by mtm Schools Marketing Consultant Joe Faulkner
With the end of term and Christmas having no doubt taken everyone by surprise with the speed at which it has come, and the spring term now a very clear focus for all school marketers, if your school is going to need a new prospectus in September 2010, perhaps now is the time to think about it.
Every school has high hopes for its prospectus, but the truth is that some of them work, and some just don’t. In our experience of prospectus design for independent schools and colleges we have found that the make-or-break factor is the planning that is put into prospectus design.
With this in mind your schools marketing specialist should perhaps consider the following:
Who is your prospectus aimed at? This may seem a simple question but if your school caters for children from 2-18, or is co-educational at pre-prep and single-sex at senior school, is a single prospectus really enough to satisfy your audiences’ needs? Think too about how you present the school. Some of our clients have in the past produced individual prospectus documents for each section of the school. This can lead to parents forming perceptions of schools as disjointed, and this in turn may impact on retention rates from year 6 into year 7, or senior school into sixth-form.
Before they even think about embarking on a new project any good school marketing department will evaluate their current school prospectus’s design. What does it say about your school? What is good and what is bad about it? Many schools only update their prospectus when a new headteacher arrives. If this applies to your school you should think about the character of your new head and how you can soundly reflect this in your prospectus design. If you are uncertain then why not ask some members of the teaching staff or parents to say a few words about the school to understand how it is perceived. mtmconsulting has carried out many parental surveys and focus groups for schools as part of our prospectus design work in order to really understand what parents value in a school and what features should perhaps be downplayed.
As mtmconsulting’s head of development I get faced with a lot of clients who say something a long the lines of “we need a new school prospectus designed and would like mtm to do it but need a proposal from you to put to the governors to get sign off”. We are happy to submit a formal proposal for any project but costing a prospectus design and print job really is a question of “how long is a piece of string”. Please make our lives easier! Your school prospectus design brief should describe the reasons for the new school prospectus, how it will tie in with your school’s website, how you want the prospectus to look and feel, what your school prospectus should say about your offering, how many copies you need, delivery dates, and if you know what sort of stock you want then include this. In addition why don’t you consider shape and size? Increasingly prospectuses are square, while with the new postal charging methods switching to an A5 design could save hundreds of pounds a year.
If you have a budget in mind for your prospectus, don’t be scared to say. It makes your school’s prospectus design team really work to pack as much value into their quote as they can.
Immerse your design team. Not literally of course, but any creative prospectus designer worth their salt will want to come and see the school. They should spend a day walking around, taking some casual photographs and getting to know the pupils and staff. A prospectus should reflect your unique qualities and if your school’s designer lives 40 miles away and has only chatted with you on the phone the likelihood is that they will miss the point of your school.
Don’t forget the old adage that a photograph can say a thousand words. This is especially true in school prospectus design. You should make sure you have professional photography through out your prospectus and in your school’s website. Maybe you could consider commissioning a number of days of photography over several months to capture the changing light and climate.
Finally, words are crucial. Some independent school marketers write copy themselves, and this is acceptable only if tone is consistent and it is checked (and I mean checked) by a range of people. Worse still is when schools ask the English teacher to write one page and the History teacher for another and so on… your school prospectus should be a professional marketing document, not a game of consequences! If in doubt, a professional schools copywriter should be able to capture the essence of your school and craft some perfect words.
mtmconsulting’s school prospectus design team incorporates award winning designers, experienced copywriters and fantastic photographers. If you would like to discuss how we may be able to produce a beautiful prospectus for your school please contact mtm.
