On the importance of listening - and how to do it

For many working in the marketing and communications space, whether that is in schools or elsewhere - and probably for the majority of colleagues with whom we work - there is an assumption that the most important, perhaps only, work we do is creating and diffusing messages about our school, brand or company. It is my belief, however, that all marketing and communication would be improved by applying the maxim attributed to Greek philosopher Epictetus: “We have two ears and one mouth, so that we can listen twice as much as we speak”.

As school marketers, it is our job to understand what our current and future clients want, how they perceive our current provision, whether - at least in the independent school context - that represents appropriate value for the fees we charge, and what the school needs to do or say differently in order to make itself more attractive. While pedagogical colleagues and school leaders may be convinced that they already know what needs to be said, in my experience they are often not the best placed to understand what current and future parents really want from a school, nor what they truly think of the current offer. To get a handle on this, it is critical that marketing teams learn how to elicit this information from both existing parents and those whose children they would like to enrol.

The good news is that there are many, many different ways of gathering this information - some free of charge, others more costly - the most important of which I will outline here.

1. Parent surveys: while it may seem counterintuitive to start with people who have already enrolled, it is critical to remember that word-of-mouth is the number one driver of new enrolment. If your current parent body is dissatisfied, this will translate into a smaller pipeline going forward. Our recommendation is to ensure that you are conducting a full parent survey at least once every two years - ideally annually - both to keep track of where the school is currently delivering or under-delivering so that you can recommend fixes that may be holding you back or double-down on your strengths. These surveys should not only be designed to understand current satisfaction levels with different areas of the school’s provision, but should also find out how important these different areas are. Knowing that parents believe the school food is underwhelming may be interesting in and of itself, but it’s more useful if you also understand the extent to which cafeteria provision actually matters to parents. Ad hoc surveys can also be used to understand specific questions - for example whether your school newsletter is hitting the mark - and provide additional opportunities to demonstrate to parents that their opinion matters. To ensure you get honest feedback, it goes without saying that parents need to be reassured that their responses are anonymous, and outsourcing these surveys to an independent agency can further increase the reliability of responses, as well as removing significant workload from your team.
2. Net Promoter Score and Value For Money surveys: to supplement the more detailed parent surveys, we recommend conducting simple one-question polls on Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Value For Money (VFM) every semester. For those not familiar with NPS, it is a simple metric devised by Bain and Company which asks clients to answer the question “How likely would you be to recommend our school?” on a 0–10 point scale. To calculate the NPS, the percentage of people who answered from 0-6 (considered Detractors) is deducted from the % of people who answered 9 or 10 (Promoters). With a theoretical scale ranging from -100 to +100, any score over 0 is good, a score over 20 is great, and a score over 50 is excellent. In our experience, getting fixated on the specific score isn’t what matters most - especially as the cultural context of your school may mean you have a parental body which is more or less likely to give positive feedback - but rather observing the trend over time as you improve areas of provision that have been outlined as substandard in the full parent survey. While some schools choose to incorporate the NPS metric in their more detailed survey, we recommend posing this question as a standalone, one-question survey, which both increases response rates and elicits a more intuitive gut reaction that we believe makes it more reliable. Similarly, we recommend to ask for a Value For Money rating on the same scale, at the same frequency, and also as a standalone survey, to ensure that you can spot trends if tuition fees (and other costs) are becoming (or already are) a barrier to enrolment.
3. Focus group discussions: to supplement the quantitative surveys - but not to replace them - running focus groups with parents can be a very enlightening exercise. While many research practitioners will preach the importance of running qualitative research exercises before quantitative ones, in our experience this doesn’t really make a huge difference, owing to the relative homogeneity among schools in terms of what they offer and what parents want. While quantitative studies can indicate areas where people are generally satisfied or dissatisfied, focus groups enable you to drill down and understand in more detail why they are happy or unhappy. There is always the caveat with focus groups that the small number of people who can take part may lead to skewed results, as well as the risk that one or two highly opinionated parents may influence the outcomes of the research, but if designed well, ideally run by someone who has some experience moderating groups, and used as one source of input rather than gospel truth, focus group discussions enable you to understand in more detail what it will take to make meaningful and noticeable improvements, or build on areas which are already strengths.
4. One-on-one interviews: to isolate the risks of focus groups being skewed, it is also possible to conduct qualitative research on a one-to-one basis. While more time consuming - especially if you want to achieve a base size that is likely to give you reliable results - these can be appropriate if you are dealing with potentially sensitive topics (e.g. SEN provision) or have parents with particularly strong opinions, who you suspect will influence a focus group. These don’t even have to be conducted as research, per se: keep a track of every individual parent interaction you have, whether that is over a drink at the winter market or summer fair, or during admissions calls. Individually these conversations may carry little weight, but if you are consistently hearing the same themes from a vocal minority, they should be taken into consideration in your communication plans.
5. Social listening: Because word-of-mouth is so important, and because social media is arguably the environment where people feel most at ease expressing their opinions openly, even if they have no specific expertise, understanding what people are saying about your school on platforms such as Facebook is critical. In international school contexts there are often Facebook groups specifically designed for expats and parents, and school choices are a frequent topic of conversation. While you can pay agencies to conduct these social listening exercises for you, in our experience participating openly in such online discussions - and identifying yourself as working for your school - can not only be a great way to understand what people are thinking and saying, but also provides the opportunity to correct misunderstandings and potentially move someone into your admissions funnel.
6. Google and Facebook reviews: in addition to monitoring activity in groups, it’s always worthwhile ensuring you keep an eye on the reviews which are left on your Google Business and Facebook pages, as well as any other comments you may get on posts on other social media. While it is not often possible to have negative reviews removed, they do give you an opportunity to respond, and it’s always useful to understand what your most positive parents are saying in a public forum.
7. Relocation agents, Community Liaison Officers and Human Resources teams: if your school is in a context where expatriates make up a good proportion of your student intake, or where a lot of students hail from a few big companies or diplomatic missions, it is definitely recommended to build strong relationships with the people who are influencing the schooling decisions of incoming staff. Whether that is their company HR department, a relocation company, or the community liaison team of their mission or embassy, those experts can help you understand what questions they are getting, what feedback they are hearing, and also what they themselves say about your school to prospective families. Reach out to these partners regularly, invite them for lunch, keep them up to date about what is happening at your school, and use that opportunity to understand better what the word on the street is about you.
8. Entry and Exit surveys: hopefully your Admissions team are using the opportunity of people filling out forms both to join and leave your school to gather information which you can use to inform your marketing plans. Understanding how people heard about you and what drove them to enrol, as well as why they are leaving and where they are going, can all help you to craft both appropriate messages and develop the most impactful media plan. If your school doesn’t already use these, we would highly recommend putting them in place.
9. Non-joiner analysis: understanding why people who enter your Admissions funnel e.g. to make an enquiry, visit the school, or even go all the way through with an application, but then drop out or decide not to take up an offer of a place, is invaluable. While it isn’t always straightforward to get clear answers, and some parents won’t want any contact with the school once they have decided to enrol their child somewhere else, being able to ask those who showed interest but didn’t convert into an enrolment can provide vital information that may otherwise be missed. Perhaps the parents were entirely convinced by the word-of-mouth conversations they’d had and loved what they saw on your website, and were then put off by a grumpy receptionist or untidy corridors, or maybe they hadn’t realized that you didn’t offer extra-curricular polo lessons or didn’t have a pool…whatever you can learn here can provide useful clues as to what might need tweaking to increase your conversion rates and improve your yield. Given that some parents may be reluctant to give honest feedback on the things that have really put them off, we recommend outsourcing this study to an independent agency, rather than asking Admissions or other colleagues to conduct the study, to increase the likelihood of getting clear feedback (and just in case the issue was the Admissions Officer who dealt with their application!).
10. Brand image and Pricing studies: Last, but by no means least, if your school has sufficient budget, we are big proponents of fielding an independent, external brand image study to understand what people beyond your current word-of-mouth community know and think about your school and those in your competitive set. Starting from brand awareness (do they even know you exist?!), to investigating how your school is perceived with regard to important factors such as educational standards or facilities, and how that stacks up against your competitors, can give an insight that you can’t get in any other way. If well designed, this survey can also understand the ability and propensity of potential parents to pay your fees, and help you either adjust your value proposition or enrolment expectations and target your marketing more efficiently to reach those who can afford your school. These studies don’t have to be wildly expensive, but do need to be designed to reach relevant people (e.g. parents of school aged children) and properly analysed to ensure they give useful and actionable results.

If your school needs help with designing and executing the appropriate plans to ensure you are listening properly to current and prospective parents before you move to communication, please get in touch at michael@magnetic-comms.ch.