5 Marketing Lessons for Teachers (Part 2)
by Guy E. White on 15 August, 2014
Teachers don’t realize that they distinctly operate as two business types: they are in both the hospitality and the media business.
Do you feel like you don’t get the attention or enthusiasm you deserve from your students, administrators, or community? Over the past sixteen years, I’ve run three businesses and personally created over 10 products. I’ve worked with thousands of clients. Here’s what every teacher should know about what I’ve learned in marketing.
In my last post I told you two key marketing lessons that I know will result in great engagement, heightened mastery, and, frankly, far more fun for all parties involved. First, I talked about how they buy into YOU more than they buy into what you are teaching. Second, I talked about how important it is that you explain WHY you do what you do and get students talking about WHY subject X is so important to them.
I want to say upfront that I know that these two items (discussed in more detail here) are not “easy” to implement. If you are a math teacher, it can be exceedingly difficult to craft a message about why math is important to you and get students talking about why math is important to them. This takes sweat!
Here are the final three marketing lessons for teachers:
3. What Kind of Media Company Are You?
When I was a kid, my teacher would go up to this machine with a big wheel and start spinning it. Papers would start churning out of this thing as purple ink got EVERYWHERE. Do you remember these things? When I was five or six years old, I remember walking up to one of my teachers and saying, “Why don’t you create stuff for us to do instead of copying it out of that book?” Pretty vindictive little kid, wasn’t I? I didn’t mean any harm: I just wanted to see what she could create! As far as “media companies” go, she was a copycat. Nearly 90% of her “lessons” were worksheets from that machine.
There are three types of “media companies” that you can be:
First, (see above) the “Lazy Copycat.” I don’t recommend doing this. The Lazy Copycat simply prints out worksheets, hands them to students, and says “I’ll collect them later.” This is not teaching. As far as media companies go, this person is already out of business.
Second, the “Bootstrapper” collects resources from everywhere. They are working hard in the trenches, getting their fingers dirty between the laser printer toner and the keyboard use. They bring lots of great stuff to their students and probably create amazing learning experiences. However, everything looks like it’s from different sources and a bit sloppy.
Finally, the “Media Empire Builder” not only collects amazing resources like the Bootstrapper, but they also create well-designed, beautiful, original learning materials as well – and they all look like they were created by the same “brand”: your classroom brand.
4. Teachers are Brands
Name your favorite movie. Kids talk about you like they talk about their favorite movie. They say things like, “Wow, XYZ’s class was very exciting today,” and “I never thought it was going to end.” When things are going great, you build brand popularity. Your name comes to mean something greater than the body in which you are sitting right now. Your name becomes an “idea.” That’s what a brand is: you become a brand every day when a student associates an idea or feeling to your name. So, what does your brand say?
Also important to consider is how brands are discussed in the “marketplace” (the quad or restroom). I’ve developed plenty of opinions about products that I have never tried because of the influence of others. Robert Cialdini’s book “Influence: Science and Practice” discusses how people are impacted by “social proof” in others’ opinions. When students consistently tell others that I’m a jerk, students will think I’m a jerk from the first moment they meet me. So, I’m quite mindful of what my brand is saying about me.
5. Treat Each of Your Clients Like Individual Human Beings
In my speaking and educator training sessions, I can often have dozens (if not hundreds) of people in the room at the same time. In my classroom, I’m often working with about 35 students at a time. As an educator, it can be so easy to forget that I’m not teaching a “class” - I’m teaching a classroom full of individual human beings, each having their own unique needs and learning profile.
The next time you are with your students, I encourage you to pick out one student in the crowd and choose to spend about 60-120 seconds specifically working with him or her. Think of his or her unique needs and learning profile. What does this student need from you most today? When I work with students in this way, they notice. Everyone benefits. It’s much more fun.