Marketing - Schools

[smellyskelly]

Hi All

We have a couple of new products that we wish to market directly to Schools, Colleges and Universaties.

We have no direct Marketing experience.

Have any members got knowledge/experience of marketing to schools or education authorioites they could share with us or perhaps point us in the right direction.

There are 1000's of email addresses available for schools - is this the best way?

Thanks

[dots and spots Jeff]

Right, here goes!

Following from another thread I have been PM'd asking my advice (I'm a Deputy Head) on selling to schools, and have responded to those PMs.

Here is an abridged version of my advice on selling to schools.

First remember that the core business of schools is teaching children. We (teachers) are not sat in an office waiting to be sold to by you. In fact, teachers have very busy days teaching, marking, on lunch/break duty, contacting parents, dealing with the latest piece of government bureaucracy etc. Your sales pitch - whether its by phone, email, flyer or whatever - will eat into valuable time during the school day and you will start your pitch by annoying the teacher as you are wasting their time.

So to sell to schools you need to create the right environment when the teacher has time to consider your pitch and be won over by it, not in the 10 minute break that they have between teaching 8S and 10C. Offer some free training - either at a school's INSET day, or set up a training day for a number teaches from a number of different schools - where you show how your product can be used in the classroom/school.

Just a quick response - hope that's of some use. With more detail of what you're trying to sell to schools I may be able to give a little more advice.

Jeff

[musivarius]

I was the original poster for the enquiry Jeff mentions and this advice was invaluable. It's one of those things that seems so obvious but you have to have it put right under your nose to see it!

This whole approach has a real potential, even if they don't buy at least you're talking to them in an atmosphere which means they could remember what you are offering.

I spent 18 years as a nurse, mostly ITU, and we would get a lot of reps in to demo their tech gear. I can see that however good your product is, trying to interest someone in it in the middle of a working day is not good ;)

[telemax]

Or to put another spin on it. The secretary can be an extremely valuable contact. Often they will forward on emails for you, give messages, perhaps even tell you an email address or a time when things are more convenient.

Jonathan

[smellyskelly]

Hi lawrence

How succesfull was your quest?

Did you speak with teachers/heads via telephone to arrange training/demonstrations ?

Thanks for your comments.....

[srinyvas]

Hai ,
i m from edu promoter and we are the first marketing agency for educational institutions in india , let me know your product through PM

[dots and spots Jeff]

Or to put another spin on it. The secretary can be an extremely valuable contact. Often they will forward on emails for you, give messages, perhaps even tell you an email address or a time when things are more convenient.

Jonathan

True, but my point above still holds.

I do know that one of of our SLT (Senior Leadership Team - good school buzz word) has instructed the secretary to take all calls, emails etc. for him (from sales people - i.e. not parents, other schools etc), tell the caller that she'll pass them on, and then immediately bin them.

I just want those that are spending good money sending promotional material, emails, calls etc. to schools to know that we are swamped by them daily and most end up in file 13.

[Pilfo]

We use www.scemes.com

Pilfo

[musivarius]

Thanks for all the info. I'm waiting on an order of mosaic tiles which are ideal for children to use as they can be cut with scissors and are the correct colours for Roman mosaics. So I'm going to arrange the sessions when they arrive and I can tie them in with the Teachers Pack. At least then the teachers can try those out as well as look at the pack.

The training/demo sessions idea will also be ideal for me to approach museums too. This has been a really difficult area to get into for me so far but I have the products and services which apply to both the exhibit side and the retail (gift shop) side.

Srinyvas, I'll PM you details.

I'll let you know how it goes :)

[I am Wealthy]

Hi Jeff,

i saw your response on selling to schools. My product is more of a delivering sports activities. (Breakfast Club, During and after-school clubs). What will you recommend the best approach to be.

i shall be looking forward to hearing from you.

[Faith28]

If you want to test the school market speak to Tony Attwood from Hamilton House Mailings, and Educational Marketing company that have been doing this sort of thing for many decades.

www.hamilton-house.com

Please ignore the 'look' of the site as it's quite basic. It may not be ascetically rich but really rich in information.

I used their email services where teachers opt-in to a mailing list. Then you get an idea if it's worth while to do a mail shot as you get orders immediately through this method.

Their velocity campaign is ok but I would book the email for a particular group of teachers and then wait for the orders to come through. Literally!