James Shi
Lecturer, Our Kids Media
October, 2022

So far in this series we’ve talked about a few core truths unique to school marketing. If you missed them, catch up here.

In the next few Insiders, we’ll turn to the practical implications of these truths. School marketing isn’t normal. So neither is the way we should measure it.

KEY #6
FAMILIES WON’T MENTION OUR KIDS, OR MOST CAMPAIGNS

To gauge the returns from your Our Kids campaign (or any campaign), you may ask families, “Where did you hear about us?”

This can mislead you, for two reasons:

Families often don’t give the right answer to this question. We’ve seen that again and again. When a family discovers a school on OurKids.net, they’ll report they found the school “online”. Also, families assume this question is about the ads they saw. But they often don’t perceive your presence on Our Kids to be an ad. So they overlook it.
More to the point, the question aims at the wrong thing. It asks families to share how they first discovered you. But this is of minor relevance when marketing a school. After all, families choose you through extended problem solving (KEY #2). Discovering you is only the first of many steps. Families then spend time—a lot of time—getting to know your brand (KEY #3). This is what determines their choice of school—and this is where Our Kids plays the biggest role (KEYS #4 and 5).

Our members found this out first-hand. A few thought Our Kids wasn’t yielding results. We suggested they ask families, “Where did you research on us?” instead of “How did you hear about us?” They discovered Our Kids had a much larger impact on enrolment decisions than they assumed. In fact, some members performed in-depth studies on how families chose them (as opposed to how families found them), which further confirmed the value of Our Kids.

Read the ROI Book

In other news ...

Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability and accessibility

Microsoft (MS) is firmly committed to the values of sustainability and accessibility, and it has been for many years. This came through loud and clear in our interview with Rustom Patel, Microsoft Canada’s Surface Marketing Manager. Rustom spoke to us about the importance Microsoft ascribes to sustainability and accessibility and how the company promotes these values. He also discussed what this looks like in practice through specific MS products.

Boost your open houses

Many schools are hosting their open houses this fall. Please reach out to your account manager to find out how we can generate more interest to your upcoming events.