108: VAIS Panel Discussion: Independent & Private School Marketing Today and Tomorrow

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Tara: thank you all for coming. , This is an inaugural live podcast. Panel. We’ve been to VASA few times. Um, and you may have chatted with us in the lobby where we asked you about your experience. We thought we’d switch it up this time and do a whole panel and talk about things that are going on in, uh, the independent tool environment as it relates to marketing.

So we’re gonna start with some introductions. I’m Tara Clays. My company is Design, TLC. We make websites for independent schools and education focused nonprofits. Uh, we use WordPress and, uh, also Aubrey and I are co-host of the Mindful School Marketing Podcast. 

Aubrey: Yes, mindful School Marketing podcast. I’m Aubrey Burch.

Um, I’m co-host of Mindful School Marketing Podcast. I’m also CEO of Easy School Marketing. We work with small, independent and private schools, so work on development and marketing initiatives. And we’re really excited to be back here at V-A-S-V-A-A-I-S, um, to really host this live. I mean, this is our first live panel, so Tara and I have really excited and we’re fortunate to have some, some amazing guests.

Drew: Hi, I’m Drew Lineberger. I’m the Assistant Head of School for Advancement at Seven Hills School, which is an all boys middle school in Richmond, Virginia. Um, we are only about 96 boys, and so you can imagine, um, we wear a lot of different hats and, um, all of our offices are basically one person, um, offices.

And we’re a relatively young school as well. We’re not even 25 years old yet. So, 

Abigail: I’m Abigail Cook. I’m the communications specialist at Eastern Mennonite School, which is in Pea Burke, Virginia. Um, and we’re the opposite. We’re over a hundred years old and kind of grew from high school down, so we’re exploring all of that, what that means in the beautiful ocean, no Nevada.

Mm-hmm. 

Jay: I’m Jay Lasley, head of school here at Hampton Roads Academy. We’re proud to host the DAS Advancement Institute. Of course, this podcast, uh, I had a long career in admissions prior to being the, named the head here two years ago, just across the water, 30 miles away or so at Norfolk Academy for many years.

And then a few years in Florida, Berkeley prepared, we went Tampa. Um, so we at HRA we’re a pre-K through 12, uh, co-ed day school of 600 plus students. 

Tara: Great. What a great group. We wanted to make sure we covered a lot of bases with three people and ly did. 

Aubrey: Um, I think the, the, the goal of this, this panel is to really hear from different perspectives about marketing and a lot of different topics.

So in terms of the format for today, we’re gonna go ahead and ask our, our panel, uh, some questions, uh, about marketing and different, you know, sections of marketing, um, and hear what they have to say. ’cause they’re coming from three very different school environments and, um, a lot of different experience, um, in the marketing world, um, in their positions.

And then following that we’ll go into our rapid questions, which if you have. Attended our podcast or listen to our podcast before you probably know. Um, and then we’ll open the floor to questions from you all. We wanna hear what’s on your mind as well. Karen, am I missing anything? I think that’s good.

Yeah, I kick it off with the first question. Yes, I do. Thank you. Um, so we’re gonna talk about current and emerging challenges. So what’s a marketing challenge you’re facing right now, or when you anticipate in the coming year, what’s something you’re planning to focus on in the next. Big question. 

Drew: I’ll kick it off.

Um, getting kind of granular. I think one area that. We depend a lot on digital marketing and really looking at the efficacy of it, the effectiveness of it. Um, and frankly, one of the big challenges right now is with GA four, with the new, um, Google system. We’re not really able to get as granular, um, with our data as we have been in the past or being able to trust.

What we are seeing. And so for such a small school that depends heavily on digital marketing, um, understanding where our families are coming from, how they’re coming to us, we’re not able to see that as much. So whenever we have the digital ads, it’s sometimes difficult to truly understand how effective.

They are being now on the backend with inquiries, things like that you can extrapolate, but we are trying to get on the front end of that, and I think that’s something that we’ve been doing pretty well until the past year or so. And so there’s a little more unknown and it’s still gonna remain unknown, I think, in the next year.

So I don’t know how I’m gonna tackle it yet. 

Abigail: So a marketing challenge we have, I often say I’m a communications specialist heavy on the communications and storytelling piece because. We’re at a historically Mennonite school, and I don’t know if you know anything about Mennonites, but they’re quite humble and they do not like to brag about the things that they’re good at.

So the word marketing, even in and of itself is kind of an interesting, uh, we have to, we have to even couch that in some other terms and some nuance even to like get there. Right. But, um. We, we have an emphasis on experiential learning, which is a huge part of, one of our is, those are our distinctives, but also on restorative justice, which is, um, an influence in our area.

But also our teachers are experts in restorative practices. And I wanna tell those stories and they often are telling me like, okay, but we’re not experts. And I’m like, but you are. And they’re like, but, but we’re not. And I’m like, yeah, you are low. So, um, those challenges with making sure that we, uh, you know, adequately affirm and tell the good stories and not overdo it so that teachers don’t, and staff don’t feel uncomfortable.

Jay: We’re dealing with interesting population shifts that are happening that were on the peninsula of Virginia. Um, the, the heart would be the larger metropolitan areas in Newport News and Hampton. Population shifts are trending towards Williamsburg just north of here, um, Smithfield, which is in Western Tidewater and Gloucester areas that are.

Just growing pretty rapidly. And so for us to keep up with those populations as they grow, introducing in a lot of cases, independent schools to families who were moving there from outta state, that’s a constant challenge for us. But it’s the government because this region is growing just in different places than it, than it was say a decade, year before ago.

Tara: I’m gonna jump a little bit on the next question. I’m gonna jump ahead because I think that it relates to what we’re talking about, which is your marketing resources. Mm-hmm. You mentioned digital ads. So when it comes to your resources, both your marketing budget, but also your, your time, your tasks, your projects, what, what do you prioritize and why, and where are you investing those resources?

Your time, your energy, your funds, um, and if you wanna talk about it. In that conversation, that’s certainly a good place to bring it up. Um, so who wants to jump in on that one first? You’re sort of prioritizing your marketing resources. 

Drew: Since I brought up the digital, uh, to begin with and being such a small office, um, having been at, uh, seven Hills for 10 years, when I first arrived, I was the admission office.

I was the marketing communications office as well, and that also helped out with development. Okay. We have since, um, expanded a little bit, but one thing that I learned pretty quickly is I cannot be an expert on everything. Or that really waters down. Um, I think my, the role that I played, so I learned pretty quickly to distribute funds on bringing experts in.

And that can either be consulting, um, with a, with a firm to help with digital advertising. Um, it could be bringing in someone on staff, um, that really has a focus on kind of digital marketing. And so when we look at resource allocation. We, I say we, um, the board was very kind in the fact that we were able to, um, sorry.

Um, that’s a cute daughter by the way. Um, but we were able to really invest funds in bringing in a firm that helped us strictly with digital marketing. And that has really made a huge difference in our pipeline, um, and our inquiries. And so I think we made a conscious decision not to bring someone on staff, but to really hire out, um, for that.

Um, and then when it comes to our actual budget, I would say 90% of my budget goes to digital marketing or to the firm. I mean, it, it is, it’s a huge piece. I do very little print. Um, and I could get into that later, but we only are in grid in one place and that is it. So all of it’s digital for us. 

Abigail: Yeah.

Because of that history that I was talking about earlier, we are kinda opposite. So we have a huge alumni base, obviously. Mm-hmm. Um, having, um, had many, many graduates at this point, so. We have a Today Magazine, which is, um, a large publication that we print three times a year, and it goes out to various alumni around the world, which is incredible.

Um, I would say the push and pull between digital and print, we’re still filling that out. I mean, we have some bigger decisions to make in the future, especially with how we allocate our resources. But, um, yeah, it. The, the struggle is real, as they say. Um, I think that part of the reason why it’s so important to put together a magazine like today is because that’s where we’re able to tell, tell stories in a way that the reach really gets to the people who know those faces.

Whereas with digital, you don’t, you don’t necessarily, unless we actually use social media socially, see who’s, you know. Clicking and, and liking and all those things. Sometimes it’s, uh, just like a, a passing where it’s much more of an immersive experience with print media. So I like them both. 

Jay: We, I’ll, I’ll talk about it from the development perspective a little bit more this time.

And, and admissions, we, we turned over and expanded over the last two years. Our development office, our advancement office, um, and alumni Outreach was a huge target for them that it faded, kind of gone stagnant here, which. Is as horrendous as it sounds, it the lifeblood of any independent school, and we just hadn’t done a good job consistently.

In the last 5, 6, 7 years with our alumni outreach and engagement. So our new advancement team and director, that has been a priority for them. Um, and we saw the returns early on in the fall with things like Homecoming, alumni Weekend and Hall of Fame, things like that. Just engaging with people, inviting them to campus often the first time in 20 years they’ve been on, on campus here.

Um, and then we really, really felt it positively, uh, a couple of weeks ago with our founder’s day and. Big day of getting, so we set a lot of records that particular day because just a little bit more effort, a little bit more targeted, walking towards alumni, particularly those for local. 

Mm-hmm. 

Tara: I just follow up and ask you in terms of time, what do you spend the most of your time on each of you?

I mean, you have, you’re not just a market. Yeah. 

Jay: Well, today we spend a lot of time setting up. Is that 

Aubrey: a marketing standpoint? Um, when you’re, 

Jay: yeah. A school our size. We’re a mid-size day school. Just my, my background, uh, uh. Lends itself to being involved. Hopefully not overly involved in micromanaging, but working closely with admissions.

Working closely with advancement. Um, that’s the work I really enjoy. And, and we’ve got great people in those offices and they have a high tolerance for a head of school who wants to come in every day and say hello to ’em and, and those around a little bit. But, um, I, I would say, and that was part of the reason I was.

Higher gear, just that background. Um, so that has been a target for us to make sure we lift both those ends of the spectrum from an advancement standpoint, our fundraising and our admission so heavily involved in both. 

Drew: I, I would say over the past several years, and this is where I do spend a lot of my head space, a lot of thinking time.

If I am out on a walk, if I am doing things, this is what I’m kind of thinking about. And it is. Why are families looking at seven pills? It was very interesting. The speaker today, Dr. Bell, I think hit the nail on the head from a school perspective. What type of school are you? Are you a product school? Are you a product or a process school?

Are you a price school? Okay, and I have kind of flipped that 180. And how I look at marketing. I wanna find out why are they looking at us, not what I want to say to them all the time and tell about a great progress, but figuring out why they are looking at us. And NAIS had this great research about six, seven years ago called Jobs to Be Done.

And this is a foundational. Tenant in our marketing efforts is in, in the, in the part of the research, sorry, those of you are not familiar with it. Um, there are basically four main jobs that in, in a IS, has identified of why parents look at independent schools, right? And they consider it kind of a job that the parents want you to do for their child and.

Once, um, we started understanding why people were looking at seven bills allowed us to really cater the messaging much more to the parent, not just telling them what we wanted them to hear, what they wanted to hear, what they were looking for. And I am, we’re constantly, um, surveying our families yearly and getting a better sense of why they’re looking at us.

And one of the specific questions on there is. One of the four jobs, like, why did you choose us? Why did you look at us? And then why did you end up enrolling? Which are, could be two different things. Um, and we use that in our messaging and making it really personalized. So talking to the parents about what they’re searching for, not necessarily what we always want them to know.

And, and I take, it’s very valid of understanding the type of school you are, but when it comes to marketing. You have to tell people kind of what you have to, um, put yourself out there where they are looking for and what they’re looking for, and still being true to yourself. So 

Abigail: in terms of time breakdown though, I certainly spend more time on digital media because the content output is so much more regular.

Um, I do try to make all content that’s created work across as many platforms as possible. So actually start with the story and then I ask, who is the audience? So if I’m, if this were showing up in the magazine, would it, who is the audience for that and what version of the story do I tell there if it’s going to Instagram and, and so on.

So 

Aubrey: that’s so interesting. I’m curious as we’re talking about like time, time investment, which is one of our most precious resources as school marketers or anyone working at the school. Like, um, when you’re thinking about your time, how are you assessing your return on investment or, or if something is a success.

Drew: I think the biggest, um, return on investment for us is, are we full? Hmm. Are students enrolling? And then on, on the inverse or in the continuation of that, are they re-enroll because retention is just as important for a school of 96 boys.

Every single student matters. And all of us, even if you’re at a JK to 12, even if you have a school of over 1,002, still every student matters. But it really matters at a school under a hundred. Um, and when you know, fortunately, we are able to judge our return on investment with the advertising, um, with the marketing, with the messaging, and the fact that we are full.

And the fact that last year we only lost one student. Decided not to return when we have above 94% retention over the past four years, that’s say something is, is working. You know, so there is that, um, beneficial or positive relationship between what they are seeking and then what they are experiencing with us.

And I think that that is, that’s how I judge it.

Abigail: Yeah, I think data matters and I’m definitely paying attention to that. Um, I’m looking at likes and shares and, um, I’m, I’m doing the research on each kind of post and I have kind of categories and where they felt fall and how they look at least on paper. That’s one factor, of course, among many, and, um. I think joy is a huge part of what I’m trying to convey.

Um, because when I am at my school, the reason why I’m there and the reason why I have my children there is because I believe in it, but also I feel good there. I feel like it’s a, it’s a place that’s light filled, much like this school that we’re sitting in. It’s, it’s beautiful and warm and, and kind, and the feeling and the vibe is, is right for the kind of learning that I hope.

Um, we can all have, and then, right, we have these statements of belonging and these, um, the kind of vision and mission builds upon this space and the context and all of that. And so I want everything that we put out about the school to match that same level of integrity. Um, so I hope with social media posts and things like that, that if people feel good about it, which they tell me if they do or they don’t right.

Um, that, that, that also is a certain kind of information. And then there are others as well, but. 

Jay: I think maybe on a, on a more service level, and sometimes this sounds shallow, but we’re talking about differentiators in the, and what families are looking for and certainly programming and, and unique programs, unique programming and, and, and, uh, curricular differences and families see perhaps if public schools versus us.

We also have to make sure we look the part, and again, that may sound shallow. At times. But, but the campus itself, um, has to be a differentiator. Um, we have to invest in our facility staff. And I’m getting a little off topic here from, from advancement work, but I think all of this is interconnected here.

Sure. 

Jay: So, and I think we are predisposed. To pay close attention to that and admission work and advancement work and communications work, but for the entire faculty to pick up on that, that needs to be contagious. We need to make sure we look good and we bring on, bring 70 guests to campus for a, for a conference.

We need to make sure we look good, not just on open house day, but on a Wednesday in May when, when we’re gonna have guests walk in to the admission office. We’re gonna make sure. Grounds look good, landscaping looks good. Our hallways are clean. Things like that. Things that are real differentiators in parents’ minds and eyes as they’re walking, walking around the hall.

So again, not the in-depth scientific marketing strategy that, that we could dig into, but certainly those simple things make big differences. 

Drew: Well, and I think understanding your audience too, like and your competitors in your area. ’cause I mean, we are in an old factory. We still look like we’re in an old factory, you know?

So, and it’s a middle school voice, so clean hallways for us looks very different than, than it does here. But that’s also understanding our audience as well and how we fit into kind of a larger, um, ecosystem of Richmond. For instance, but I, I, I mean, I, I agree. It’s still a school like today, still a school day.

You 

Jay: wanna make sure everybody understands school is alive, people are in the halls, and, and it’s not gonna be perfect, but it needs to be a different chair. That’s a great point through. 

Aubrey: Yeah. So it’s like the experience, what experience are people having and your messaging and like who you are shines through in that 

experience.

Aubrey: Mm-hmm. Like, um, Jay walking through the halls today and being greeted by amazing faculty and staff and students to just sit. Yeah. On customer experience and like I was like, this school must be warm and welcoming ’cause I sure feel warm and welcome. So big smile at the door. Big smile. Yeah. Great to hear.

So happy to see me. I was like in my celebrity, like, this is awesome. Yeah. And we do this every day. Yeah. Yeah. 

Abigail: Great. Yeah. And I would add that you often look for what you hope for in a school. And when we were walking up, the students were running the track outside on this beautiful day and I was thinking, well there you go.

There’s a, there’s an avenue into learning right there. So yeah, I think showing what you’re doing is really. Important. Um, 

Tara: yeah. On that note, let’s talk about social media. So I’m sure everybody here has a love hate relationship with it, and, um, if you’re doing marketing and communications, you have to use it.

So let’s talk about what platforms you’re most active on, what you, where you see the most engagement. Um, and also, um, maybe you could even talk a little bit about, um, how you use storytelling and maybe even like some tools that you use. For your social media, social, a lot of that you wanna 

Abigail: start out? Um, yeah, so I, I don’t have a love hate relationship.

I love Instagram. I do not like Facebook. No, I’m just kidding. Um, we, we are mostly on Instagram and Facebook. We do, um, we dabble, I would say in YouTube and then, um, but mostly for specific, very specific purposes. Um, we. We have teams that have additional social media that I do not run. That’s another conversation.

But, um, so the reason why I left Instagram specifically is because we find that that is a lot of where our parents are. Um, we have certainly alumni, grandparents, parents on Facebook as well, but Instagram, um, is a place where people show up to see their kid at the field trip or to see, uh, their student getting on stage for the first time.

When, when they’re trying out their middle school player or whatever, um, we do a lot of the, the kinds of stuff that Instagram is gonna promote. We do a lot of stories, a lot of lives, um, and we hold intention that there’s an ethical framework with that that kind of holds under here. So what we want. To be showing also needs to match our outcomes and goals and hopes.

We also hold that intention with the very popular, anxious generation and Jonathan Height and reminding us that we shouldn’t have media in kids’ faces 24 hours a day. They shouldn’t be a commodity. They shouldn’t be a marketing tool even for us that they’re not the market, which is absolutely something that helps us.

Train and contextualize what we’re doing. So with that lens then coming to social media, we’re asking questions like, what is the story to be telling? Do we need to show a kid’s face and their name to tell the story? Well, probably not actually. Um, maybe we’re showing them what we’re doing rather than telling them in, in many, many cases.

Um, so storytelling for me is all encompassing. I am often almost every day asking teachers, why did you come to work today? I. What makes you so excited? What was a project that you’re really proud of? Like those sorts of things. And then I get the content, which is organic and not just my observation. So it’s not one person’s voice, but it’s coming from a unified.

Voice telling the stories of our teachers, which I think is 

Tara: important. Do you have a formal process for that? Like do you have like a reminder like, checking this teacher? 

Abigail: Did I do? Yeah. So I have a, a regular popup on my calendar. Mm-hmm. Well, I have problems for everything to remind me of things, but one of the, one of those is to check in and ask good questions.

I also, as many of you probably. Do have from time to time, get busy and don’t do these things. So I’ll, I’ll maybe like seek out four or five people in a day and then write in, write some badge content, and then save that for the time when it’s most appropriate. Yeah, 

Drew: yeah. We’re almost exclusively on Instagram, which then feeds Facebook.

Um, but we don’t actually post anything on, um, Facebook and like, like, um, like you were saying. It is all about kind of the storytelling and showing the parents and the prospective families what we are doing on a day in and day out basis. Um, from our surveys. We know the relationship that the students have with faculty.

1. Or why a lot of the boys love being at the school and why parents want them to come. Because for middle school boys, understanding middle school boys, it’s all about the relationships. So we spend a huge amount of time in our content calendar. Showing relationships, showing the boys and the faculty in relationship with each other, um, and in different contexts.

And I think that that really helps tell the story. Um, but we’re also really intentional about doing that, and we will post every single day showing something about that aspect. 

Jay: We are all over the ground here. We love that. It’s great. One of the, one of my favorite things we’ve done, our athletic director actually is very savvy at, at social media as well, and she will, this was, gave us a little heartburn at first, but team takeovers, um, for a day of.

Really, really got a lot of traffic and we monitor that obviously. But, um, that’s been really fun. Particularly if, like our girls basketball team made a deep state playoff run and so they’re, when they’re going to the state semifinals, they’re just, you know, they’re documenting that on, on Instagram for all their classmates and their parents and things like that.

It was just a lot of fun to see our students own a lot of the social media throughout the year in different pockets. Obviously there’s, there’s. They’re well trained and vetted and things like that, but those, those seem to generate a lot of enthusiasm, goodwill. 

Aubrey: So fun. I love hearing the different perspectives of what you all are focused on and what platforms you’re on.

I think that that’s really interesting. Um, we’re gonna switch gears a little bit and, uh, dive into a question that often comes up when I’m talking to schools, um, about board involvements. Also head of school involvement in marketing. So how do you work with your head of school? I know we have some pets here.

Um, or board on marketing priorities? 

Drew: Well, I’ll, I’ll jump in again. Um, when I arrived at Seven Hills, um, the board was much more of an operational board. They were in more of the day-to-day as opposed, as opposed to being more strategic. So they had ideas across the spectrum, but in my purview about admissions, about events, about where we’re advertising, where we had to advertise, what we were gonna advertise about, what is the messaging gonna be, it was, it was all of that.

And I really saw a great benefit in the digital world. I also saw it was a lot cheaper. To do than, um, the print media. And so I showed them data on, on how people were engaging, when I say people, sorry, parents, prospective parents, how our current parents were engaging with these different platforms and how we could track it.

And so I pushed back a lot on their desire to have us in certain publications. Just because other schools were in that publication and I didn’t see it as a cost benefit to us. Um, and so now they are completely strategic when they’re much more functional board now than they were I, I feel, than when I arrived.

And I fortunately had the support of my head who also saw the benefit of going in this direction. And fortunately, we’re fully enrolled. So that helps with that. If we weren’t. Then I can imagine some pushback, but I don’t hear it at all anymore. But it, it, there was, there were some trials and tribulations when it came to telling some of our board members, no, we are not gonna be in Richmond magazine.

We’re just, we’re not gonna advertise there ’cause we don’t see spending five to $6,000 for a half page ad that wasn’t a benefit to us. ’cause you’re the only one looking for us in there. Other prospective parents really aren’t. They’re going to other, um, avenues and they’re looking at different platforms in order to find us.

So that’s it. 

Abigail: So I would just share that. Um, Dr. Layman, Dr. Paulman is our head of school, and I am so grateful for his trust because while he may not understand or like be necessarily paying attention to what I’m doing, every time I’m, I’m putting out content. I can ask him, you know, Hey, can I grab you for five minutes?

And we’re gonna do a live on that, you know, um, that initiative that we’re gonna be starting next week or something like that. And he will always say yes. So I’m so grateful for that willingness and, and also, um, just ability to, to have a relationship of trust. Um, as far as our board goes, we have an advancement division of the board.

And so we have monthly check-ins basically for all of advancement, not just communications and marketing, but it helps with some of those. Folks on our board have that background. So there’s a lot of common language, which is helpful. Um, and then also kind of their input. So I’ll say often if we’re, we’re introducing something new, like as we discussed at the advancement board meeting, right?

So it just gives that extra, it is not just me on my own doing this work, it’s, it’s me as a part of a team that feels, um, a lot more collaborative than, than Yeah. Individually, 

Jay: our, our advancement committee of the board, when. We arrived here a couple years ago. It was actually called Advancement in Marketing, and quickly, strongly requested that, that we need to change that.

They don’t need to have a, a role in that other than be advocates and followers and fans and things like that. They, they were gracious and absolutely understood that, and fortunately we’ve been able to, again, with, with some really talented people in those positions now do really good things. They see, I think, through the board lens as much as anything, just the goodwill that comes from.

The consistent posting. But then again, as I’ve referenced a few minutes ago, um, our annual day of giving was so successful and so much of that was done via our social media channels. And so they understand conceptually why their role is two pack out of the day-to-day marketing things, the suggestions of where we need to put print media and things like that.

Um, and we’re in good position right now, so 

Tara: thanks. Got a little bit of time left, so I’m going to jump, jump again, um, backwards time on this, but what surprised you most about this year’s enrollment season for your marketing efforts? Anything surprising?

Drew: I think, I think for me it was validation of the current generation of parents and how they search for schools. You know, you hear data out there and you hear statistics that, you know, parents are looking 2, 3, 4 years before they, even, before their child is eligible to, to look at a school. So for a middle school, they’re looking in kindergarten, they’re looking at, um, other times, and I don’t necessarily know about them, you know, in the process.

They’re out there, they’re searching, but I don’t necessarily know about them. But the number of parents who said, we’ve been following them. For a while, we have been on your website. We are following you on Instagram. The numbers of those parents and who were already pretty clear of the direction that they wanted their child to go in, they’re looking at multiple schools, but the homework that they had done just.

Kind of crystallized in my mind that the stereotypes of the, of the gener younger generation, that, and how they’re gathering information. Mm-hmm. Um, it was, that was pretty eyeopening to, to me.

Abigail: Yeah, I would just share that. Um, prior to being communications specialist at our school, I was doing admissions. And, um, though my background is in communications, it, it really helped to have that lens of what do parents want to know? What, what are, what are they asking? What are, you know, what are the common questions that were coming up?

And again, categorizing those questions and then preemptively answering the questions through social media through. The kinds of articles that we write and things like that. It was, it was profoundly helpful to me. And I am always trying to learn, so I often tell our teachers and our faculty and staff, if you see something that isn’t like quite right either in vibe or in reality, like please tell me that because I don’t want to be, I.

Um, communicating information that’s incorrect. Um, even if it’s just your opinion, I wanna know that. And so I think, um, opening myself up to that has helped kind of keep me humble, but also, um, it, it makes, uh, better overall communications a plan. And then what’s surprising about it is how truthful and honest folks have been and, and parents as well.

Um, and so when we have, uh, if we, if we unfortunately have people leave the school or we have people joining the school, they’re often telling me and giving pretty active feedback, which is nice. Um, one of the things that has surprised me about enrollment most is that with like changes in our world and changes in, you know, our climate, political climates, things like that, I did expect more movement within our school population.

We’ve actually stayed pretty consistent. Um, so that’s a surprise to me. 

Jay: Same on the re-enrollment. We’re in the, in the midst here in Highwater Virginia. Hampton Roads, Virginia, huge military outpost on the south side, um, which is a different market altogether. It’s very, he heavily heavy navy country here, where in, in our region it’s more Army and Air Force.

So there’s always a little bit of a, not a little, there’s always, we we’re always gonna play close attention, pay close attention. To world events and certainly the political climate like we all do. But what is, what do you know, conflicts in different parts of the world, how can that directly affect this part of Virginia?

It’s a, it is a real challenge for us. Um. However, our re-enrollment, while still challenging at times, has stayed consistent. I think we were braced for a little bit more work on the re-enrollment front, uh, based on, on just politics, based on, uh, you know, budgetary cutbacks at the federal worker level, things of that nature.

And we haven’t seen that yet, knock on wood. Um, but we were braced for that. And then secondly, in a completely different direction, we did some overhauling of our website. Um. Still a work in progress, but did an overhaul of our website and, and prominently featured all of our faculty members. Just nicely done headshot, um, degrees, things like that.

We, I, there were more comments and compliments from parents on that shifted our website than anything else, not. That it’s easier to find the academics page or that the athletic piece is so much better. It’s that, gosh, it’s really cool to see all the upper school faculty members who we don’t know yet because our child’s in kindergarten.

There was a lot of that kind of commentary. Yeah, that’s really popular website. Oh yes. We have those 

Tara: headshot and bios there. Education, we do that all the time. That’s our number three page. I was just say our number two. Peers too. Admission tuition, faculty, staff. There’s 

Drew: the stone admissions, and then faculty, and then there.

Aubrey: Yeah. Interesting, interesting. Thank you. Well, Tara, should we transition to some of our hallmarks, our program? Yeah, so we’re called the Mindful School Marketing Podcast. Uh, so we do talk about mindfulness. Um, so, you know, as you’re thinking about your role in school, um, or in terms of school marketing or in leadership, how would you define mindfulness and or how do you see mindfulness kind of in the work that you do?

Abigail: Yeah, I would bring it back to integrity. I have to like. I want to embody what I’m trying to communicate, and I want it to be true. If it’s not true, I don’t want to share it. If it’s something that we aspire to, even as a school, I will say that, um, we often, I, I am tempted to always put our best foot forward and sometimes I might be overselling a bit.

Um, and I try to remember that this is not the, the point is not to sell something that’s not true. The point is just to tell people who you are. And as we heard this morning, to once you figure that out, own it. Shout out from the rooftops. Of course, we’re always striving to be better. Of course, we are trying to live into our vision and mission statements in a way that’s authentic.

But I think integrity, um, about our process and about um, content is really, really important to me. So, um, the mindful piece of that, I suppose, is checking in and asking the question, is it true? 

Drew: Did a great answer that. I think that’s always you, you want to have the, um, that kind of integral part, you know, to what we are putting out there that is true to us and it is keeping, uh, true to your institution.

Uh, I would, I would also say I’m constantly trying to learn kind of new things and see how other people are doing things and thinking that my way’s not always the best way. Um. That’s why I love coming to these things and this is why I like listening to your podcast. ’cause it’s kind of always learning kind of new things in a, in a new way of figuring out how to best do it at my institution.

Uh, but then also being okay to be wrong. It’s okay to make mistakes. I think we try to model that for our students. Um, but. Sometimes I think we’re scared to do that. I mean, we say we wanna model it, but I don’t know if we always do. And I am always very quick to say, you know, that that was a failure on my part.

Let’s, let’s learn from that. 

Jay: This is soulful work. This is, I mean, there’s, there’s a depth to independent schools in any facet that doesn’t exist in, in our counterparts in other areas. And I think we always wanna be mindful of that. We wanna remember that I. Certainly in how we engage with our students, with our parents, with any constituent groups, but it’s, it’s deep and, and deci that’s probably why decisions take a long time to happen and it’s so collaborative and, but, but you know, these are, these are places that are very sold.

Well, I’ve always just tried to remind myself of that at least. Um, and then I think we all have, we’re familiar with the, the, the. Phrase, the needs of society should determine the work of the school. And so, uh, we often talk about referring back to our mission when making bigger decisions from, from a school standpoint.

It’s also what, what is our community dictating us? What, what are, what are our parents saying they need? Let’s listen to them. Um, what are they begging for? In our case, we’re, we’re launching, uh, we just actually announced it today. Ironically, we’re launching a, a pretty comprehensive academic enrichment program, a support program.

And that’s something that’s been needed here. And our parents have been telling us that, not literally telling us that they’ve been, they’ve been saying that we, we just need something else. And so that’s something that we. That’s hot off the presses here, but we, we’ve listened and heard them. It took a minute, but we heard them say this and so we’re proud to be able to do that.

Tara: I love that soulful work thinking maybe we should can help the Mindful Marketing podcast because these are all really good reminders. Um, and I appreciate all your answers and your time. If anybody’s listened to the podcast, you know, we always do rapid fire questions at the end. The same ones, we’re not gonna take the time to do all of them today, but I’m gonna make a quick mention.

Our Good reads list because we ask everyone, if you could put one book on the high school curriculum, what would it be? We have a fabulous list of books. I’m not gonna ask you that today. Um, we’re gonna ask you, what’s one marketing tip or strategy that’s made a big difference for your school? You may have answered already.

I, 

Drew: yeah, I mean, for, for us. Jobs to be done, understanding why parents are looking at your school, uh, and being able to articulate how, like, how you meet those needs. I has been transformative. Everything from our digital marketing to our website, to our Instagram, and it’s all aligned. We’re trying to show them kind of why they, why they chose us.

I 

Abigail: mean, very practically, I think use the use of lives. It does take a little bit of trust of both your students and your staff and faculty members. But, um, that return is, is so great and. Parents will watch it live and it also get a good feeling as they’re doing. So when our high school principal will stop talking to me and turn around and ask the student, how was the game last night?

And it is like, okay, that’s why we come. Right? And so, you know, you’re learning to roll with it and that sort of thing, but it’s authentic and it’s good and it. Feels good. And then we also see that return and people share that and they’re like, catch a glimpse of Connor’s backpack as you walking across the whole school lawn.

Right? Like those sorts of things are heartwarming and it, it reminds us that we’re a, we are real, real people with real stories and a real context. And, and that’s what folks wanna see. 

Jay: This isn’t exactly, this is not social media nor marketing directly, but. And I need to be careful not to endorse a specific product, I guess, but I, a great investment is livestream capability.

Mm-hmm. 

Jay: Um, and so we see that certainly in athletics a lot. But if you can figure out a way to livestream graduation, any sort of pro parent programming, I’m not suggesting. Zooms in lieu of in-person meetings, but the livestream thing, we have gone all in on that and huge, we’ve hauled the equipment over from the, from the athletic department to livestream things that we’ve, we’ve done in our auditorium and it is so, such goodwill.

It’s a usually big investment front for a school, but it is well worth the return. 

Tara: That’s great. I love that. So I don’t know where we are. I think we might have about five minutes. That’s okay. Five minutes.

Maybe two questions depending on, does anybody have a question for this panel or for Aubrey or for me? Yes, 

Question from Audience: I do. Um, if you have a school and community that is pretty close knit, do you ever do any in-person marketing events rather than print marketing or media marketing? Do you get yourself into the community and if so, what 

Tara: does that?

The question is just for our recording. Um, do you do any in person events?

Drew: We, we, we don’t, unless if it’s a, um, a middle school fair, but that we, we, we actually don’t. 

Abigail: So we have a, an emphasis on music and the arts at our school. And so we use the opportunity to, um. Comp tickets to those events. And then we put a lot of posters and things around town. And then of course we have admissions counselors who are ready to greet those folks, um, when they’re coming in the door so we can have a, a quick conversation, not for the purpose to like necessarily solicit to them, but to.

Be there to answer questions, to be hos, a hospitable, smiling face as they enter the door, uh, that sort of thing. Um, but we see that as a gift to the community as well as an opportunity to share who we are and who our students are. So that’s one example. Um, we’re kind of on the cutting edge of that right now and asking questions like, where should we be showing up the farmer’s market, like those sorts of things.

Um, I would say we have some, some things we’ve tried in the past that I don’t, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend as like our, those are like the ticket. But I do think it’s interesting to be asking continually, where are our families or families who would be interested in our school, as you were mentioning earlier, where do they shop?

Where do you know? Where do they hang out? Where, you know, so the music festival, um, yeah. And then where to put a booth and things like that. So it feels like we have a presence and not like an in your face, like. You know, come see us. 

Jay: Look at all these things. We’ve had some success with, with doing some parents on events off campus.

Whether it’s at, you know, a local winery or a cool little bistro. Um, those are usually inexpensive to do. Um, and even if there’s only. Three couples who show it’s still a good time. It’s, it’s, it’s engaging off campus in a very human form. Um, and that’s, that’s been something I’ve done in a couple different spots.

And then secondly, I. Small events on campus by design, we’ve had a lot of really good returns, particularly for lower school admissions. Not the big open house of yesterday year, but 10 people we’re gonna, we’re gonna cap this enrollment at 10 people and come on campus and do a Thursday morning, 10 o’clock tour through things.

It’s just more intimate, it’s more personalized. It’s far from the all call, big open house, kind of real estate fees. 

Tara: I have a client also in Northern Virginia that they’re, um, they do, uh, a lot of lecture series, so they’ll have a mental health counselor come in for the open to the community and do, you know, a talk about social media for middle schoolers and, and that type of thing and invite people in.

So that’s another, another way to do it, sort of. Yeah. 

Aubrey: Yeah. 

Tara: Grassroots marketing. 

Aubrey: We’ve, we, we have a client that we work with that they’re, they’re like very holistic, like green. Initiative school and like they have a beautiful, like forested campus and so they do a farm and Forest Explorer program for ages two through five as a funnel into their, so it’s open to the community and to siblings who are younger from the community and use that as a kind of a funnel into it’s free, um, into their programs.

Abigail: I guess I should say, we haven’t really talked about summer camp and that sort of thing, but we do have an elementary, middle school summer camp that is, is very low cost. It’s very affordable. That’s open to anyone in our community. And then we have, we are trying for the first time formal middle school camps with our distinctive, so things like sewing and, and the arts, um, visual arts, um, it’s.

Theater, writing your own script, like that sort of thing. Um, so that, this is our first time doing that this summer, so we’ll see if it goes and with a very, very deep discount if you’re not a non um, enrolled student.

Tara: Well, I think we’ve wrapped up perfectly on time. I wanna thank you all so much. Jay, drew and Abigail, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Darcy, for having us at the conference today. And thank you everyone for attending.