Independent schools often underinvest in marketing and admissions, allocating less than 5% of their budget to these areas. Marketing is crucial for attracting students and promoting the school's mission. While schools look to colleges for innovation, they often fail to adopt proven management models like integrated marketing. Effective marketing requires understanding customers, coordinating across departments, and prioritizing the customer experience.

1. Marketing 202:
Version 18.0
Core Themes of Marketing
Philosophy and Practice

2. “No other business I know is so under-invested in marketing and
sales than independent schools. If we were to "start over," with a
new product, we would invest at least 10 percent of our budget in
marketing and sales (admissions), but I know of very few schools
for whom even a 5 percent investment is standard (inclusive of
personnel costs). Thus, the second weak link in our chain of
promoting independent schools is our lack of commitment to and
under-investment in marketing our own schools.”
Patrick Bassett
President, National Association of Independent Schools, and
Marketing Institute alumnus, Class of 1998

3. Perceptions of Marketing




Why “Marketing & Advancement” Institute

4. What Marketing is NOT
 Advertising
 Sales
 branding
The aim of marketing is to
make selling
superfluous - Peter
Drucker

5. Mission, Marketing, and Margin
 For Profits
 Non-Profits
 Buyer driven
 Mission driven
 Mission sensitive
 Buyer sensitive
 Money earned must
 Money earned must
equal or exceed
money spent
equal or exceed
money spent
No margin? No mission.
Schools under financial pressure increasingly shade from being
driven by mission to driven by market, for better and for worse.

6. Selected Other Barriers
to Adopting Marketing
 Terminology (e.g. “brand”, enrollment management, cultivation, parent relations, product…)
 Non-profits lag in adopting proven management
practices: We look to the nation’s colleges as sources of
innovation…but not for management models.
 Belief in the Magic Bullet: “We need the right
message.” “Oh, to be mentioned in the Times.”
 Typical admin structure fractures: “To the little boy
with a hammer, everything needs to be nailed.”
 And on…and on…

7. Marketing We Are Talking about:
Aka
 MBA Marketing
 Contemporary Marketing
 Enterprise Marketing
 Integrated Marketing
 Holistic Marketing
 Strategic Marketing Management
 Marketing with a capital ‘M’
 Brand Management, but only with a capital ‘B’

8. Contemporary Definitions
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of
processes for creating, communicating, and
delivering value to customers and for managing
customer relationships in ways that benefit the
organization and its stakeholders.
-American Marketing Association
Marketing management is the art and science of
choosing target markets and getting, keeping, and
growing customers through creating, delivering, and
communicating superior customer value – Kotler and Keller

9. Who Said the Following:
A customer is the most important visitor to our
premises. He is not dependent on us, we are
dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our
work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider
on our premises….he is part of it. We are not doing
him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor
by giving us the opportunity to do so.
A: Bill Gates
B: Herb Marcus (Neiman Marcus)
C: Mahatma Ghandi D: J. W. Marriott

10. = Customers
 What do different organizations
call “customers”?
 Name an organization that does
not have a customer
 What is the common thread?

11. = Being Customer Oriented
 Thinking outside in
 Value the customer’s point-of-view
“Without customers,
you don’t have a business”

12. =Exchange of things valued
ALUMNI<------------------>SCHOOL
PARENTS<------------------>SCHOOL
What of value is exchanged in each case? In the healthy
buyer-seller relationship, each side benefits equally.

13. = Segments
1.
Customer e.g.,

Admissions (the “funnel”)





Inquiries
Applicants and Non-Applicants
Accepts and Denied
Matriculants and Non-
Development (the “hierarchy”)




Living alumni
Reachable alumni
Levels of engagement
Levels of giving

14. Segments of Interest (cont’d)
2. Internal market
“The Market” is not
monolithic. Many
segments (aka
constituencies)
3. Referral market
contribute to

Feeder schools, Education consultants success, or failure.
Each may warrant a
plan, certainly a set
4. Influence market
of objectives and

actions to achieve
Accreditors, Competitors, Opinion
them.
leaders, Advisors
5. Suppliers

15. = Alert to Alternatives
 Markets change (Surprise!!)
 Who is the competition in the market?
 What is our position in that market?
It is curious to a marketing pro that none of the
typical school’s planning processes (accreditation, the
“strategic” plan, campaign planning, board retreats
etc) causes one to analyze the market environment,
namely customer trends, and competitors.

16. = A Disciplined Process
as Commonly Observed :
ANALYSIS
?
PLANNING
Fire!
Fire!
Fire!
If you don’t remember why it is done the way it is,
chances are there is now a better way!!!!
EXECUTION

17. Strategic Marketing Management
ANALYSIS
EVALUATION
PLANNING
Ready!
Aim!
Fire!
Assess!
EXECUTION
“Without a solid foundation of information about
their markets, managers are guessing, not managing.”

18. = A Reality Check
 For
 Visions,
 Mission Statements,
 Wishes,
 and Platitudes
Alumnus: “Here’s $8 million for a new, larger upper school.”
Marketing: “Is this a priority? Do we appreciate what this
change would mean? Can we fill the seats?”

19. = Managing Reality
 Reality = Customers’ Perceptions
 How do we want to be perceived?
 How does one fix a negative perception? Take
an honest look---is it grounded in reality?
 If yes, then fix the product/program.
 If no, then fix the perception.

20. = Long-term interest in customer
 Selection of only those we can serve
 Retention and satisfaction (e.g. Enrollment management model)
 Build affinity
 Lifetime value concept
 Tuition ($20,000 * 4) + Lifetime donations
or, just sell snake oil!

21. Draw Your Schools’ Org Model

22. H
um
an
A
dm
iss
io
n
s
Faculty
(Segments)
Fa
c
ili
tie
s
O
Business
es
ou
rc
e
s
Development
Customer
R
ffice

23. oed
Sil
= Integrating the Experience
The 4th Dimension of Integrated Marketing
Development
Within
Grade-toGrade
Grade
Within Grade
Admissions
Deans
The Customer Experience Perspective
Bequest
Prospect
The Egg-Carton Perspective

24. = Doing the Little Things Right
 Identify Customer Interfaces
 Telephones
 Bills
 Physical Plant
 Manage the Interfaces
 Defining roles & expectations
 Hiring & training
 Monitoring Performances

25. Marketing Manages
Customer-Enterprise Interfaces
 Yellow pages

 Tuition bills

 Food menus

 Teachers’ contacts

 Phone receipt

 Athletics

 Transportation

 Pick-up queues
Alumni events
Solicitations

And in the 2-way
role of a translator!
 etc...

26. = Part of everybody’s job
 Some aspect of every
employee’s job is
marketing
 The sum total of
marketing determines
success
 Scripting interfaces

27. = Increasing Satisfaction,
Reducing Dissatisfaction
 Builds a strong
institution/brand
 Favorable word of mouth
 Expensive to replace a
desirable customer
 Financially
 Pride

28. = Listening
 Many barriers to hearing
 Stylized exchanges, formalities (the hour the
Head’s door is open)
 Certainty, paternalism (dismissive)
 Fear (“Will it affect my child?”)
Use multiple methods for feedback

29. = Champions of Change,
the Customers’ Advocate
 How many staff are needed to change a
lightbulb??? Change?!!!!
 Ask: Why the hell do we do it this way?
If the person wearing the
marketing hat is not entirely
popular, that’s a good sign.