School administrators might not yet be accustomed to competing with other schools for funding, but the rise of school choice means that the transition needs to happen sooner rather than later.

Current trends in education have left many public schools facing something highly unfamiliar: competition. As laws at the federal and state levels have made it possible to attend public schools outside the district in which they live, parents are exerting more control over who educates their children. That trend has made it necessary for schools to show members of their communities what makes them worth attending.

Every public school now needs to establish its own unique brand and consistent messaging in order to thrive in this competitive environment, but most don’t have the necessary budget or staff to do so. The few resources these districts can draw on for outreach are often critically underused. Director of the Educational Partnership Institute Patti Koslo tells us that in the course of her work revamping the communications strategies of schools throughout the state of Ohio, she encountered districts with “$40-60 million budgets dedicating less than 3% to communications departments.”

This approach to community outreach will not be sufficient for any district interested in retaining current enrollees or attracting new ones. Thus, public schools hoping to adapt to emerging trends must transform their communications departments into marketing departments. If this sounds overwhelming, there’s no need to fear — we’ve developed an in-depth guide with all the information you need to make the transition a smooth one.

Determine What Makes You Different

The first step in making the switch to a marketing-centric approach to communications is to develop a strong, unique brand for your school. Because every school will claim to offer high-quality instruction and a bevy of opportunities for graduates, it’s crucial to determine exactly what it is about a particular school’s teachers, staff, and programs that makes it stand out. Does it have an outstanding programming and technology curriculum? A professional-level performing arts center and recording studio?

No matter how niche or esoteric they might be, all characteristics that differentiate a school from its competition should be heavily emphasized in its branding.

Develop an Engagement Strategy

Once you’ve determined the concrete offerings you want to emphasize in various marketing materials and platforms, districts can begin to develop a strategy for how they’ll convey those offerings to the appropriate audience. Communications strategies should shift from a practice of infrequent updates to a plan for consistent engagement with the intention of obtaining buy-in for new programs and events and creating open feedback loops with students and parents. By continually disseminating interesting, branded content, a school can gradually commit its unique identity to its audience’s memory.

Most communications departments today rely on a few tried-and-tested channels for outreach like direct mailings and phone banking. But Koslow says that times have changed. “We used to rely on an outcall system, but now it’s all text messaging,” she says. “People are more receptive to texts than calls, so we advise districts to send out mass SMS messages to their communities. It’s important to understand what strategies are more effective as trends change.”

A modern outreach program should also involve an optimized social media presence, as we’ve argued earlier in this publication. The goal should be to leverage all of the resources at your disposal, both digital and traditional, to foster daily interactions between your school and its community.

The final component of a successful marketing strategy is consistency. A brand is dependent on conveying not just a consistent image, but a consistent message and tone across all media channels. Achieving this level of consistency will require strong coordination between every member of the marketing department, ensuring everyone is keyed in on all aspects of your strategy.

Measure Your Marketing Effectiveness

Developing impactful marketing operations is a serious investment, and districts should treat it as such by determining the metrics by which they can assess the effectiveness of their strategies. All marketing campaigns have a measurable return on investment (ROI), but it’s up to district leaders themselves to create a framework for analyzing that ROI.

One benefit of using an email marketing campaign for outreach is that most mailing list platforms include some type of analytics dashboard. Social media platforms also allow for some level of analysis, whether it’s a specific measure of engagements per post (e.g. impressions, likes, and comments), or simply the number of users that your school’s content is reaching. These metrics help to create a feedback loop that allows you to optimize current campaigns and helps to inform future ones.

While you should have all the tools and expertise necessary to assess your marketing efforts constantly and thoroughly, sometimes it’s necessary to ask for a second opinion. Consider asking for an audit from an outside organization to test the consistency and effectiveness of your marketing materials. Even if you think your newsletter copy is the best it possibly could be, it’s possible that a third party could spot grammatical or stylistic errors that your communications team didn’t catch on the first pass.

Finally, districts should recognize the value not just of campaigns, but of the marketers who create them. Schools should offer professional development opportunities to incentivize better communications and convert existing staff members into effective marketers. Koslow tells us she would encourage districts to “share information strategies with staff on how they can communicate a district’s messaging most effectively.”

At the end of the day, the goal of your marketing roadmap is to ensure that you are sharing the goals and accomplishments of your school in a way that resonates with your most critical stakeholders. If your newly-minted marketing team can achieve that, you can be sure that your investment was worth every penny.