Silver Bullet #1: Marketing Will Save Us!

Overheard at a board meeting:

“We need to market better.  If all of the full pay families in our market knew how great our school or college really is, we would have full enrollment and even waitlists!”

Wow.  If I had a dime, as they say.  Every good independent school or college is always seeking the silver bullet.  And, in this case, it is marketing.  They assume that — if they can just get their messaging, identity and communications right — it will naturally add up to full enrollment and healthy fiscal operations.  From our lived experience?  Bad assumption.  It doesn’t work that way.

This is perhaps the most common silver bullet in our industry:  great marketing will save the school.  As a result, these schools place undue pressure on their advancement and strategic enrollment management people to find “more full pay families”, building aggressive marketing campaigns to sustain their operations. Heck, there are even professional development seminars aimed at finding more full pay families.  That, alone, should tell you that the problem is not message but price to market fit.

Private schools and colleges will go — and have historically gone — to distant lengths to use operational solutions to fix systemic problems. Rather than looking closely at market to product fit, they seek for a simple silver bullet to solve their enrollment and financial challenges.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Marketing plays an important role in enabling and communicating an excellent identity and value proposition.  We support and help schools and colleges do just that.  But, better promotions and messaging will not overcome a poor product-market fit.

Next week?  Silver bullet #2.  Any idea what it is?