Innovative Marketing: Positioning Through Pedagogy ISNZ Conference 2014

1. Innovative Marketing: Positioning Through Pedagogy ISNZ Conference 2014 Dr Stephen Holmes PhD (Education Marketing) Managing Partner The Knowledge Partnership Australia and Asia Pte Ltd s.holmes@theknowledgepartnership.com www.theknowledgepartnership.com

2. Flight Path • Independent School Landscape • Positioning Demystified • The Case for Teaching/Pedagogy led Positioning • Integrating Teaching/Pedagogy as Positioning- Strategy and Communication Practice

4. Independent School Markets- Helicopter View • Mature and choice based sector - many sellers and buyers (crowded). • Prospective parents markets discerning in a choice based market environment. • Education operates like a consumer-driven market- schools compete for best students, while parents/students compete for most preferred schools. • Paradigm shift to demand-driven model - unprecedented need for focus on strategic approaches to markets. • Parents now more investors more than consumers - seek valued differentiation. • Education, however, less amenable to clear ROI- accrues both short term (experiential, intangible) and life long benefits (employment, values, etc.).

5. Schools Operating in a Competitive Market Value is defined by the receiver more than the giver.

6. Positioning Positioning in a Competitive School Market: Nutshell Positioning means: • Designing the school and its offering and managing its image to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the those in your target segments. • Positioning - a cogent reason why the target market should choose you over all other alternatives! • You must own a word or concept to build market positioning.

7. Education Positioning is Different- Substance Rules

8. Independent School Market Positioning: Observations • Efforts to position independent schools (with differentiation) generally weak and indistinct • Modest differentiation between schools– few have defined reputation flagships or are distinctive in ways valued by the markets • Rarely conscious investment in differentiating factors for defined segments by identifying motivation/expectation.Schools struggle to align to choice motivations in market positioning • Most schools try to cover all bases (inclusive) in positioning • Place, history often primary differentiator- other difference often buried • Internally, often address weakness rather than build, extend market strengths

9. There Must be Another Way to Position?

10. Teaching/Pedagogy Based Positioning- Why • The central role that teaching quality plays in market perception means that mismanagement is unlikely to be compensated for by good management in other areas. • Research in advanced countries shows a central factor in parent decision making in selecting provider is the quality of teaching and associated benefits. • In an age when decisions of accepting parents significantly shaped by teaching and learning as it applies to their child, management of teaching/pedagogy is critical to school reputation.

11. Teaching/Pedagogy Based Positioning and School Choice

12. Positioning based on Parent Choice (motivators) Top 10 motivators in selecting a school today How to Engage Effectively with Modern Parents 2009- 100 AHISA schools invited to participate nationally (The Knowledge Partnership)

13. Pedagogy and Positioning: A Market Opportunity • LESS reliance on visual brand identity than behaviors, teaching, staff, services, courses (more appropriate for schools as experiential in nature and W.O.M recommendation). • MORE related to core ‘business’ (staffing, teaching, learning,) e.g. a vision based pedagogy that translates into positioning. • MAKE positioning not just limited to marketing communications but aligned to choice factors through conscious investment and messaging (e.g. teaching quality). • MAKE institutional focused marketing just part of the story. Granular and compelling evidence about quality of teaching description as it relates to student learning. • ENHANCE data intelligence and systematic performance analysis increasingly a strategy requirement.

14. What Does Education Market Positioning Involve? Building success in markets. How is this best done? 1. Identifying the education experience and its outcomes/benefits (strategy) 2. Marketing/communicating how this fits with markets (rhetoric). 3. So, a holistic and integrated view which means schools ‘what they do’ plus ‘what they say’.

15. An Effective Strategy in a Competitive Market 20 YEARS OF ANALYSIS: • A clarity of vision • A professional managerial approach • Willingness to invest strategically in assets to deliver vision (e.g.10 years) • Determination not to embark on anything unless to highest standards (applies to services as well as academic activity).

16. An Effective Strategy in a Competitive Market • One of first issues to build effective positioning is selection of market messages or propositions to underpin a desired positioning. • Schools are effectively positioned by highlighting how they deliver valued benefits that are not matched by direct competitors. • It is incumbent on a school to effectively position– explaining value, what makes them different and effective. This is a benefit to parents/students as it facilitates choice based on their own preferences for learning styles etc.

17. Strategic Process Align Your Teaching/Pedagogy Strengths Key Motivations/Choice Factors

18. Positioning as Strategy… • Create a proposition to appeal to your target segments and “position” accordingly • Cannot simply be based on communications • Invest disproportionately in what that underpins proposition • Deliver on the promise, measure and utilise to stimulate word of mouth

19. Developing Effective Positioning by Pedagogy- Development Metrics • Choice and Motivation Alignment • Value • Sustainable • Authentic • Applicability

20. Taking a Position to the Market: No to Megaphone Marketing “SHOUTING”. Schools that feel the need to shout are considered to be brand egotists and less likely to be parent/student centered.

21. Market Communications: Lessons from the Field • Investing in traditional marketing communications is unlikely in itself to enhance positioning or indeed reputation. • As well as providing the prospect with factual information needed to make a choice there needs to be the qualitative and emotive positioning content to encourage them to choose. • The positioning (reason for choosing this school over all others) must be relevant and thus align with one of the key drivers (one of the top 2 ideally). • Once this issue has been agreed it needs to be communicated in meaningful ways. How can it be illustrated, exemplified, brought to live, made convincing.

22. Example: How to Position Claims of ’Teaching Quality’

23. Start an Internal Positioning Discussion- Pedagogy and Teaching Quality • First, audit the data the school already has (or could access externally for modest cost/effort) to populate agreed metrics • Second, to decide whether residual gaps in data should be filled by initiating new processes internally or commissioning research • Third, to decide what weight to give to each agreed measure/metric (or cluster of measures).

24. Evidence Led Process to Build Positioning by Pedagogy • Mapping competitor messaging • Secondary evidence e.g. required university, graduate skills • Alumni • Students • Prospective students • Parents • Debriefing for staff/exploration • Concept checking – current students

25. Thank You