25 Marketing Your FCS Brand
Cynthia L. Miller
Introduction
When we think of marketing our Family and Consumer Sciences (FCS) program, we don’t think of it as building a brand in the mind of a student, but this is exactly what it is and now one of the more prominent marketing techniques in today’s business and job market. Personalizing your program’s brand is a strategy that enhances the “one thing” that makes your program better or different or more relevant than the other programs you are competing with on a secondary school campus. Why is this such an important marketing strategy today? The one-size-fits-all product marketing approach is no longer enough—students expect personalized marketing tailored to their interests and needs. This is one of the reasons why students have so many other options in the types of schools they attend (public, private, charter, online, etc.) in our country. So how can you brand your FCS program with students and parents, with faculty on your campus, with postsecondary and business partners?
In developing a solid FCS brand, you need to:
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Deliver your message clearly. What are the features, advantages, and benefits of this program that have to emphasized?
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Confirm your program’s credibility. How will you convince students of the importance of your program?
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Connect your program to your target market (students and parents) emotionally. In marketing a product (or a service), it is seen as an item that satisfies what a consumer (student) wants to meet a need.
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Motivate the student, which translates into how well you promote or sell the program through multiple channels in order to have the opportunity to talk to students and parents about it, and ultimately convince students to enroll in your courses.
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And cement student loyalty by encouraging students to participate in FCCLA and other extended learning opportunities related to the FCS field in helping them achieve their future career goals.
Before you can personalize the FCS brand, you have to understand what this brand is and its importance in today’s schools to have an impact on students in your classroom, in developing postsecondary opportunities, and in building credibility with the businesses in your community. In the following paragraphs, you will learn several techniques to define your FCS program through effective branding that sets it apart and makes it unique and successful with all involved stakeholders.
Key Terms to Know
Brand Experience
Brand Strategy
Brand Marketing
Stakeholders
SWOT Analysis
What a Brand is or is not
A brand is not a logo. A brand is not a product. According to marketing expert and author, Al Ries, a brand is a singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect (Ries, 2009). In other words, it’s a perception to a prospective student that there is no other program in the school quite like your program. A brand is also a promise: a promise of specific benefits and value; a promise that is meaningful and relevant to your students; and a promise that your courses are significant and different from any other courses offered on your campus. Your program’s brand should reside within the minds—and hearts—of students and other involved stakeholders. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions of your program.
In addition, most brands have a personality. Why do think Coca Cola has sustained a number one position in the cola market while spending less than their competitors? Take a look at their Coca-Cola Share A Coke Campaign that dominated billboards, social media, and selfies everywhere for the better part of a year. The main aim was to increase the consumption of the soft drink over the summer season and kick start an ongoing conversation about the brand. This was a remarkably successful example of how incorporating your client into your branding strategy by name or otherwise can go viral. Why do you think Apple is one of the largest companies in the world while selling products just about twice the price of its competitors? It is because they know how to make people FEEL when they interact with their product. Here is an example of a “Brand Strategy Roadmap” used by companies, such as Apple:
How to Create a Brand Strategy Road Map
Key Elements (Beloved Brands, 2013)
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Brand Vision: It’s the End in Mind Achievement. What do you want the brand to become? Think 10 years out: if you became this one thing, you would know that you are successful. Ideally, it is qualitative (yet grounded in something) and quantitative (measurable). It should be motivating and enticing to get people focused.
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Purpose: Start with what’s in you: Why do you exist? Why do you wake up in the morning? What’s your purpose or cause behind your brand? Very personal and connects to your own story. In the spirit of Simon Sinek: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”.
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Brand Idea: A Beloved Brand is an idea that’s worth Loving. As Brands become more loved, they go beyond being just a product and they become an idea that fulfills consumers’ emotional needs in the consumers’ life. Below is the Tool used to figure out a Brand’s Big Idea, which revolves around four areas that help define the Brand 1) Brand’s personality 2) Products and Services the brand provides 3) Internal Beacons that people internally rally around when thinking about the brand and 4) Consumer Views of the Brand. What we normally do is brainstorm 3-4 words in each of the four sections and then begin looking collectively to frame the Brand’s Big Idea with a few words or a phrase to which the brand can stand behind.
As you can see from this example, it provides you with areas to focus on in developing your program brand to provide the connection (or buy-in) needed in showing students the wonderful features and benefits of your FCS program.
So the challenge for you is to create a brand that has a personality, which is making sure you understand your FCS program’s unique attributes, skills, values, and passions and then infusing these in every aspect of your program—in other words, changing your program’s image. How do you go about doing this?
First, you need to implement a process where students see a connection to why the courses in your program would be important for them to take on your campus. One recommendation is for you to visit the American Association for Family & Consumer Sciences (AAFCS) brand website at https://www.aafcs.org/about/about-us/family-consumer-brand. At this site, you will find a co-branding toolkit with many resources you can duplicate to create your own FCS program’s brand. This also allows for a consistent message to be developed at the local level that is synonymous at the state and national levels. In addition, this toolkit provides the features and benefits of FCS to help you develop the connection for why students should take these courses on your campus. Further, this site provides a media toolkit to help you effectively understand and work with the media in advertising the importance (brand) of your program, as well as the success of students in your program.
Another recommendation is to decide how you would like the public to view you as the image of your program. Therefore, how would you like potential students to think of you? Because your program’s brand is built from the thoughts and words and reactions of other people, it’s shaped by how you present yourself publicly. This is something you have control over. Nowadays, people do not buy products or services because of their quality or price. What they buy is the symbol that the product represents. People have become symbolic beings; they understand life through symbols and representations. Picture signs on our roads and highways are a perfect example of this. So, the product may give us the impression of being top-quality, may fit into the stereotype of being cost-effective, and might tell us that it will make us feel richer, attractive, thinner, etc. These symbols are always talking to us. The same happens when it comes to people. We are always seen as symbols by others. If you want to project a better image, you have to know what kind of symbol you are projecting or what kind of stereotype you fit into. To project a better image, you should begin by doing two things: 1) acknowledge and be conscious about the image you are projecting right now by seeing yourself as others do; and 2) find a person you would like to imitate and pay attention to how this person moves, the way this person speaks, the way this person walks, the way this person dresses, and how this person manages his/her body language, to name a few. You can decide how you would like people to see you and then work on publicly being that image, which leads to the next recommendation.
If you are passionate about your role as an FCS teacher, then become the best in your field. You need to be seen as an expert with the authority to teach others in this program. Every good brand involves the notion of expertise. Nike brands itself as an expert in creating quality and fashionable sportswear. Even if you’re not interested in marketing your advice, you need to create the perception that you are very good at what you do. Continue learning and updating your knowledge, especially since this particular field changes drastically from month to month. Because if you stop learning and challenging yourself, you’re not an expert anymore.
Review Your Programs Strengths and Weaknesses
Take the time to evaluate the program in which you operate. Jot down the opportunities you see on the horizon and the threats to your current program and course offerings. Which opportunities and threats do you think are most promising or relevant to the future of your program? One of the best strategies most companies use in evaluating the success of their products or services is to do a SWOT Analysis. S.W.O.T. is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of your program’s greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The purpose of doing this type of analysis is to help you develop a strong program brand strategy by making sure you have considered all of your program’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the opportunities and threats it faces on your campus or within your school district.
Strengths and weaknesses are internal to your program (think: reputation, curriculum, location). You can change them over time, but not without some work. Opportunities and threats are external (think: partners, competitors, costs)—they are out there in education, happening whether you like it or not. You can’t change them.
You should use a SWOT analysis as part of your planning process in designing your program’s brand. To get the most complete, objective results, a SWOT analysis is best conducted by a group of people, like a Program Advisory Committee (more information about this later), with different perspectives and stakes in your program. By using this analysis, they will assess your program with regard to how you currently operate your program and how you recruit and serve students. Then they will review the products and services you currently offer. From this discussion, you will be able to develop a list of strengths and a list of weaknesses that everyone on this committee thinks are the most promising or relevant to building a successful program brand. Moreover, the SWOT analysis process is an opportunity to build buy-in and encourage your committee’s participation in developing a successful program brand. There are many different types of SWOT Analysis templates available, but one has been provided for you on the next page that is easy to use in determining the next steps for producing a program brand. In addition, here are a couple of additional links to other reputable SWOT Analysis resources:
SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats by Community Tool Box
Determining where you are today—what your current brand looks like—is critical to developing your program brand strategy. The core values of your program will serve as your measuring stick in evaluating your marketing strategies and materials. If you have a program vision and mission statement, this is a good time to review them. Then, focus on your target audience when evaluating each of the following points:
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What does your program specialize in?
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Describe the products and services you currently offer and define the qualities of these products and services.
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Characterize the core values of these products and services. Are they aligned with the core values of your program?
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What types of students do your products and services attract?
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What does your target audience think about your current brand?
In order to get answers to these questions, you may want to conduct a survey. Thus, you will need to ask the following questions:
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Whom am I surveying?
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Why am I surveying?
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What am I looking to learn?
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How do I distribute the survey?
The following are some online survey writing resources to help you develop an effective survey in discovering your current program brand:
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Writing Effective Survey Questions www.custominsight.com/articles/effective-survey-questions.asp
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How To Write a Good Survey www.accesswave.ca/~infopoll/tips.htm
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Writing Survey Questions: Tips for Effective and Relevant Questions
In addition, here are some free and cost-effective online survey tools that you may want to consider using in distributing this survey to your target audience(s):
Your program’s brand is much more than its name, logo, or the services it offers. It is what others think, share, and feel about the program: it is the impression people have of your program that influences their response to every message sent, action undertaken and project supported by your program. The well-known phrase “perception is reality” may best describe the concept. When we set out to develop a brand, our task is to try to influence the perception of others.
Define Your Desired Brand
Once you know where you stand today, it’s time to figure out where you want to go. What do you want your FCS program to become? Branding needs to start with goals; all successful brands aspire to be something. To begin building your program brand, you need to have clearly developed objectives for what you want your program to look like in the next year, five years, and ten years.
Powerful brands are grounded in authenticity and relevance. Your program’s success is directly proportional to how well you acknowledge what your students really want and how diligently you apply your program’s strengths, values, passions, and vision. As a reminder, the key attributes of program branding include:
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Presenting a distinct point of difference, which means you need to identify the key attributes that set your program apart from your competition.
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Making your program relevant to its target audience, which means the audience has been identified, and that audience feels a need that can be satisfied by your program.
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Providing consistency, which means your audience is hearing the same core message—verbal and visual cues align across all mediums.
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Messages are frequent because once you understand what makes your program different, whom you need to target, and what you need to say, then it needs to be said again, and again, and again.
There are many branding (marketing) techniques that can be used, and choosing the right approach for your program is not easy. Many FCS programs also have a limited budget to use on marketing which can make it even more challenging. Below is a list of effective strategies you can take to market your program to help you increase your reach and improve the visibility of your program in front of your targeted audience.
Create Your Content and Communicate with People Openly and Constantly
Embrace this age of social media and let everyone know about your program. One of the ways to do this is to create a blog and/or a website that is all about your program, which gives students a place to develop a stronger connection to your program. By developing an attractive website and/or blog, you can make your program look professional. However, the real benefits will depend on the functionality and ability to acquire students into your program.
To get the most out of your website and/or blog, you will need to set aside some time every week to write and post quality content. By blogging regularly, you are more than two times as likely to generate leads via your website and it also builds trust in your program. Further, Google Analytics is a free application that provides information about how many people visit a website, which pages they visit, how long they state on the site, and more. This information can help you determine which pages are frequently viewed, and then you can make decisions about how your program brand message might need to be altered or promoted in a different manner.
Below is a list of the more popular and free educational websites and blogs, if one is not already available on your campus, that can be developed easily by you and/or your students involved in the program:
Free Website Tools:
Google Sites—If you already have a Google account, Google Sites is already available to you. Just select it from the menu of services that you’re not using. Google offers a wide variety of templates that you can use and customize on your site. Should you decide at a later date that you want to add other contributors to your site, you can do so with just a couple of clicks in the sharing menu. Learn more about Google Sites in this video.
Weebly for Education—is a website and blog building tool that provides a very intuitive and feature-rich platform. It also lets you create 40 student accounts for free with no student emails required. Blogs can be made public or private and the teacher has full access to them all on their own dashboard. Everything is very easy to create with a simple drag and drop interface, and there are no ads to spoil or distract from a finished website or blog. There are over 70 blog and website templates to choose from and the ability to upload or embed pictures, videos, maps, and more makes Weebly one of the best website and blogging tools for students.
School Rack—offers a free service for teachers to build and host their own classroom websites. Unlike other free website solutions that are targeted toward a general audience, School Rack has features designed specifically for teachers. It also offers students and parents free accounts to communicate with teachers.
Webs—has all of the characteristics that you would expect to find in a free website platform. Websites built using Webs can include videos, calendars, polls, and a wide variety of third-party widgets. Webs offers a wide variety of templates and layouts to select from.
Snap Pages—provides a free service as well as a premium service for creating your custom website. The free service has more than enough features for a teacher to set up and maintain a class website. The editing and customizing options of Snap Pages allows users to create pages that are a little cleaner and professional-looking than some of the other companies in this market.
Free Blogging Tools: A blog is a web log or online diary
Tumblr—is the cool kid on the blogging block because it was arguably the first mainstream service to combine blogging and social media. It has a strong community of users, much like Twitter or Facebook, thanks to the ease in which other users’ content can be reblogged to your Tumblr account. The younger generation tends to turn to Tumblr blogs to curate items that they like rather than produce their own content.
21Classes—has an intuitive and user-friendly approach to student blogs. It is based around one central teacher blog that the student blogs are connected to. It has a central control panel that allows teachers access to all student blogs and the ability to edit, block or message students about what they are posting on their blogs. It also lets you moderate student blog postings before they go live, it has protection against spam, and lets you choose from a variety of themes, headers and colors. It does offer a free service, but this is limited to ten 1Mb student accounts so you will likely be more interested in the fee-based premium version due to your classroom size.
Pen.io— is a free service that allows you to create blog posts without signing up for an account. You can create a page that has a unique URL, but you don’t have to register a specific domain or pay for site hosting. It is super easy to use – you just type in the domain you want and select a password. If you wanted to make a class site with multiple pages, you can just use the “page” tag. Adding photos is a simple drag and drop process, and you can easily add in videos via the YouTube URL. Some folks might find the page address ending in pen.io to be a downside, but for a free and easy to use blogging platform, it doesn’t factor in negatively at all. Blogging literally doesn’t get any easier than that!
Anchor— is a free blogging platform that prides itself on being ultra-basic and easy to use while also having the ability to be totally extensible – you can add as many custom fields to any post or page.
Some current CTE blogs that you may want to take a look at or refer to in your own blog include:
Another way of letting everyone know what is going on in your program is to develop a Facebook page and Twitter presence. To maximize the benefits of these social media tools, here are some tips:
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Keep your profiles up to date and fresh with new information
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Post a few times per week
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Add value for users by sharing content that is of value to them
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Engage actively with users—follow, share, retweet, like the content of other users
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Don’t just share content from your website
Network All the Time
Try to build relationships with as many people as possible. This is essential in helping you to promote your program brand and increase the credibility of your program. In a presentation made by Mark Perna with Tools for Schools at a 2012 ACTE Pre-Conference session, he calls marketing a team sport worth playing and adds that “Everyone is responsible for delivering your message with excellence and enthusiasm, much the same way a championship team works in seamless precision to achieve a single objective—winning! One of the ways to develop this championship team is by developing a local program advisory committee, which is a requirement if your organization accepts Perkins federal funds. An advisory committee is simply a diverse set of stakeholders in your program who come together with the shared goal of promoting the success of your program and preparing students for the future. These stakeholders can include the following:
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Business people related to your program
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Chamber and workforce board directors
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Political leaders
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Postsecondary partners (university and/or community college)
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School board member
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District/School administrators (superintendent, principal, etc.)
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School counselor
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Core academic teacher
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CTSO Student (your FCCLA president or another officer)
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Parent, who has a student involved in your program
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Special Populations teacher or liaison
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Other relevant stakeholders, if necessary
The purpose of an advisory committee is to help you focus on the right outcomes of your program; bring training expertise to the table; secure resources for your program; provide students—and staff—with new opportunities; connect you with the larger community; advising ways to get the word out about your program; and provide advocacy where they can speak on your behalf, which can carry more weight with an audience. A few resources you may want to consider utilizing in developing a program advisory committee include:
A free Career & Technical Education Advisory Committee handbook developed by the Texas’ Region 8 Educational Service Center provides a step-by-step process in developing an effective program advisory committee.
Building Advisory Boards That Matter book promoted by the Association for Career & Technical Education (ACTE). In this book, you will learn how to effectively engage key stakeholders, whether they are members of business and industry organizations, community groups, certification or postsecondary programs, parents, students, or general citizens. This book will also help you create an advisory board that helps you steer your program, build capacity, pull in new resources and expertise, and provide students and staff with opportunities they could never realize otherwise. All it takes is the right attitude, an understanding of what advisory boards can be, some strategic thinking, and a little leg work. In short, anyone can build a powerful and productive advisory board—this book will show you what it can look like and how you can build your own.
In helping your advisory committee learn more about their particular role as a member, consider conducting the following activity:
Advisory Committees Shouldn’t Be a Puzzle
In this activity, we are going to look at the critical pieces of the partnership puzzle and how to make decisions that will ensure that it’s more like a 24-jumbo-piece kids puzzle than a 1000-piece puzzle of the sky!
Procedure:
- Develop the following puzzle pieces:
- 4 corner pieces (CTE Teachers, CTE Students, Business & Industry Partners, School Administrators)
- 12 outside pieces (Parents, Former Students, Academic Teachers, Counselors, Special Ed Teachers, ESL Teachers, School Board Members, CTSO Member, Principals, Superintendent, Higher Education Partners, Workforce Development Member)
- 8 inside pieces (CTE Teachers, Local Business Owners, Community Members, Parents, CTE Students, Higher Education Partners, Political Leaders, Chamber of Commerce)
- Pass the puzzle pieces around until they’ve all been distributed—it’s fine to have more than one piece.
- Each puzzle piece is an important partner in an advisory committee. Discuss this person and their role in a successful school/community partnership on an advisory committee. When needed, discuss how that partnership could strengthen your CTE program.
- If the piece is a corner puzzle piece, discuss how that partner is a cornerstone to successful CTE programs. What makes them essential to the process?
- If the piece is an outside puzzle piece, discuss how these partners frame a successful relationship. What will they be able to give (figuratively or literally) to make the partnership a success?
- If the piece is an inside puzzle piece, discuss how your school can provide a complete partnership with them. In other words, how do these partners complete the overall picture of the relationship? What will they receive as a benefit through the partnership?
- As each member speaks, assemble the puzzle. At the conclusion of this activity, you should have a complete picture of how school districts and advisory committee partners can be mutually beneficial.
- Closing Discussion—As kids, we used the picture on the front of the box to guide us through the challenge of successfully completing a puzzle. The same is true with all challenges. It’s much easier to work through the rough spots if you know what your ultimate goal will be. Over the course of this year, you will be charged with developing or maintaining an advisory committee responsible for evaluating your CTE program. As you do that, keep the picture in mind of what a successful partnership should be (reciprocal benefits) and work toward that goal.
Another recommendation in developing a network is by joining your professional organization at the regional, state, and national levels. The two main benefits of being an active member of your professional organization in helping you to successfully brand your program include:
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Mentoring—the cornerstone of many professional organizations when it comes to working with younger or newer members and helps you connect with someone much more experienced who can share their own best practices in branding their own program.
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Professional Development—via courses, workshops, publications, and information on their website shared only with members. They also keep members up to date on industry trends and how to deal with them, especially when they offer annual conferences, which gives you the opportunity to mix and mingle with others in your field to help you consider if your brand needs updating.
Let People See You
People need to feel like they know you, especially if your online presence is your main promotional brand. In order to help them feel like they know your program, they need to be able to see your program. This means pictures and, if possible, videos. Get some high-quality photos taken of your program’s success on your website. Get great action shots of your students doing what they do best in your program.
In addition, have your students help you develop some “How-To” YouTube videos on what they have learned and how they can apply those knowledge and skills personally at home or professionally in the workplace (i.e. table setting and cake decorating demonstrations). This will allow you to invite your program into people’s personal spaces.
Another promotional tool that can be used is podcasting! The Internet is swamped with content, and competition for an audience is more aggressive than ever. You have the opportunity to set your program apart in the way you deliver your message. Using podcasting as a marketing tool is gaining traction in today’s marketing circles because they allow prospective customers to go beyond the static web page and see the person behind the program. Podcasting is engaging, creates a sense of trust, and builds customer loyalty. Two main results you can achieve by using podcasting:
Increasing your marketing ROI (Return on Investment)—Podcasts allow you to subtly convey your marketing message by wrapping it in value-packed content that will appeal to your target audience. When you educate your customers, you position yourself as an authority in your field and will gain their trust.
Bringing your brand to life—Combining podcasting with social media is a great way to strengthen your program plan and spread your message. Audio or video podcasts allow customers to engage with you in a way they can’t through a static web page, brochure, or flyer. The more you engage your customers, the more likely they will become supporters of your program’s message.
Some steps you should take to produce a good podcast are to be sure and define your objectives. For example, do you want your podcast to attract new customers, enhance your brand positioning, or achieve another objective?
Since listeners will determine the success of your podcast, you also must understand what they want to gain from each episode. Talk to current students, teachers, and other stakeholders to find out what prospective students are saying about your podcasts. The more you align your podcasts with students’ needs, the greater your chance of success in branding your program.
Next, once you have an outline of your podcast episode, decide whom you want to work with to make it happen. Do you want to go on air alone, with a colleague, or with another leader in the industry? Recruiting a co-host can take some of the pressure off you and promote lively chit chat.
Finally, keep your podcast short. Many podcasters overestimate the amount of time their audience will listen. However, studies have shown that customers prefer podcasts that are no longer than 16 minutes (Pisello, 2011). Use this time to squeeze in as much value as possible. Below are a few of the best free podcast tools to consider, as well as some podcast resources if you’re not sure how to create a podcast and want to hear some examples of CTE podcasts.
Free Podcast Tools:
Audacity—is a free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for many operating systems (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). It has a large range of keyboard shortcuts for creating and editing sounds.
Podbean— is an easy and powerful way to start podcasting. Podbean allows users to create professional podcasts in minutes without any programming knowledge. Its user-friendly interface allows anyone to upload, publish, manage and promote their podcasts in just a few steps. Educators can create their podcasts and share them with students and colleagues. Podbean’s website contains many featured as well as popular podcasts by experts from around the world.
PodOmatic—is the largest community of independent podcasters on the planet. Numerous podcasts are available on this site where users can browse through them by subject or area of interest. It also allows users to easily and quickly make minicasts—a combination of audio and images.
TalkShoe—create, schedule and run a live show. Integrate the recording on your website.
VozMe—is an effective web tool that converts a text into an audio file. Creating an audio podcast is much easier and every effective with this tool. It requires only two steps: type or copy/paste the text you want as a podcast in the box provided on the website and hit create mp3. It generates an instant podcast for you to download it for free.
Free Podcast Resources/Examples:
How to Create Your Own Podcast – A Step-by-Step Tutorial—About.com’s step-by-step tutorial for podcast beginners.
iLounge Guide to Podcast Creation—another guide for creating your own podcast for absolute beginners.
How to Start Your Own Podcast—steps for developing a podcast by WikiHow.
Podcasting Legal Guide—fine about legal issues relevant to podcasting in this Creative Commons guide.
NRCCTE Podcasts—Our wide-ranging podcast series, Career-Technical Education Research News, features interviews and discussions with NRCCTE researchers carrying out field research as well as real CTE administrators, educators, and others engaged in the NRCCTE’s evidence-based professional development activities. All of our podcasts are available through this site.
Houston ISD: CTE Podcast—several podcasts created and stored in iTunes related to curriculum content taught in some of the CTE courses offered in this district.
Play the long game
Look at your program brand as an investment: your program brand has the potential to last longer than your own lifespan. People will follow your brand if they feel connected to it. When launching new ideas, your program brand has the potential to guarantee you never have to start from scratch again. If you consider yourself to be in this particular game for the long-haul, a good program brand is an invaluable investment.
You have a choice. How consistently you present your new brand will either strengthen the program or weaken it, depending on how you “live the brand.” The brand experience is strengthened when it is instilled into everything you offer including packaging, logos, your tagline, your program environment, etc. The brand experience is weakened when it is ignored, or worse, through inconsistent usage, mixed messages, uncaring attitudes, and impatience.
Every program stakeholder has the responsibility to be a steward for the new brand. Your customer’s notion of your brand is formed from his or her first experience or “imprint” with your program or with your products or services. Every student interaction is a chance to enrich the brand. The following are some traditional ideas you should also consider in increasing campus and community interaction with your program:
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Create a Student Ambassador Program to promote your FCS program. They can participate in assemblies at the middle schools. They can serve as hosts when students, parents, and other community members visit CTE programs, as well as serve as guides for the school’s open houses, career exploration days, and advisory meetings. Further, they can develop after-school enrichment programs and summer camps.
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Develop a Middle School Career Night. An incentive can be offered for the middle school PTA with the greatest number of parents in attendance by receiving a cash award of $200. In addition, develop a poster contest for students with a $100 savings bond for 1st place and so forth.
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Arrange to make presentations at various clubs and organizations on the value of partnerships with your program.
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Extend invitations for tours of your program to prospective business and postsecondary partners to showcase the success of your students and the program, as well as provide ways for them to be involved in your program.
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Do posters and/or videos of students’ success stories and how your program helped them achieve that success.
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Look for opportunities for students in your program to make an impact on campus and in their community (i.e. culinary students operating a school café, as well as providing catering services for community events; developing and operating a child day care program for faculty’s children or partnering with an established child daycare program; interior design students designing dollhouses built by the construction program to be given to little girls in Children Advocacy Centers; assisting in teen hotlines; making blankets for sick children, to name a few).
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Invite core academic teachers to create an integrated project with you.
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Call the Editorial Board at your local newspaper or set up a meeting for the next editorial about your program.
With your new brand strategy in place, you can begin integrating it into all of your marketing and communications–everything you do and are–and watch the effectiveness and efficiency of your brand marketing efforts soar.
Additional Branding (Marketing) Resources
These resources will give you additional ways to promote your program brand, as well as provide examples.
Every school program wants to be a student’s first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen. The concept of a brand extends far beyond just your program’s logo to your program’s core values and to every interaction you have with students and stakeholders. In effect, your brand creates and maintains your reputation and so reflects your students’ experience of your program.
Students and stakeholders can build up emotional attachments to certain brands, allowing for strong loyalties and even a sense of ownership. This can help maintain your motivation and increase your enrollment, but it can also cause problems if you don’t consult your stakeholders as your program grows.
Your brand is what you are really selling to your students, not just a product or service for which there may already be similar opportunities in other programs. A strong brand can make your program stand out from the crowd, particularly in a competitive school market.
Ten Reminders on Branding:
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Focus on what your program achieves for students. Your brand is no good to you if it isn’t delivering what students want.
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Take ownership of your brand. Pay attention to students’ needs, but you should still control what you want your brand to mean to them.
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Be honest. If you don’t believe in your brand, no one else will.
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Keep your brand simple by focusing on a small number of key brand values.
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Be consistent. Every aspect of your program should make students feel the same way about you.
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Be thorough. Look at all of the aspects of your program to make sure they help to support your brand.
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Involve current students, parents, teachers, campus administrators, and other stakeholders. Make sure they understand your brand and believe in it.
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Communicate your brand. Make sure every advertisement, brochure and letter helps reinforce the same message. If you have a logo, use it everywhere, but make sure the quality is consistent.
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Meet and exceed what your brand promises. Failing, just once, will damage your brand.
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Manage your brand. Continually look for opportunities to make improvements. And don’t be afraid to make changes to reflect shifts in the way you serve students or in new trends in your industry market.
Exercises
Define Your Brand
You are going to define your brand by answering the following questions:
- What is your program’s mission and vision?
- What are the benefits and features of your program’s products or services?
- What do students already think of your program?
- What qualities do you want them to associate with your program?
Do your research. Learn the needs, habits, and desires of your current and prospective students. And don’t rely on what you think they think. Know what they think. Because defining your brand and developing a brand strategy can be complex, consider leveraging the expertise you need by developing a program advisory committee.
Once you’ve defined your brand, how do you get the word out? Consider doing the following:
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Create an impactful logo. Place it everywhere.
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Write down your brand messaging. What are the key messages you want to communicate about your brand? Every student should be aware of your brand attributes.
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Integrate your brand. Branding extends to every aspect of your program–how you answer your phone or e-mail, your public image, everything.
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Create a “voice” for your program that reflects your brand. This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Is your brand friendly? Be conversational. Is it ritzy? Be more formal. You get the gist.
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Develop a tagline. Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand.
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Design templates and create brand standards for your marketing materials. Use the same color scheme, logo placement, look, and feel throughout. You don’t need to be fancy, just consistent.
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Be true to your brand. Students won’t return to you–or refer you to someone else–if you don’t deliver on your brand promise.
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Be consistent. This is the most important tip because if you can’t do this, your attempts at establishing a brand will fail.
References
Beloved Brands. (2013). How to create a brand strategy road map. Retrieved online at http://beloved-brands.com/2013/04/14/road-map/.
Pisello, T. (2011). Is your content marketing relevant to buyers? Cleveland, OH: Content Marketing Institute. Retrieved online at http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2011/05/content-marketing-relevant-to-buyers/.
Ries, A. & Ries, L. (2009). The 22 immutable laws of branding: How to build a product or service into a world-class brand. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.