Marketing: A National Independent Schools Comparative Study

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1 Marketing: A National Independent Schools Comparative Study Executive Summary of Full Report Stephen Holmes PhD May 2009 Stephen Holmes PhD Managing Partner The Knowledge Partnership s.holmes@theknowledgepartnership.com ACN

2 The Knowledge Partnership No part of this report may be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission. Extracts can be reproduced for internal purposes by schools as long as the source is credited. The Author Dr Stephen Holmes is one of three Managing Partners of The Knowledge Partnership, a specialist strategy, marketing and communications research based consultancy providing research, strategic and focused support for educational organizations operating in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada.. It provides advice and strategic consultancy to colleges, schools, universities and governments and education agencies on strategy, markets, marketing, and communications. Stephen s current client base includes major independent schools in every Australian state, the UK, and NZ. Stephen has consulted, spoken written and researched at the highest level on education marketing and reputation around the world for well over a decade. Stephen is the only full time practising consultant in the world with a PhD in the specific field of marketing in schools. Stephen s partnerships have included being visiting specialist in education marketing at The University of Queensland and the University of Southern Queensland in Australia and The University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. He also has written widely for CREM, The Centre for Research in Education Marketing, based at The University of Southampton in the UK. Stephen is also the author of The School Marketing Manual, the best selling education marketing reference. He is a Director of the MaXimizE (Excellence in Education) benchmarking and evaluation project adopted by a range of schools, school systems and universities internationally. The Knowledge Partnership

3 Executive Summary of Findings Background In early 2009, The Knowledge Partnership (TKP) ( offered a sample of independent schools across Australia the opportunity to participate in a research project to help them understand and enhance their marketing and reputation management, and benchmark within a national context. This is the first year of this study in Australia. Our intention over the longer term is to create a form of national and international benchmarking club for independent schools that have a focus on building best practice in marketing and communications. The rationale for the research study was offered as: There has been an organic growth in marketing activity in schools; Marketing spend is increasing and now represents typically 2-3% of budget; There is little if any robust evaluation or benchmarking of the effectiveness of marketing and its impact on enrolments, reputation and stakeholder positioning; There is an over reliance on costly advertising (mass media) and promotional activity within marketing; Factors influencing parental choice/expectation are not well understood or applied in marketing and communications. The objectives of this research were as follows: To enable schools within Australia to benchmark their marketing and communications resources, structures, priorities and activities; To highlight and explain where possible, the development of marketing and communications practice; To reflect whether differences within the sample, in terms of practice or priorities are primarily for instance a function of nature, size or context; To stimulate debate about the development of education marketing and communications, its role in the education sector and its contribution to wider goals of independent schools. Sample This paper reports key findings from a survey of lead marketing or communications professionals in 16 independent schools across Australia. in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, ACT, and Western Australia provided responses. The sample consisted of large independent (various denominations) schools and three large Catholic Schools. The sample was skewed toward well established, city based and larger independent schools. Another feature of the sample being that one third was multi-campus in nature. We acknowledge that the sample size in this initial benchmarking research study requires that only indicative conclusions may be drawn. The Knowledge Partnership

4 Management Structure Marketing and Admissions/Enrolments were the most common titles adopted by the departments that the directors responding to the survey led. About one quarter (27%) did not believe however that their title accurately reflected the scope of activity. Four in five of the respondents (i.e. lead marketing professional) directly reported to the Principal. Just over half of the respondents (53%) described their position as sitting on the small executive or senior management team. The key benefits according to the respondents, to be derived from having a professional marketer or communicator on the school s executive team included the facilitation of a more market based and a more strategic approach to decision-making and earlier interventions i.e. a proactive rather than reactive approach. Other themes that emerged were that this would facilitate greater impact by the marketer on the portfolio (curricula and services) offered by the school, support internal and external communications, and the integration of a marketing perspective across the broader staff. Overall it would seem to support a more strategic approach to decision-making that had market relevance and that intervention would occur at an earlier stage, than it seems to be currently, which is often seen as too late for proactive measures. There were no cases of scheduled meetings between lead marketers and Principals on a daily basis to discuss marketing, communications or related issues, report progress or develop plans. 60% of the sample reported having scheduled weekly meeting and another third (33%) monthly. Encouragingly, of those that have such scheduled meetings over half (60%) considered they were very productive with the balance of the sample suggesting they were somewhat productive. However, only 40% thought that the school executive generally were very supportive in developing marketing/communications plans and in executing them. Professional Reflections The directors felt that areas of strong professional practice in the sector were marketing and communications collateral (promotional publications etc), communication with current students and parents, good use of small budgets (efficiencies), branding and relationships across a range of stakeholders. Areas where professional practice was perceived to lag behind other sectors included web, IT and its use in CRM (Customer Relationship Management), graduate relations, integration of marketing, internal (staff to staff) communications, and marketing strategy. Only 13% rated their school as having a very strong customer service orientation (the degree to which you or others act on feedback to develop services that enhance the student/parent experience services such as library, student support, front office reception etc). In terms of market orientation (the degree to which the schools actual 'offer'- courses/staffing/activities are shaped/designed to meet the needs of specific target groups) only one respondent rated their institution as very strong in terms of market orientation, with more than one half of respondents rating it as moderate to weak. Respondents were then asked in an ideal world, and given the nature and objectives of their institution, what would they change to make the school more responsive and effective to students and parents (its current markets)? The following themes stood out: The Knowledge Partnership

5 Marketing intelligence (greater investment) Segmentation (establishing customer profile groups) of parents to enhance targeting Less push marketing and more relationship based marketing More client (end user) perspectives in areas such as website feedback Better feedback models for parents e.g. online Better feedback on best practice in the sector (marketing and beyond) Better communication about education making it appropriate and friendly to parents. We also asked what challenges and opportunities are currently faced by marketing and communications staff and their schools more generally. The areas of greatest challenge at present were perceived to be: School wide marketing orientation Proactive rather than reactive marketing Enrolment sustainability Resourcing Getting the ear of the executive Competition across and within the school systems Fee setting Reputation management Managing economic fluctuations Being proactive Targeting (differentiating) audiences. The areas of greatest opportunity at present were perceived to be: Web marketing/e-marketing and technology based marketing Strategy evaluation Managing successfully the economic situation Broadening the scope of marketing to include internal communications Increasing ways to measure/ know the customer Technology based learning Curriculum delivery (innovation) Becoming better engaged with communities Building loyalty among alumni Introducing new programs e.g. IB Search engine marketing. Marketing/Communications Management In terms of the structure of marketing and communications, similar proportions reported the existence of an integrated model (all activities spanning marketing managed in one department) and fragmented models (multiple departments to manage the breadth of marketing related functions). A more integrated structure may reflect the greater focus on communications rather than a wider scope to include integrated marketing? The top five areas that are the lead responsibility of the director of marketing or communications were cited as: 1. Student recruitment (100%) 2. Media Relations (100%) The Knowledge Partnership

6 3. Brand identity (93%) 4. Competitor analysis (93%) 5. Corporate publications (93%). The five activities where the director of marketing or communications was least likely to have lead responsibility were: 1. Graduation events (0%) 2. Reception/front office (21%) 3. Public engagement activities (21%) 4. Internal Communications (21%) 5. Development/Fundraising (29%). Generally, it appears that the level of resourcing (including staffing) for marketing is strongest in student recruitment. The area of lowest (weakest) staff resourcing was found to be Alumni (graduate) relations. Looking forward, and in terms of creating additional positions over the next months, communications was nominated as the area most likely to grow. The key barriers to building a school wide appreciation (understanding) and acceptance of the role of marketing in education (an integrated perspective) were seen to be: Language (marketing speak) Teacher culture Administrative staff skill deficiencies (marketing understanding) Time Competing priorities for other staff. Print design and printing of major publications and market research was nominated as the area most likely to be outsourced. The following outsourced activities were also identified: Alumni strategy Media buying Photography Mailouts. Planning, Review and Development Only 54% saw their marketing planning as clearly linked to attainment of the wider strategic goals at their school (where they existed). 64% reported that there was in place a formal marketing and communications plan that covered the whole school e.g. 3-5 year plan. However we would still question the extent to which this is truly the case and we suspect that these plans are still limited in scope to cover primarily communications and promotional aspects of marketing and not school wide issues e.g. services development, fee setting etc. That is, preclusion from those key variables that reinforce positioning and can make the school more attractive to its markets (current and potential). 46% said that at their school marketing/student recruitment/ communications targets or KPIs were agreed with the senior executive but that these were not always realistic or easy to evaluate. Less than half (42%) thought that they had realistic SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, The Knowledge Partnership

7 time-based) objectives. We conclude that in such instances, there must only be very modest levels of formal ongoing evaluation of the return on this marketing investment by Principals/senior managers. One half of respondents were required to provide regular reports on progress and achievement to the senior executive team monthly, while a further 21% did so on a quarterly basis. A proportion did not report upwards at all they must reveal something about the way that marketing and communications is valued. Research with past students (alumni) was the most frequent market evaluation activity. Other evaluative activities cited were: Research with current students Research with current parents Research with those who attended events Year 12 surveys Exit surveys Staff and parent surveys regarding communications. User evaluation of the website, mystery shopper evaluation of events such as Open Days, enquiry decliner research and user feedback on prospectuses or similar brochures was the least common evaluative activity undertaken in the past two years. 64% reported that their manager appraised them at least once per year. Therefore in terms of appraisal, one in three senior marketers is not appraised in any way on an annual basis. This must be an area of concern on several fronts- capacity for skill development, reflection on and improvement of practice, and externalising to other staff credibility and professionalism in marketing and communications. In terms of staff development the key developments required for marketing and communications teams in the near future were identified as broadly being e-marketing, use of digital media (market research), and professional learning in marketing for their context. We did not ask the size of marketing budgets but note, based on our extensive experience, this typically varies according to a number of factors including the location of the school, relative level of competition, the cost of marketing in and whether the market is more national, state or regional. In terms of budget setting processes for marketing, there was a mixed response as to how this occurs. Comments illustrate that too often the approaches taken within the sample schools are not strategic (starting from a zero position and then strongly evidence based or targeted toward specific audiences for instance). More often it is derived (plus or minus say 5%) from the previous budget cycle, which is a rather antiquated method. Respondents generally agreed that zero budgeting based on planning/task needs would be most appropriate. Less than a third of the sample (29%) managed a budget for the development of their own staff, rather than these budgets being held centrally. The Marketing and Communications Leaders Profile Those who provided gender information in the sample were all female! This is slightly more skewed but still relatively close to the experience we have across the wider school sector. The reasons for this gender imbalance would be worthy of some separate investigation! Around 30% of the sample was aged and this was the median age of the directors in the sample. The Knowledge Partnership

8 Almost four in five respondents now holds a formal marketing or communications qualification, though we did not ask for a specification of the exact nature of this qualification. It is likely that few if any have formal qualifications in the area of education marketing. We note that at least one Australian university now offers a specific education marketing subject within its Masters Program over the past five years, designed and delivered by the author of this reports. In terms of participant professional background, the split between a teaching background and a school administration background was almost even. A significant proportion (36%) had previously worked in private or public sector marketing/communications, not in education. End Feedback welcomed at s.holmes@theknowledgepartnership.com The Knowledge Partnership