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Marketing Best Practices: Me’ah. Rich Feczko, Hebrew College. Our Goal for the next 30 minutes. Understanding your product (Me’ah as my example) Assessing your market Targeting your message Approaches and tactics. Me’ah - Raising the bar in Adult Jewish Education.
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Marketing Best Practices: Me’ah Rich Feczko, Hebrew College
Our Goal for the next 30 minutes • Understanding your product (Me’ah as my example) • Assessing your market • Targeting your message • Approaches and tactics
Me’ah - Raising the bar in Adult Jewish Education • Unique collaboration with our Federation, the Combined Jewish Philanthropies • Me’ah began in 1994, in Boston with 2 classes • Today over 40 locations • More then 1000 students • Over 2500 graduates
What is Me’ah? “A two year program of study that immerses you in core Jewish texts, supplemented by scholarly analysis. You will grapple with concepts representing the historical, cultural and political movements from four eras—biblical, rabbinic, medieval and modern. For approximately 100 hours of class time (Me'ah means "100" in Hebrew) you'll have a chance to read, think and open your mind to 3,000 years of the Jewish Conversation.”
Me’ah – Product Characteristics • Designed as an enabler of transformation • Runs as partnership with local institutions • Taught by Jewish studies scholars over two years and 100 hours of intense study • Typically sold as a “site” program with a site fee and local funding support • Students pay tuition $500-$895 depending on local support
Can you crisply describe your product? • To yourself • To your customer • Distinguishing characteristics • The elevator speech • Easy to “get” but unique
Question- who is the “buyer” of Me’ah? • Community • Federation • JCC • Foundations • Site • Rabbi • Board • Adult Education committee • Potential students
What do we know about our current students? • Accomplished in personal or professional lives • College educated often with advanced degrees • Recent Life-cycle event • Formal Jewish education typically ended at Bar/Bat mitzvah • But many feel incompetent as Jews
American Jewish Adults – A Composite Identity • Highly educated and skeptical of “old time” religion • Searching for a connection to something larger than themselves • Value family experiences, which are often religious in origin • They want to be part of the tribe but not tribal
Characteristics of Adult Learners • The need to know — adult learners need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it • Learner self-concept —adults need to be responsible for their own decisions and to be treated as capable of self-direction • Role of learners' experience —adult learners have a variety of experiences of life which represent the richest resource for learning. These experiences are however imbued with bias and presupposition • Readiness to learn —adults are ready to learn those things they need to know in order to cope effectively with life situations • Orientation to learning —adults are motivated to learn to the extent that they perceive that it will help them perform tasks they confront in their life situations (See The Modern Practice of Adult Education: From Pedagogy to Andragogy Malcolm Knowles 1988, Cambridge Book Co.)
Transformational Process • Personal • Individuals re-examine beliefs and practice • Institutional • Creates a culture of Jewish learning • Communal • Changes dynamics in community: daily conversations, interests, activities
Who is your buyer? • Individuals • Institutions • Donors or Funders • Are they all buying the same product?
Thinking about Marketing • Fodderware • Less is often more • Hone the message • Your product • Your customer • Have a Call to Action – what do you want them to do?
Reaching a Tipping Point • Understanding your social network • Connectors - wide social circles; the "hubs" of the human network • Mavens - knowledgeable people. People will ask them what they think • Salesmen - charismatic people and good negotiators
Thinking about Tactics • Mailings • Letters • Email • Net • Layering
The Quote “Me’ah is the instrument to this whole resurgence of adult learning in our community…. You can hear it in the conversations people have. I never would have believed we would be “talking Torah” at dinner parties.”