In our previous webinar, the Strategies 360 Education and Research team shared research trends and tips on telling your story to your audience. The Digital Media webinar built on that information, sharing how to reach your audience where they are.

Below is an overview of digital marketing in education, including the tools available to school districts and nonprofits. We also share three tips on utilizing digital media to reach your community.

 The Benefits of Education Marketing 

• Target specific demographics, behaviors, geographic areas and interests and create awareness and drive participation in educational programs. 

• Digital media ads are cost-effective and are a data-driven way to measure ROI and campaign performance. 

Types of Ads  

• Search Ads: Appear on search engines when users search for relevant keywords. 

• Display Ads: Visual ads displayed on websites within ad networks like Google Display. 

• Social Media Ads: Ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, NextDoor, TikTok, and LinkedIn. 

• Video Ads: Ads that play before, during, or after online videos, often used on YouTube. 

• Native Ads: Ads that blend with platform content, such as sponsored articles or in-feed ads. 

Top 3 Digital Marketing Trends  

1. Content Marketing & Storytelling – Start a blog to address common questions, share tips, and highlight success stories of students and teachers. 

Tips: 

• Consistency is key. 

• Use a mix of text, images, and videos to maximize engagement. 

• Optimize your content for search engines to increase reach and visibility. 

 Leveraging Social Media and Building Community 

Run targeted campaigns on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn to highlight campus life, student achievements, and academic programs. You can also create and nurture online communities through Facebook Groups or forums. 

Tips: 

• Interact with your audience through comments, likes, and shares.  

• Encourage your audience to share their stories and experiences. This provides content and builds authenticity. 

Data-Driven Decision Making
Use analytics tools to gather insights and tailor your strategy based on audience behavior. Using data ensures messages are relevant and compelling. Email marketing platforms and marketing automation tools help deliver personalized content. 

Tips 

• Set Clear KPIs (key performance indicators) to measure success and make data-driven adjustments. 
• Use A/B testing to experiment with content, messaging, and formats. Optimize based on the results. 

Review the full presentation here.

Want to know more about your community or build a digital and communications strategy? Let’s talk. Email us at edteam@strategies360.com 

The post Key Strategies and Tips from the S360 Education and Digital Marketing Webinar appeared first on Strategies 360.

Join our webinar on Wednesday, August 14, with Strategies 360’s Digital Media and Education teams.

 Learn: 

• Three trends you’ll want to take advantage of that will boost your digital presence 

• How to utilize digital media ads to expand your reach in your community 

• How digital media can help you refine your messages and reach targeted audiences 

RSVP today!

WEBINAR DETAILS: 

When: August 14 at 12-12:30 p.m. PST 

Where: Zoom. Our team will send out a calendar invite to the emails listed in the RSVP with a Zoom link on August 13.

The post Want to expand your community reach? appeared first on Strategies 360.

Do you wonder what your community is thinking about education? You don’t have to wonder – Strategies 360 has the answers.

Through our work with school districts and education organizations, we’re a trusted source to help our clients learn the opinions of their target audiences and strategies for reaching them. Below are trends we’re seeing and tips to tell your story. Please reach out to edteam@strategies360.com with questions on how to develop your school communications and research strategy.

Research Trends

Early childhood education and K-12 education

• Washington residents strongly support early childhood learning, favoring services and tuition-free preschool programs.
• Satisfaction with Washington’s local school districts is higher than with satisfaction with public education at the national level. Although, increasing political partisanship and pandemic-related challenges led to declines in satisfaction with schools’ quality.

Higher education and workforce development

• While higher education is valued, alternative paths like vocational training are gaining favor.
• Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses are increasingly attractive, focusing on hands-on learning and industry partnerships to connect students with in-demand jobs and life skills.

Curriculum concerns

• Identity-based complaints and curriculum concerns are overblown and generally voiced by a loud minority.
• Residents value equity and supporting students who struggle more academically or because of systemic barriers as long as this effort is NOT at “the expense” of children overall.

Tax sensitivity

• Tax sensitivity is one of the greatest impediments to acquiring new funding for schools.

Specifics are powerful

• Over-explaining details are important: providing justification, laying out concrete benefits, and/or communicating fiscal impact in difference of average individuals’  taxes.

Communication Tips to Tell Your Story

Be Specific

• Research tells us that people want more details. They want to see what the return on their tax investment is/would be.
• Sharing specific information in bite-sized pieces gets more traction and is easier to grasp.
• Example: “LHS has 70+ exterior doors, making it difficult to secure the school, if needed.”

Connect Student Skills

• There is broad support for CTE classes. When making the connection between a program and the skills – say what the skills are and how students can use them for future success.
• Just saying this class prepares students for the future doesn’t work for most audiences.
• Example: “Every student who takes the Intro to Baking class develops skills to present their work publicly, work under a deadline, and work safely with their peers.”

Share Updates Regularly

• Close the loop after you asked for input/action/investment.
• Share updates about levy/bond – funded programs and projects with a regular frequency.
• Example: “Washington High School got a new roof last month [pic]. Thanks to the support of our community, this new school is #DistrictNameBondFunded”

Use Digital Marketing

• Digital ads are a cost-effective way to advertise and outreach about important action items, sharing good news, recruiting, and more.
• You can target broad, general audiences, parents in a specific school neighborhood, people in an education profession, and more.
• Analytics help you understand your audience, where they get information, and track your investment and the performance of a campaign.
• Example: The top Google response to a search query “kindergarten near me” can lead directly to your district’s enrollment page.

Please reach out to edteam@strategies360.com with questions on how to develop your school communications and research strategy.

The post Education Research Trends and Tips to Tell Your Story appeared first on Strategies 360.

Do you wonder what your community is thinking about education? You don’t have to wonder – Strategies 360 has the answers.

Through our work with school districts and education organizations, we’re a trusted source to help our clients learn the opinions of their target audiences and strategies for reaching them.

Join the Strategies 360 Education and Research team for a 30-minute webinar where our team of experts will share:

• Education trends from our research across Washington state and the West.
• How to develop research-backed communications tools to share your story with the people who need to hear it.

Webinar Details: 
When: Wednesday, May 29 at 12:00 pm PST
Where: Zoom RSVP: https://bit.ly/3wh6vrA
We will email you the Zoom link one day before the webinar.
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Learn more about the S360 Education Team and how we support school districts to build connections with their community by sending us an email at edteam@strategies360.com

The post You’re Invited! Join S360 to learn the latest public opinion trends to help tell your education story! appeared first on Strategies 360.

“My high school teachers taught me to expand my worldview, trust my potential, and have courage to enter the unknown. Thanks to their encouragement and guidance, I reached further in life than I would have on my own. Thank you to all teachers for mentoring young minds and supporting the future generations!” – Maria Bojórquez-Gómez 

“Thank you to all the teachers out there who are working hard to support students. Everything you do makes a difference, whether it’s running a club or a special program, taking time to answer a question, or even just being a supportive ear. It’s all the little things that make a difference for our students. “- Stephanie Bragdon 

“Through my experiences both as a parent and during my visits to various classrooms with Strategies 360, I have witnessed firsthand the positive impact teachers have on their students. Whether it’s offering support, encouragement, and patience to a young reader, or equipping high school students with the skills that lead to success after graduation, teachers truly unlock each student’s potential and help them discover their strengths and skills. Thank you to teachers for all you do for students!” – Craig Kanaya 

“The teachers in my life have been so influential. From my own teachers who encouraged me explore my passions, to my mother, sister-in-law, and dear friends who have committed their lives to educating the next generation, to my son’s teachers who help him feel confident in his learning journey – I can’t express how deeply grateful I am for the great impact teachers make on all of our lives.”  – Alyson Marchi-Young 

“Educators are vital to our society and our democracy. As a former educator, I’ve witnessed the challenges and triumphs they face on a daily basis. They are among the most caring and hardworking professionals, and I have nothing but respect for them. I’m so proud to work for a company, like Strategies 360, that works to ensure that districts, educators, and students have the resources and infrastructure they need to be successful!” – Jessica McBride 

“I will always remember that one teacher who believed in me before I believed in myself and helped me see all the things I was capable of. I think about how much more teachers like that could do with more resources and better facilities and how much it would mean for students. That’s what centers my work as I support schools and districts. Thank you to all the teachers doing the most with so little. You are truly superheroes! – Rachel Nakanishi 

“My Mom was a longtime teacher, and I’m truly fortunate to have had an educator raise me.  She instilled a lifelong thirst to learn and gave me a greater appreciation for how hard teachers work.  To celebrate my Mom’s long and distinguished career as a teacher, I salute all educators during Teacher Appreciate Week.” – Andy Winer

The post Celebrating Teachers! appeared first on Strategies 360.

Post Election To-Dos

Alright, you made it, two grueling election cycles are in the rearview mirror. Washington’s school districts and schools have recently gone to voters to seek support for their teachers, staff, and students with various requests. Now is a great time to keep your community outreach going! Here are three tips for ways to continue communicating with your community.

1. Continue to communicate about funding measures: It’s vital to maintain transparency and consistency in your communication. Your community is engaged and in the habit of seeing this information from you if you ran in April or February. Build on this momentum and continue to update your community by:

   1. Thanking the community for their support of levy-funded programs and incorporating a hashtag for funding.

   2. Sharing updates about ongoing and completed facility improvements funded by levies and bonds.

   3. Providing regular progress reports on the implementation of levy and bond-funded projects. We’ve seen and supported the creation of annual community reports, neighborhood postcards, and press releases in local media.

2. Utilize paid digital media ads: Leveraging digital media ads is a cost-effective strategy to engage a broader audience beyond your current followers. These ads should be a component of every district’s communications strategy. We recommend highlighting:

   1. Enrollment opportunities and deadlines

   2. Hiring and recruiting

   3. Good news stories and programs like CTE, which continue to be a top priority for many residents.

3. Consider launching a community survey or public opinion poll: You are never more connected to your community than after an election. Take this opportunity to learn about your community:

   1. Do they understand school funding?

   2. Do they understand what levies and bonds fund?

   3. If the measure didn’t pass, what information might have been useful to them?

The goal is to keep the support and engagement going throughout the year and continuing to educate and acknowledge the community about the impact of their investment.

School District Shoutout

We love the use of the hashtag #CPSDPride by the Clover Park School District. These are great examples of sharing with your community the great things students and educators are doing. Here are our favorite posts:

• Celebrating the great work of a teacher and a student at one of their schools and the support that have made them successful.

• A media story about a teacher making a difference in the lives of students.

News from Strategies 360

We’re excited to introduce a new member of our research team! David Kornahrens, brings an impressive breadth of experience spanning 10+ years in qualitative and quantitative research, advising on messaging and strategy in a diversity of industries, locations, and topics.

Whether it’s through public opinion polls or focus groups, we help you gain a deeper understanding of your community’s priorities and perceptions.

In case you missed it, last summer, we completed and presented a statewide poll about the state of education in Washington.

You can expect an invite from David and the Education Team in late May to a webinar on education research trends and tools to tell your story.

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Learn more about the S360 Education Team and how we support school districts to build connections with their community by sending us an email at edteam@strategies360.com.

The post An Educated Approach: Quick Education Tips from Strategies 360 appeared first on Strategies 360.

In a diverse state like Washington, the landscape of public education is as varied as its regional boundaries.

A Shifting Landscape

Washington residents offer mixed ratings of their local public schools. While perceptions vary widely by district, an analysis of statewide survey data reveals significant demographic differences in perceptions of schools driven largely by ideology and parental status. Regionally, residents in Eastern Washington tend to be slightly more content with the quality of education in their region compared to their Western Washington counterparts. Understanding the demographics of your community is critical to effective communications.

It is evident that satisfaction with schools has dipped in comparison to pre-pandemic years, a trend supported by S360’s district-specific data. However, the study also reveals that more residents believe their school district aligns with their values and priorities than those who feel otherwise, with Eastern Washington respondents showing greater alignment.

While these ratings also vary by district, residents across the state tend to think their local schools are doing a good job maintaining buildings and facilities, keeping students safe, and teaching core academics like math, reading, and writing; they are less likely to rate schools as doing a good job communicating with the community, teaching career and technical skills, or teaching life skills like collaboration and time management. Eastern Washington residents also give higher overall ratings across most of these metrics than their Western Washington peers.

School Funding Measures

Washington residents hold nuanced views of school funding. Though a majority believe their district “needs more funding than it gets right now,” few volunteer to pay higher property taxes to achieve that end. Many residents now view school funding measures as a ‘tradeoff’ that leads them to ask what they (or, what students in their community) are ‘getting’ for the money. To that end, there is a clear need for districts to communicate their need for community funding and the concrete benefits funding measures provide students and schools.

When it comes to funding priorities, residents place a high value on mental health support, safety enhancements, career and technical education (CTE) opportunities, and technology updates; new school construction on its own is sometimes a tougher sell. CTE opportunities are particularly important for residents most skeptical of school districts.

Strategic Communication and Community Outreach

The survey finds that the ways people get news and information about schools largely align with the ways they want to get news and information; in other words, there’s no major mode or source of outreach that districts are currently missing. Parents tend to rely most on emails, texts, and social media outreach directly from schools and districts.  It’s no surprise that non-parents are harder to reach with regular communications; more of their information about schools comes from public sources like TV and newspapers. Understanding these gaps can guide districts in better reaching their communities and addressing their specific needs.

The full analysis includes detailed insights, demographic breakdowns, and actionable recommendations. Please contact Piper Sandler for more information.

Piper Sandler is also available to support cost-effective school financing solutions.

The Strategies 360 Education and Research teams are available to support strategic communications and research in your district.

The post The State of Education in Washington appeared first on Strategies 360.

By Stephanie Bragdon

The need for cost-effective and impactful tools to increase student enrollment is growing. Over the past two years, Strategies 360’s has developed and implemented paid-digital media campaigns in partnership with school districts to boost enrollment. As enrollment declines, the service is in demand.

Digital media ads are a powerful tool to reach individuals who may not be receiving information through traditional channels and ensures specific audiences, including parents with young children looking for kindergarten or new families who moved to the district, see your message.

Below are key steps to consider when developing a campaign. We’re always here to help. If you have questions, contact us at edteam@strategies360.com.

Step 1: Define your audience

While this is straightforward for kindergarten and new student enrollment ads, it’s more intricate when looking at individual programs.

We recently partnered with a school district that offers a dual-language program and was looking to increase the number of native language-speaking students enrolled.

We identified our target audience as native Spanish-speaking parents. We created a digital media strategy with a focus on ads in Spanish to reach those parents within the district’s community. These ads served 708,153 impressions and led to over 6,000 clicks to the website. We saw that on Google Search, Twitter, and Display, the Spanish ads showed higher-than-average results.

Step 2: Research and message development

Through running numerous campaigns for school districts, we know what works to engage a variety of audiences. Some of the clients we’ve worked with include small districts, unique programs (dual-language, virtual academies), rural districts, and districts with declining enrollment.

To craft the messages, we look at past ads that we’ve run across the state and identify trends that led to above-average results. We work with district staff to articulate key messages and programs to highlight in the ads – working to identify the unique value of each program. We also look at survey and poll data if applicable.

For the dual-language program, we spoke to Native Spanish-speaking parents to understand their needs and potential concerns. District staff helped define the program and its value to students and families, and we utilized our Cultura cultural engagement team to work to craft Spanish messages that would speak directly to that community.

Step 3: Develop the plan

After conducting research, we develop a plan that usually utilizes the following digital channels:

• Search ads: the ads people see when searching for key terms like “schools near me” or “kindergarten.” These ads make sure anyone searching in your community finds your enrollment page at the top, even if they don’t know they are searching for your school or district
• Display ads: Online ads that pop up on websites when someone is online reading news, shopping, or playing a game on their phone. These ads build awareness for your district and enrollment page and are served to readers on the pages they are already reading.
• YouTube ads: Short 7-12 second videos that play on YouTube as an ad before the intended video. We identify specific audiences to receive the video, and viewers can click through to watch more or go to your enrollment page.
• Social media ads: The district can post organic content and “boost” it. A little money can reach an audience beyond your social media followers. The S360 team can also create Facebook, Instagram, and NextDoor ads to reach the larger community who may not be following the district’s social media channels. One dollar spent typically results in 50 views.

Step 4: Analyze and optimize

S360’s analysts pull specific data around top-performing creative content, audience segments, marketing channels, keywords, and any other relevant metrics that will impact overall campaign goals. We can see what’s working in real-time. And work with you to view your results at least bi-weekly and adjust your messages and creative as necessary.

A paid digital media campaign is an important tool in the communications toolbox to help encourage students and families to join your school community. Strategies 360 has the experience and know-how to help you incorporate this cost-effective, impactful tool in your communications plan. Each of our campaigns is unique and customized to your community.

Ready to get started? Contact us at edteam@strategies360.com to learn more.

The post Digital marketing helps boost school, program enrollment appeared first on Strategies 360.

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The Strategies 360 Education Team has been honored to partner with Seattle Public Schools on numerous projects for the past decade. In December 2020, our teams worked together to create and implement a marketing plan to recruit teachers of color to join the district. The work was recently honored with a Golden Achievement Award from the National School Public Relations Association.

Seattle Public Schools (SPS) is the largest school district in the pacific northwest, with enrollment around 50,000 students. SPS is committed to ensuring equitable access to education and has been focused on racial equity for at least ten years, and it was made official in the district’s 2019 strategic plan, Seattle Excellence, which is laser-focused on supporting students “furthest from educational justice” or those students who have historically not been served by public education, beginning with African American and Black boys and teens.

One strategy outlined is to recruit and retain more educators of color, so the diversity of staff more closely aligns to the diversity of the student population. Having teachers reflect the racial or ethnic makeup of their students has proven positive outcomes, especially for students of color. This is a priority that S360 staff care deeply about as our teams across the footprint work to enhance student success through more equitable access and opportunities in education.

Strategies 360 was selected to support a campaign that would engage and recruit diverse teachers and staff. Through S360’s unique combination of tools and expertise, services, and deep experience in school district communications, Seattle Rising: a campaign to recruit teachers of color was launched.

S360 worked in tandem with SPS Communications and Human Resources staff, bringing along our full production studio, video team, communications and marketing content creators and a digital development team to produce and deliver all aspects of the campaign.

S360’s education experts, Lesley Rogers and Rachel Nakanishi, along with Seattle Public Schools communications leader, Beverly Redmond, will be sharing their insights and best practices with school PR staff from around the country at the 2022 NSPRA National Seminar on July 18. Here, we outline how S360 and SPS worked together to implement the Seattle Rising campaign.

Like many school districts around the country, the demographics of the Seattle Public Schools staff and educators do not reflect the diversity of the student population served.

Student Demographics

Staff Demographics

Research shows that all students benefit from having teachers of color. That is especially true for students of color who have better academic performance, improved graduation rates, and are more likely to attend college when they have teachers of color. When Black students have at least one Black teacher by 3rd grade, they’re 13 percent more likely to enroll in college, with two Black teachers, they are 32 percent more likely to go to college; for low‐income Black boys, their on‐time high school graduation rate climbs by nearly 40 percent.

The S360 Education Team has built longstanding, trusted relationships with Seattle Public Schools, as well as our firm’s own commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Our full-service offerings including research, branding, multicultural engagement, and K-12 communications made us uniquely positioned to support this important work. That is why Strategies 360 was brought on board to help Seattle Public Schools develop and launch a new, strategic effort to specifically engage and recruit African American/Black educators to Seattle.

What We Did

In developing the marketing plan, our goal was to position Seattle Public Schools as the district doing some of the nation’s most transformative work. We approached this specific marketing plan using the R-PIE approach: research, planning, implementation, and evaluation.

To understand the experiences, benefits, and challenges of being a Black educator in Seattle, the first step was to interview current educators of color and hear their stories. These conversations were difficult for district staff to hear at times, but important in our work to better understand the current climate for Black educators at SPS. We also held focus groups and interviews with prospective educators in other parts of the country to understand their perceptions of the city and district.

We also audited current district recruiting and marketing efforts, including an analysis of what channels and messaging worked and where there were areas for growth or improvement. Our research included the latest best practices for teacher recruitment and marketing nationally, which we compared to the current district practices

Once the research had given us an understanding of the challenges and opportunities, S360 and SPS met regularly to develop and implement a thoughtful and comprehensive communications plan to support recruitment for the 2021-22 school year and beyond.

Together, we worked to sharpen our messaging, understand our key audiences and competition, and identify the right tools and channels to sharpen our outreach.

Our plan included innovative and creative solutions to reach a younger generation of future teachers. Working with a diverse internal team, and using the information gained from our focus groups, we made sure the work products were culturally appropriate and would resonate with our target audience.  Digital media was an important tool used to test and refine messaging throughout the process. Our team identified that Snapchat was the most frequently used social media for our target audience and leveraged this space in the plan to ensure our messages were connecting with our intended audience.

Implementation included two phases. The first was informing prospective educators about hiring events and increasing the number of Black educators that met with SPS hiring staff and applied for jobs. The second phase of implementation included personalized outreach to those candidates who had expressed interest in working for the district.

The S360 creative team created several tools to support SPS’s presence at hiring fairs and the subsequent outreach. This included creating recruiting kits for both virtual and in-person job fairs; digital marketing ads: search, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Instagram; direct mail pieces for potential recruits who had been contacted at job fairs; content for website, social media, email templates; event kits: Poster, postcard, banner, table tent, stickers.

Our results

The S360 Digital Media team was instrumental in the success of the message testing and the awareness campaign around hiring events. All the paid posts performed above industry benchmark and allowed the team to refine messaging and targeting in real time.

While this work was implemented just as the COVID pandemic was taking off, Seattle Public Schools saw increased attendance of Black educators at their job fairs and in those who applied for jobs at the district. Additional preliminary data shows an increase in teaching staff who identify as educators of color. You can see here that the orange bars are growing. We still have a lot of work to do, but we are so pleased to see this increase in teachers of color, including Black teachers.

The S360 Education Team is here to support school districts as they expand their racial equity work. We can be reached at EdTeam@strategies360.com.

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