campaign will help to attract and
cultivate high-quality candidates.
GOAL:
Create effective marketing materials and concrete
messages to communicate about your school.
WHY?
Position your school to
cultivate high quality
teachers in a competitive
market within your
district and in others.
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Make strong matches
between your needs and
candidates’ skills and
interests to increase teacher
satisfaction and ultimately
impact retention.
Share your school’s
unique programs,
strengths and focus on
student achievement to
keep the school
community involved
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Developing a variety of marketing materials will prepare you to
communicate about your school to any audience at any venue.
Recruitment
Events
Networking
sessions
Materials
 School introduction
 School one-pager or brochure
 School website
 Event displays (tri-fold, banners, etc.)
Internet
Presence
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
School-based
interviews
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Agenda
Objectives
School marketing 101
Communicating about your school
Developing marketing materials: Working session
© TNTP 2012
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Create messages about your school that are relevant and compelling to
ensure a strong match between you, your school and the candidate.
Inspire candidates: Compel individuals to take action by inspiring them with
the mission and vision of your school along with your goals to increase student
achievement.
Serve as a point of comparison: Contrast your school strengths, or those you
intend to build, with what someone might find at a typical school.
Share information about yourself: Discuss your strengths as a leader as well as
the strengths of your leadership team and school community.
Be strategic:
• Avoid cliché statements.
• Provide specific examples about systems you put in place and
accountability measures you are using.
• Share the progress your students have made and your goals for
increasing students achievement and teacher effectiveness.
• Share opportunities for individuals to be part of the success of your
school and how everyone contributes to the school community.
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Inspire Candidates: Consider the factors that inspire teachers to
select a position in an urban district.
1. Teachers appreciate the challenges of working with a diverse, highneeds student population
2. Teachers are most inspired when the school leadership invests the
staff in the school vision.
3. Collaboration and involvement in school leadership gives the
teachers a sense of community and value.
4. Collegial support and any kind of buddy/mentor system is very
attractive to new teachers.
Brainstorm
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What inspires you about your school? How can you use
this to your advantage and best position your school to
inspire candidates?
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Serve as a point of a comparison: Describe what makes your school unique.
Key Information:
• School name
• A school strengths and your
student achievement goals for
this year
Key Information:
Additional Details:
• Your leadership style
• Additional strengths
• Recent accomplishments
Additional Details:
Next Steps (should be determined by
Next Steps:
the setting):
• Do you want the candidate to
contact you?
• Schedule an interview?
• Visit the school?
Delivery is crucial. With only a minute or two, a candidate’s interest is
based just as much on the speaker as it is on the information.
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Construct your 30-second school pitch to briefly summarize your school
at hiring events and networking sessions.
Key Information:
1. _____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
2.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
3.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Next Steps for the candidate:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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Expand your school pitch to 2-5 minutes to use at a school-based
interview.
Add details, strengths, unique programs or accomplishments:
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
Next steps are your first interview question or specifics about the position:
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
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Be strategic: Anticipate and be prepared to discuss the challenges
inherent to your school and district.
Nationally, teachers were most concerned about gaining information
about school challenges during the interview process:
•
•
•
•
Neighborhood and demographics information
High turnover of teachers that impedes the culture of collaboration
School safety concerns
Past reputation of the school or school building/surrounding area
Brainstorm
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What are school-specific challenges you want to be
prepared to address?
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Be strategic: Challenges can inspire candidates if you also share
your strategies to address the issue.
Example Challenge:
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Example What we’re doing:
Low parent/family
participation
•Added a back to school breakfast for
parents that can’t attend after school
•Hired a Parent Outreach faculty
member
Challenge 1:
What we’re doing 1:
Challenge 2:
What we’re doing 2:
Challenge 3:
What we’re doing 3:
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Consider which staff will help your efforts to inform and attract
candidates to your school
When selecting staff or community members to be on your marketing team,
look for individuals who…
 Are punctual for events
 Are consistent with follow-up
 Come prepared with questions and
materials
 Work well with a team
 Exhibit the skills needed to be successful
 Seem approachable
 Have an active interest in new teachers
 Possess strong verbal communication
skills
Consider adding …
 High-energy recent hires or students to help recruit candidates
 The AP or lead teacher who will most closely manage the new hire
 A parent who can talk about community involvement
Members of your staff or school community you want to add to your team:
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Agenda
Objectives
School marketing 101
Communicating about your school
Developing marketing materials: Working session
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Create at least three marketing materials to market your school based on
your key messages.
Key messages about
what makes your
school unique
Build
School brochure or
one-page flyer
School website for
online access
Event display or
school poster
Equals
Match between
school’s needs and
candidate’s skills and
interests
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School brochure: a simple, effective marketing tool to share your key
messages with candidates.
Be sure to include information about what makes your school unique.
Learning community and professional atmosphere in your school
• Clearly state your vision for the school
• Highlight yourself as a leader, cite a strength
• Update each year with recent school achievements
Current statistics and long term goals
• Explain how you will meet these goals
• Highlight your vision for the future
Personal connection to the school community
• Teacher bios or testimonials are inspiring and an opportunity for
individuals to connect to current staff
• Student bios support the focus on achievement and those the school serves
• Share information on community highlights and activities
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School web presence: a powerful recruitment tool for teachers to
explore the school’s details from home.
WHY websites work
• 71% of job seekers reported using the internet to look for a position – a
higher percentage than any other source – according to a survey by the nonprofit group The Conference Board.
• Newly hired teachers site web searches as their number one source for
gathering information about a school in focus groups.
• School websites can often be created for free or little cost,
Website Contents - Start with the basics
•Determine staff members to help with web content and creation:
•
Content writers/editors
•
Photographers
•
Tech-savvy web designers
• Involve your students to design and write content, or depending on skill, to
maintain updates.
TIP
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Keep it simple and incorporate your key messages to draw in
candidates that are the right match for your school.
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Websites can be simple, but inspiring
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Event displays: allow your school to stand out at hiring fairs or other
district events.
Event Displays can include:
• Tri-fold poster board with school information
• Quote board with student, teacher, and administrator comments
• School banner
• Examples of bright, colorful student work
• Recent awards or recognitions
• Additional materials in school colors (balloons, tablecloth, etc)
Brainstorm
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What materials do you already have to build or enhance your
school’s event display? Who on your staff could create the
display for you?
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Remember: the purpose of marketing is to ensure that you recruit
high-quality candidates that are the best fit for your school.
School marketing messages…
High-Quality Candidates…
•Highlight unique school
programs.
• Have diverse backgrounds with
varied strengths and experiences.
•Focus on your own strengths
as a school leader.
• Value strong school leadership.
•Are honest about challenges,
yet focus on positives.
• Want to learn more about how
schools are addressing their
challenges
Ultimately work to yield strong matches between potential
teachers and your school.
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Next Steps
Share your school introduction and key messages with your
leadership team and anyone who takes part in the hiring
process.
Complete your school flyer
Create a positive web presence for your school by starting the
process of publishing a website or updating the information on
your current site for this school year.
Gather materials to create your school’s event display to bring
to upcoming hiring events.
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