Remember Your Audience

On May 2, 2009, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC moved into a brand new hospital – that doesn’t look like a hospital

Big, open spaces, bold, vibrant colors, service wings named after animals. Window washers dressed like Superheroes (Spiderman, Batman, etc.) to say “Hello” to the children as they were working on the outside walls of the building.

Designers knew their audience.

Lots of us think that when we talk about PK-12 tuition-charging, faith-based schools, our primary audience is also the children. Teachers are trained to teach children, and our educational system is designed so that one needs to be a teacher before they can be a school administrator because they have experience teaching. Consequently, that focus on the children can continue as a professional teacher progresses into administrative leadership.

The lament of most administrators today is “I wasn’t trained for this” when it comes to the aspects of advancement (Asset Management, Retention, Marketing, Enrollment and Development). They wanted to impact children, and when you get to be an administrator, you’re all about the business of education, and long for those moments when you see the “lightbulb” shine in a student when they realize a concept.

But we all need to be life-long learners, since there are lots of things that most of us aren’t “trained for.”

From the “other duties as assigned” clause in a job description, to the birth of a new addition to the married couple that hasn’t celebrated their first anniversary yet, there are many things in our lives that we are called to do, but feel that we are not equipped to handle. When we feel this way, and, especially, become overwhelmed with the challenges of it all, we tend to focus attention on the things we know well.

As for the successful school, children are important, since you must have a quality school before you have a quality faith-based school, AND you also have to balance its educational quality with financial responsibility.

Most importantly, if we are of the “I can’t do this” mindset when it comes to the challenges of school administration, then we are not following the sentiment expressed in Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.”

But back to the audience.

As a principal or advancement professional, if we think our primary audience is the children, we are only partially correct.

If you’re a teacher, your primary audience is the children. If you’re in an administrative position, however, your primary audience is the parent/guardian community.

Part of the presentations I do regarding marketing point to one fact that tends to bring attendees to an “aha” moment (what I like to call ephiphanicity) when we talk about who parents are, since one of the primary rules of marketing is to “Know Your Audience.” I like the word “audience” better than the usual phrase, “Know Your Market,” especially since it’s the word “market” that begs the question, “What do you mean by that?”

With that in mind, I created a text that breaks marketing into a 12-step process, providing the background necessary to put together a marketing plan specifically for your school. As a bit of key pre-knowledge, you need to come to the realization that your primary audience consists of parents of young children that are now Millennials. Generation X, those who preceded the Millennials were the ME Generation. They’re now giving the “what in it for me” drill to college administrators…and isn’t it interesting that colleges are now having difficulty with enrollment and finances! The GenX wants to know what’s in it for THEM…NOT necessarily for their children. This was a strong driver of the “dry cleaning parents” (those who dropped their kids off at school and then picked them up, expecting the school to give them breakfast and take care of them after the school day ended) and the “helicopter parents” (those who doted on “their kids” and wanted to watch everything they were doing).

The current generation of parents, the Millennials, have more of a community orientation, and rather than “What’s in it for me” want to know “What’s in it for us?”

They are also more savvy in the ways of technology, have college degrees, and are very aware of the customization and immediacy provided by technology today. What does this mean for your school? If your school doesn’t make them go “Whoa,” they may very well home school their children and use, or even create, the technology necessary to do so.

Therefore, while it’s good to have information in your brochure and literature to appeal to these parents, the majority of people you are trying to attract are going to be looking at your school’s Web site and be more concerned with how your policies, procedures, governance, and pedagogy will affect them, rather than just their children.

With this in mind, if you’re still saying, “What about those families that don’t have computers,” that’s a great red flag during the admissions interview – especially with advent of and rapidly evolving nature of AI. If the parents don’t have a computer, then their children are most likely not going to do well. Further, remember that the little device they hold in their hand and talk to people on, play music on, watch videos on and troll social media on are little hand-held computers.

So, when you say your school will provide a caring atmosphere for your child, that’s good – because good parents do that for their children. But when you say your child will excel, you’d best be careful – since your definition of “excel” and the parents’ definition of “excel” may be drastically different.

Sadly, If you say that a Catholic or Christian school education will equip their child to be a future leader in the faith, it may not spur many parents to enroll their child. Granted, it sounds good to pastors, boards and benefactors, but if there are no children in the school because you can’t reach the heart (notice I didn’t say the mind because this is an emotional decision, and not a logical one) of your potential parents, your mission has not been fulfilled.

The good news is that the tide is starting to turn, which has been fueled by the aftermath of the pandemic. The bad news is that it’s a completely new direction that no one’s ever been down before. To paraphrase an opening line from a famous TV series, we are called “To boldly go where no one has gone before.”

In times like these, it’s good to remember that God doesn’t call the equipped…he equips the called.

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