Marketing to Schools
Selling and promoting your product to the education sector can be a challenge, Marketing to schools can be tough. Teachers, because of the nature of their job can be difficult individuals to target in a marketing sense. Yet teachers are a critical element in any sales cycle for products and services targeted at the world of education. They are almost always involved in the majority of buying decisions especially when it comes to learning aids to enhance learning experiences and programmes designed to provide extracurricular learning activities. However, many traditional marketing methods simply don’t work with teachers. In a time of new challenges, teachers are looking for new ideas which will facilitate the student-teacher learning environment with a minimum set-up and ease of use, in order to gain maximum input for minimal outlet, to free up their limited and valuable time. Unless you have real experience in this area you are only ever going to come up against barriers.
The method that will work for you when Marketing to schools…
One method which can help you market your product effectively is using a set of telemarketing experts like us here at Big Wolf Marketing with extensive experience within this sector who are able to generate leads and appointments for your company to showcase your product.
Unfortunately selling in the education sector requires experience and perseverance. Again, it is so important to reiterate that using a highly successful telemarketing agency can free up your time to develop your brand and product further.
Trying to secure an appointment with primary, elementary or senior school teachers is not as easy as it seems. They are either teaching their students and cannot be disturbed, or they are in a free lesson period planning their lesson and therefore don’t want to be disturbed!
There are many players in the education market place and selling in this community is highly competitive.
Schools are used to dealing with ‘cold calls’ and their gatekeepers (the school receptionist usually) have a variety of tools in their arsenal to deal with the persistent telesales marketeer.
The methods that might work for you….
Depending on your budget you could look at exhibiting your product. However this can be costly, and exhibiting at an education event you need to be confident that there will be a good return on investment.
Using Direct Marketing Methods (e.g. mailshots) to Target Schools
A few years ago direct marketing was one of the most popular targeting methods for primary and elementary school teachers. The internet has largely made this marketing method redundant.
Using a Print Advertising Campaign to Target Teachers
Advertising in a niche market is expensive and the success from advertising is also difficult to measure. Teachers now have a wealth of resources at their fingertips on the internet which have to lead to the decline of not only education magazines but a global trend across a plethora of magazine titles.
Marketing to schools and Selling to Teachers via the Internet
More and more teachers are looking to the internet to provide solutions to daily teaching tasks and issues, whether it’s finding interactive resources for use on interactive whiteboards (IWBs), or lesson plans or images or even video clips. The internet is there, it’s not going away and teachers are relying on it more and more. The question that we need to ask is how can you drive more teachers to your website and then convert those visits into sales?
In summary, a top tool is the internet, it is instantly measurable, is always ready to deal with customers, has geographic reach, teachers are using it more and more, and it’s cost-effective. But it also has its drawbacks and if you need to increase your revenue, get your product out there it can take a while for the Return on Investment to materialize.
For results, lead generation, giving your company the flexibility to strive for excellence, start with a telesales campaign. Begin your campaign with Big Wolf Marketing. Trust the experts!
Have you considered marketing your product to the English as a Foreign Language market (EFL)? Let’s look at how this massively emerging market is evolving and where your product could fit in with this.
English Language Teaching
English language teaching is evolving all the time, particularly in technology. But what changes have had the biggest impact on teachers in recent years?
Digital platforms for marketing to schools.
When we discuss innovation, we often immediately think of the internet and what we can now do online. Facebook and especially Edmodo, which creates a safe online environment for teachers, students and parents to connect are becoming increasingly popular with teachers.
Cloud-based tools like Google Docs have also become indispensable because of its functionality allowing collaborative writing with students.
The use of corpora – large text collections used for studying linguistic structures, frequencies, etc. – used to be the privilege of lexicographers. But with most corpora now available online, and quite a few for free, teachers now have access to information about the way language is used in authentic texts and speech.
Teachers no longer have to panic when students ask them about the difference between ‘trouble’ and ‘problem’. And it’s not just teachers who benefit. To find out if more people say ‘sleepwalked’ or ‘sleptwalk’ (for example), students can simply search the words on Google, which uses the internet as its corpus.
Online CPD (continuous professional development) and the global staffroom
The advent of the internet and the growth of social media have certainly allowed teachers of English from all over the world to form online communities that act like a huge global staffroom. Twitter and ELT blogging, for example, have opened up a network of people who can offer advice, support and ideas.
Communicating with people online
The ability to communicate online with people outside the classroom via Skype and similar tools has enabled students to meet and interact with others in English creating virtual learning environments. In monolingual classes (i.e., most English classrooms around the world), this could give much-needed motivation to students who otherwise might not have the opportunity to interact in English.
And as for teachers, the ability to converse with students face-to-face online has opened up a whole new market for Skype lessons and online classes.
Online authentic materials
One of the biggest benefits of the internet for language learners is the sudden widespread availability of authentic resources. We can now access the daily news, watch trending videos on YouTube and read the latest tips on TripAdvisor …
The IWB (interactive white board)
The IWB has now become a staple of many classrooms in Britain and around the world. It allows us to save and print notes written on the board, control the classroom computer from the whiteboard, play listening activities on the sound system, use the screen as a slide for presentations and access the internet. The possibilities are endless.
Dogme (teaching with limited resources)
Dogme is a communicative approach that eschews published textbooks in favour of conversational communication between learners and teacher, Dogme signals a departure from a one-size-fits-all approach to classroom materials.
For many teachers, this ‘unplugged’ approach represents a new way of looking at the lesson content, and the chance to break free from self-contained language points and give more time to student-generated language.
Students steering their own learning
Over the last couple of decades, learning has gradually been moving from a teacher-centred approach to a student-centred one. The trend has accelerated rapidly in recent years with the growing quantity and quality of information on the internet. In many respects, this has changed the teacher’s role from that of knowledge-transmitter to consultant, guide, coach, and/or facilitator.
One example is the ‘negotiated syllabus’, previously the domain of the business English teacher, who would conduct a needs analysis before tailoring a course to suit the participants. But we’ve come to recognise that there is nothing general about the general English learner either, and increasingly, teachers involve students in decisions about what to do in the classroom.
Teaching soft skills and critical thinking skills
As English cements its position as the world’s lingua franca, many students are now learning English to oil the wheels of communication in the world of business, trade, education, and tourism. To enable students to become better communicators, we should perhaps go beyond grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, and look at helping them communicate effectively in international settings.
Are you interested in Marketing to schools? How can your product fit in with the international arena? Come to the experts and let us bring in the results for you……..blah, blah
