Enrollment Insights Podcast
Enrollment Insights Blog
K-12

Enrollment Insights Podcast #34 – Brendan Schneider and S.M.A.R.T. Digital Marketing for K-12 Schools

by Angela Brown

In this episode:

In the Enrollment Insights Podcast, you’ll hear about novel solutions to problems, ways to make processes better for students and families, and the questions that spark internal reflection and end up changing entire processes.

In this episode, you will hear from Brendan Schneider. Brendan is the Director of Advancement at Sewickley Academy. He is one of the leaders in the field for teaching on and knowledge about inbound marketing for schools. In addition, Brendan presents and consults on inbound marketing, social media, SEO, and marketing technology at the regional and national levels. With his workshops, the SchneiderB Media blog, his schneiderb.fm podcast, his SchneiderB VirCons, and his SEO Coach software, he continues to advance the abilities of the independent school admission, communication, and marketing professional. Brendan is also the founder of The MarCom Society, an online community created expressly for Marketing and Communication (MarCom) Professionals at schools.

1:32 – What’s something you tried that didn’t work?
1:52 – Pivoting when a tactic stops working
3:24 – The value of educational content versus promotional content for inbound marketing
3:58 – Don’t set and forget your engagement tactics
4:46 – The importance of consuming content about the creative process and marketing in other industries
7:13 – Why school marketers and admissions professionals struggle with digital marketing
7:57 – The school marketing superhero doesn’t exist
9:13 – Compensation for digital marketing roles in schools needs to play catch up
10:03 – Will the remote work trend impact hiring for schools for marketing and admissions roles?
11:55 – How Brendan stays on top of the ever-changing digital landscape
12:49 – Starting with “No” when you evaluate new tactics
14:15 – The importance of understanding your brand and ideal “customer” when evaluating new tactics
16:32 – “Only use data that can be actionable”
17:02 – Don’t develop your personas in a vacuum
17:39 – In-house versus outsourced persona development
18:48 – Giving your prospective parents a name
20:11 – Persona development for students and teachers
21:07 – Red light/green light: What should schools stop doing and what should they start?
21:55 – Why schools should “stop freaking out about” social media
23:05 – Social media as a retention tool
23:33 – Why Brendan is “super bullish” on schools doing their own SEO
25:55 – Finding consultants who want to teach you and not just tell you what they’ve done
27:55 – Using experimentation in your work
28:09 – Creating a safe space for failure
29:13 – Having S.M.A.R.T. goals for your experiments
29:29 – Failure as a data point

Resources from the episode:

Connect with Brendan on Twitter
Connect with Brendan on LinkedIn
schneiderb.com
How I Built This with Guy Raz
S.M.A.R.T. goals

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by Angela Brown
Angela is the Manager, B2B Brand Strategy at Niche, where she supports content and partner engagement strategy in Niche's work with K-12 and higher education institutions. Before joining Niche, she was the director of marketing and communications at Flint Hill School, a PK-12, co-ed day school outside of Washington, DC. In addition to developing research and content for Enrollment Insights, Angela is a frequent conference presenter, guest author, and podcast guest.