Hidden branding opportunity: Parent/Teacher conferences

Perhaps no venue offers a school district a more attentive audience than a parent/teacher conference.

Those who know their student is doing well show up to hear the accolades from staff members, while those with a struggling child are hoping to pick up information that will unlock a better school experience for their youngster.

Of course, time is short during conferences and the focus is on sharing information about each individual student and answering the questions of parents. Nothing should interrupt the free flow of that dialogue.

However, it’s important not to miss out on the opportunity to further your district’s brand with this captive audience through subtle messaging carried out in material that is distributed.

For example, if you provide information at conferences about web-related study resources that might be helpful to struggling students, pass out that information on a sheet of paper titled, “X SCHOOL DISTRICT has researched the options and recommends the following websites as study resources.” Or, you might go to the other end of the spectrum and present a sheet highlighting outside study opportunities for gifted students.

The branding comes when you highlight (briefly, of course) the district’s efforts in identifying and recommending these resources. It’s probably a subtle shift from what you may be doing right now – handing out a sheet with quality websites listed. But, in that shift is the brand-building opportunity.

What else could you do to further your brand when attentive parents come for a visit this Spring?

Turning patrons into partners, step four: Refine

As you move through the coming school year seeking to turn patrons into partners, you might encounter some bumps on your journey.

Maybe a topic isn’t working out as well as you might have hoped. Or maybe the news is good, it’s just that there’s not much to say very often. Or you might have identified a topic that’s clearly even more powerful.

If that occurs, it’s perfectly acceptable to Refine your approach and consider switching out a topic or two.

Because you won’t be starting the year with some grand announcement that “These are the stories we are going to be focused on this school year,” your target audience isn’t likely to notice that you’ve stopped talking about a particular topic (especially if you are as disciplined in selecting the news as we recommended in the Report step).

The only caution here is not to go to the well more than once or twice during the school year. The reason is simple: If you swap out your original four topic areas with four new ones, how is that any different than just flooding the market with news release after news release?

Your patrons will be more likely to become partners if you give them a handful of topics to follow, and you make certain that everything you say on those subjects moves the story forward.

Turning patrons into partners, step three: Report

After you Engage your patrons more actively then ever before, and Define your short list of targeted, brand-building news, the next obvious step is to Report updates from that news list.

While this step would seem to be rather obvious, how you accomplish it is not quite a no-brainer. In fact, you might end up losing traction with those patrons you’d like to turn into partners if you look at this as a challenge that can be solved on sheer volume.

Rather, your focus should be on finding and delivering quality, meaningful news that builds on previous stories on each subject, rather than simply on churning out media releases, Facebook postings, and Twitter announcements in the hope that something gets noticed.

In other words, be rigid as you consider an update you might want to distribute. What makes this news? Who will care? Does this help further the ongoing brand story we want to tell?

One other note: Don’t be shy about rehashing some previous ground in each story. For example, if one of your topic areas is student achievement, you might want to refresh your target audience’s memory on the subject by highlighting your achievements to date, plans that are in place and so on.

Vary your approach so it doesn’t read like boilerplate (and don’t mention every piece of background, every time). Just don’t ignore the fact that most people are only going to pay scant attention to each individual story, so the easier you can make it for them to connect the dots, the better your chances to get noticed.

Turning patrons into partners, step two: Define

Once you’ve identified ways to strategically enhance two-way engagement with your patrons, the next step in turning those patrons into partners is to narrow the focus on your outbound communications.

Specifically, you need to Define a small set of topics (no more than four) that will be part of the ongoing story you tell during the coming school year. These topics will not be the only news you provide to patrons, of course, but they will be the subjects you believe will have meaningful news opportunities throughout the year.

There are two reasons this definition step is critical.

First, by identifying a list of the highest profile – most brand-building – news opportunities, you will have a much better chance at catching the eye of those who only pay modest attention at the moment. It’s the simple principle of repetition; if this audience (who likely defaults somewhat positive, but isn’t terribly passionate one way or the other) sees, for example, a series of stories about student achievement during 2010-2011, eventually those news tidbits will make an impression.

Remember that the idea here is not to create zealots, but merely to build more partners who think the district is doing a good job. Keeping the story list short and focused will do just that.

Second, defining your key subjects for the year is a great way to build internal discipline. Again, it’s not that you don’t feature other stories. It’s just that your focus should stay on the three or four subjects that build a compelling story over time, and you should spend the bulk of your communication resources determining where, when and how to get that word out there.

What brand-building stories do you have to tell in the coming school year?

Turning patrons into partners, step one: Engage

When patrons turn into partners, they become more actively engaged with a school district’s news and information and develop a greater sense of connection – whether or not they are actually connected. This doesn’t mean they become automatic raving fans of every decision you make, just that they are more in tune with your thinking.

Step one in this process is to find opportunities to Engage your patrons in a regular program of information sharing (from you) and process checking (from them).

In other words, whenever you have an event, activity or some opportunity to connect with patrons, your school district should go beyond the agenda and find a natural methodology that allows you to provide updates on current news and/or alerts on what’s happening in the future.

At the same time, you should encourage patrons to share their feedback on these issues or any topic via e-mails or phone calls to a targeted person within the district. Ideally, there should be someone who is a logical point of contact for the subject being discussed, but there should also be a general person whose name and e-mail address become synonymous with feedback. It’s sort of like the “reader’s representative” at your local newspaper; when in doubt, he or she’s the person to go to when you have an idea, concern or comment.

Don’t worry about being overly formal with either half of the equation. The idea is more to make it part of your district’s DNA, rather than to gather precise data that you slap on a graph for tracking purposes over time. To Engage means getting your message out and reading the tea leaves.

Objective for the coming year: Turn patrons into partners.

With the new school year rapidly appearing in your school district’s windshield, now’s the time to be planning how you will turn you patrons into partners during 2010-2011.

What’s the difference? A patron is a taxpayer, who gives only scant attention to the goings on in your district and, therefore, must be roused from his or her slumber whenever you need participation and support. A partner, on the other hand, is someone who has more than a passing knowledge and who sees the school district as an important component in your community.

Having a current student in one of your schools doesn’t automatically make one a partner, nor does the lack of a current connection (via a district student in the family) automatically mean someone is a patron.

Understanding this is important, because it helps a school district keep its edge and avoid assuming that anyone defaults to being “on our side.” Treating everyone as if you covet their interest and advocacy (and assuming that neither is present) is the way to succeed in this patron to partner evolution.

In the days to come, we’ll present an outline for how to do just that during the coming school year.

A brand strong enough to withstand an onslaught of vuvuzelas

If you’ve been watching the World Cup (sorry, the 2010 FIFA World Cup™), then you’ve been witness to the same stunning athletic skill and questionable officiating that can be found at any major sporting event. And, your ears have been assaulted by the native noisemaker of choice, the vuvuzela.

This swarm of bees in a trumpet shape dominates the audio on every broadcast to the point that one longs for the sound of off-key revelers you hear on English Premier League games. Broadcasters and some players have complained about the deafening roar. FIFA’s response: Get used to it.

Specifically, they have said that the noisemakers are part and parcel of soccer events in South Africa, and if it isn’t bothering the spectators on site enough to make them stop on their own, they don’t plan on intervening. (One can only imagine what a “vuvuzela patdown” at the gates would be like…)

The message here for school districts and others is that the World Cup brand is so strong that they aren’t listening to what they consider the minority, but are instead playing to the masses who – they believe – don’t care.

Remember that the next time a “frequent flyer patron” fills up your e-mail or voicemail with his or her own version of vuvuzela noise. Ask yourself, “Is this a commonly held view, or a minority opinion?” and react accordingly.

American Express does branding right.

In terms of customer service, I’ve rarely found anyone that’s the equal of American Express.

Their people on the phone have a personality, they don’t try to sell you extra stuff when you call with a question, comment or concern (although they’re not afraid to use the “you know I see X about your account, did you know have Y?” approach), and they always check to make sure they’re not missing anything before they disconnect the call. Great stuff.

But, I recently had an experience with them that tops the mundane and is worth sharing.

Specifically, Delta Airlines online checked bag system (which lets you save a whopping $2.00 per bag if you use that system rather than involve a human in the process at the airport) went snafu on us earlier this year, and charged us an extra $296.00. The Queen of England wouldn’t need that many checked bags, but nobody at the counter could do anything about it, and we were told, “Don’t worry. It only charges you for the bags you actually check.”

Wrong.

So, I called American Express and explained the situation. They got on the phone with Delta and hooked up a three-way call so that they could hear what Delta was telling me and record it appropriately.

In true long story short fashion, the situation was resolved and our card was credited for the bogus amount, once Delta had all the paperwork from us to show that we had only checked three bags total.

I thought that was the end of it. But, lo and behold, yesterday a thank you note arrived from the person at American Express that I had been talking to…thanking me for letting her help with this dispute.

I was completely taken aback by this. I was the one who should be doing the thanking (which, of course, I did while I was on the phone with her). But, sending me a thank you note under these circumstances was brand building in its best form.

They know that doing this further reinforces their position as the best choice in my billfold for credit transactions. Smart. Smart. Smart.

Tax messages should be about value. Always.

I once had a Board of Education member ask me if our company had “ever worked with a district where the patrons thought they paid too little in taxes.”

The answer, of course, was a polite “no.”

But, our research has shown a steady message over the last 18 years that it’s less about the actual tax figure than it is about what the patron is getting for his or her investment in your district.

Branding studies constantly affirm that consumers will pay more for brands that they believe are better. So, what have you done (or said) recently to reinforce to your patrons that their investment in your school district is a good value?