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Educational Marketing: Uncork Your Creative Juices

by Michael Jones, Training Officer, ICS

Say you have an event, lesson, program, presentation, training, or class coming up or originating at The Pyle Center or via distance learning. You’re running through your check list one last time. Let’s see….You’ve:

  • Done your research. check
  • Created a learner plan. check
  • Got a good feel for your audience. check
  • Scoped out the room or familiarized yourself with the distance learning technology.check
  • Planned for different learning styles. check
  • Prepared appropriate technologies.check
  • Considered learners with special needs.check
  • Rehearsed your remarks.check
  • Timed your presentation.check
  • Prepared an evaluation. check

 

Forget anything?

What about marketing? You’ve put all that time, creativity, and effort into your presentation. Why ignore a crucial element? Why simply assume, because your topic is wonderful and thrilling and state-of-the-art, that people will beat a path to your doorstep? Why work so hard on every other aspect of your presentation, but skimp on awareness of it?

Here, courtesy of ICS, are some helpful techniques, tips, and tricks-of-the-trade so you can better market your special event, class, presentation, web site, podcast, or teleconference.

Marketing Tip #1: Create an intriguing, arresting title.

A. One simple way to create an interesting title is to change a statement into a question. Instead of “How to Run for Public Office,” make the title, “How Do I Run for Public Office?” (This personalizes it.) or, “Why Run for Public Office?” (lots of benefits to “why?” See the next paragraph.) or, “Have You Thought about Running for Public Office?” (a personalized call to action). Then, in your copy—and in your presentation itself—you simply answer the question. The title flows right into the content.

There are some special benefits to asking “why” questions. Addressing the “why” leads the presenter and the audience to address research-based material: studies about why people run for office, personality factors that lead one to do so, motivation, and so forth. What does the research say about what pushes or pulls people to run? Conversely, why don’t certain folks toss their hats into the ring?

The copy for the program description, brochure, news release, podcast, or web site can be crafted around “why.” There’s a natural progression from “why” to “how.” “Why” is motivation. “How” is process. Both are important, but in marketing, motivation is what you’re after.

B. If you choose not to use a question (and no one wants every title in every program or series to be a question. That’s boring and “cookie-cutter,” too.), use an action verb. Create, design, explore, investigate, search, determine, delve, think, ponder, wonder, consider, imagine, pretend, dream.

C. The English language contains, at last count, 880,000 words: nouns, verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Use them. Play with them. Try words you don’t normally use. Get in a subjunctive mood. Use an active voice. Rediscover gerunds. Dangle a participle. Toss out a pun.

D. Use a colon to separate two parts of a title. An oldie, but a goodie. The colon affords an opportunity to have something “professional” on one side of the colon, some leavening humor on the other; something esoteric balanced with something from popular culture; something catchy paired with something wonky; something severe with something whimsical. There are dangers lurking in the colon phenomenon, though:

i. Colon-ized titles for some programs get ridiculously long. They remind one of the once-common practice of outlining the entire story on the cover of a book.*

ii. Twice the opportunity to be boring. Talk about your double jeopardy. Here are some actual beginnings—the first few words—of real-life workshops and seminars. How many of these really pull you in, entice you to camp on the presenter’s doorstep (real or virtual), and let the magic begin?

      • An analysis of the effects of…
      • A taxonomy for…
      • Maximizing collsaboration…
      • Organizational structure of....
      • Cognitive approaches to…Gripping stuff, eh? Zzzzzzz…

E. Use part of a famous quote or saying that’s “out there” in popular culture or in common use among your special audience. Instant recognition and awareness. But at the same time, avoid past-their-prime, tired sayings and clichés: “24-7,” “You go, girl,” “Proactive (anything),” “You’re fired,” “The tribe has spoken.”

F. Why is your topic important to the audience? They have an array of education, information, and entertainment options from which to choose. Why this one? Why now? If you answer those questions, people will beat a path to your door, your website, your podcast, or your class.

G. Your title has the power to change how people perceive an issue, how they frame their questions about it, how they approach solutions to problems. The title can be educational in and of itself, even if people never attend or never read any further.

*(For example, the original title of “The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe” was "The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having Been Cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself." Although Daniel Defoe’s book might seem to be an example of a tremendously successful marketing title—after all, the book went through four editions in as many months—this isn’t 1719.)

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Marketing Tip #2: Marketing is simply another form of education.

Marketing your class, presentation, training, or event is an opportunity for folks to learn more about the topic in advance. They can do so through the title. They can do so through the course or program description. They can do so via your web site. They can do so through your brochure or flyer. This is important. Even a little more information in advance can help elevate the level of discourse during the presentation, get people on the same page, and tip them off to what level you’re at—and what developmental level they’re at.

Even if someone cannot participate in the actual program, that person has learned something new from your educational marketing. They can search out more information on their own, attend another presentation of yours in the future, determine this is not for them (also valuable). Consider the marketing of your presentation as an extension of it. There undoubtedly are people who need time for the key ideas of your program to germinate and grow. Each news release, article, ad, or announcement is an educational opportunity in a sense, not just to build awareness, but to share more information. Over time, people can become a little more knowledgeable, even if they never attend the program. That’s called learning.

In higher education, there is an-almost visceral reaction against marketing. Amazingly short-sighted. People confuse marketing with sales. They’re two different things. We’re in the awareness, information, development, and education business. Sales is something else entirely, only one component of marketing.

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Marketing Tip #3: Consider crafting a marketing campaign

The purpose of a mini-marketing campaign is to build awareness and an audience. It is also developmental and educational—more opportunities to inform and educate in advance of the actual program. A subtle factor is that it’s incremental. You can create a campaign which reaches people multiple times in multiple ways through multiple learning channels. But we need to get creative and look beyond just one ubiquitous news release, 50-word program note, or posting on a web site. Make it a campaign, not a one-shot attempt to get the word out.

Here's an example of a recent educational marketing campaign.

ICS built a campaign around a presentation planned for the three UW-Extension conference centers, The Friedrick, Lowell, and Pyle Centers, on the topic, “Customer Service: Disney Style.” The campaign elements were:

  • An introductory email to all conference center employees about the program
  • Creation of a web site where material about both general customer service and Disney guest service principles and practices was posted
  • An internal mailbox flyer with a “Top 10” list of customer service tips
  • Administrative support in the form of invitations to staff, colleagues, and partners
  • A personal email to each person who registered for the program
  • A last-minute email reminder the morning of the event

The result? Approximately 70 people attended the program, an excellent turnout.

Campaigns don’t have to be conducted for every program. But judiciously used, they can give would-be participants information in advance of the program, expand the timeframe of the event beyond “just” the scheduled program time via websites and resource information, and boost not only attendance, but excitement and interest in the presentation in advance of it. That can make for a more informed, livelier presentation, with greater enthusiasm and engagement on the part of the learners.

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Marketing Tip #4: “People go where they’re invited and stay where they’re welcome.” (Jack Gray)*

All too often, we don’t “invite” and “welcome” people to our programs, events, or presentations. It’s not that we don’t use the words (although we usually don’t); it’s that the warm, welcoming feel isn’t there. A string of declarative sentences, while informative, by definition isn’t an invitation. We need to invite and welcome people by the tone and tenor of our words, via our web site, email, the texture of the paper we use for flyers, our creativity. To our students, customers, and attendees, “inviting” and “welcoming” translate to excellent customer-centered service. Inviting and welcoming people is a mindset. Too often, our “invitations” come across as non-negotiable demands for attendance.

*Jack Gray formerly worked for the Recreational Resources Center, UW-Extension

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Marketing Tip #5: Look at what everybody else is doing. Then do something different.

“Life is a banquet and most damn fools are starving to death.” (Auntie Mame)

True story: A colleague of mine once went to a conference where every single presenter used PowerPoint®. Eight hours a day for multiple days, every hour on the hour, every session. On an individual basis, back at home, each decision to use PowerPoint® was completely rational. But in the aggregate…? Pick your metaphor: the bleating of sheep, the thudding of eyelids, the yawning of mouths, the running for exits. By the second day, one presenter threw out his PowerPoints®, bought some rope and clothespins, made some signs, and hung them up on a faux “clothesline.” The audience, nearly weeping with joy and relief, gave this creative soul a standing ovation. This was BEFORE he said one word of his actual presentation. Had the assembled learners had the wherewithal, they no doubt would have elected this life-saver Emperor-for-Life. An Homeric tale of epic heroism—and on-the-spot marketing savvy.

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Marketing Tip #6: Items in a series aren’t random.

If you’re listing bullet points, enumerating principles, outlining important points, or stringing together a lengthy narrative list of items in a series, there’s a secret to it. Put the most important, most powerful, strongest items first. Lead with your strength. Put weaker material (but still worthy of inclusion) in the middle. End with a fairly strong item, but not the strongest.

Who among us hasn’t been confronted with a long bullet point list which begins with the lame, immaterial, miniscule? If you’re the author, you’re assuming people will continue reading past the first weak items. From their point of view, why should they?

Here’s the cheap psychological trick: People (consciously or unconsciously) expect to see the more important points listed first. When items are scattered, people may not plow through them all. If you engage and enfold folks in the best stuff right away, they’ll stay with you. Then, a strong item at the end leaves them with a memorable point to take away.

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Marketing Tip #7: Be learner-centered, not I, me, we, us, instructor-centered.

This item alone helps guide our preparation for a presentation or event, our educational technologies, our choice of venue, food, beverage, and certainly our marketing. If we approach each event from our guests’ point of view, not ours, that alone is a “marketing” approach of sorts. Developing a “learning plan,” rather than a “teaching plan,” is a simple way to help frame our perspective. Modern marketing is customer or learner-centered.

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Marketing Tip #8: Marketing isn’t democratic. Marketing by committee doesn’t work.

If you want everybody to get a participation ribbon and feel good about themselves, then, by all means, create a large marketing committee. If your goal is to creatively market your program, class, campus, or facility, though…well, that’s a different thing entirely. In that case, one person, a dynamic duo, maybe a very small team of 3-5 people is what works. Boards, commissions, large committees—even of brilliant, creative, well-intentioned people—rarely create memorable, effective marketing.

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Marketing Tip #9: Diversity in marketing does work.

Diversity in marketing is important on three crucial levels.

  1. Having people with diverse backgrounds involved in marketing brings diverse perspectives, experiences, and ideas to the planning process.
  2. People with different perspectives and backgrounds help ensure that diverse audiences are considered and addressed right from the start.
  3. Divergent perspectives and experiences are how true creativity comes about. When two or more seemingly-different things are combined in new, exciting, different ways, that’s when creative marketing flourishes. If everybody on the marketing team is the same race, ethnicity, economic level, gender, age, or experience level, it’s hard for creativity to fully flower.

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Marketing Tip # 10: Enfold people in the dream. (Chip Bell)*

Most people respond positively to involvement in things above and beyond themselves: their family, community, job, country, the environment, hobbies or interests. Dreaming— visioning, if you prefer—is essential to pull us out of our ordinary routines and elevate our vision. It’s one thing to talk with or “at” people about a project or concept or lesson. It’s quite another to enfold them in the dream. Altruism, good deeds, what could be—these are not always appropriate approaches, but they certainly can be once in awhile. Enfold people in the dream. Then we all become passionate advocates for it. Passion is underappreciated and underused as a way to retain what one has learned.

*Concept from a keynote presentation by Chip Bell, Wisconsin Governor's Conference on Tourism. Chip Bell is the author of numerous books on customer service.

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Marketing Tip #11: Whimsy and fun are important.

It has come to this, folks. We have reached the point where we have to convince people—even convince ourselves—that whimsy and fun are not only appropriate and acceptable in marketing and education, but highly effective strategies. Lightness, whimsy, and laughter have become suspect. How did we ever get to this point? Where did we go wrong? When did we lose our perspective? What does this say about us as a society? One is reminded of H. L. Mencken’s famous dictum: the “…terrible, pervasive fear that someone, somewhere is having fun.”

For our part, we refuse to explain humor and its importance. That is simply embarrassing and is a level to which we won’t stoop. Suffice it to say that some of the most creative and effective marketing—or literature (Shakespeare, Chaucer), or politics (Lincoln), or, pick your field—of all time has used humor or whimsy to get a message across. We ignore this at our peril in education.

Here are a few tips:

  • Don’t tell a joke unless you’re a professional comedian.
  • A little judicious humor or whimsy is what you’re after. Less is more.
  • There is a certain age cohort in America which is--how can we put this gently?--humor-impaired. This is a group which considers itself "ironic." This group is very self-aware and will let you know, through non-verbal behavior (not smiling, certainly not laughing), and maybe even verbal chastising, that irony trumps pure humor every time. This is a generational subset and we certainly don't want to stereotype all people of a particular generation. These humor categorizers are out there, though, so...be prepared for haughty silence on occasion.
  • Self-deprecating humor is the best approach. Laugh at yourself and the world laughs with you.

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Marketing Tip #12: “When you have a big gun, shoot it.”

This expression goes back to World War I and the huge artillery pieces of the time, but has become a famous marketing mantra. The idea is to lead with your strength, your greatest asset, your best marketing point, most important principle, the primary learning focus.

Seems simple, but…. How many times have you read an article where the “lead is buried”? How often have you heard a presenter smother the main point with an avalanche of “supporting” material? How many web sites have you visited where a plethora of links take you away from the salient point? How many times have you visited a place where the biggest, most obvious asset is ignored or minimized by the local folks? How often do speakers go off on tangents, never to return to the meat of the program? Determine what your “big gun” is. Then shoot it. Repeatedly.

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Marketing Tip #13: Have a “call to action.”

A call to action can be as simple as inviting and welcoming people to participate. A call to action can be implied or overt. Learning is often implied, for example, but have you ever considered actually inviting people to learn? A call to action is another way learners can get involved in, and be responsible for, their own learning.

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Marketing Tip #14: Be careful interpreting what may seem, at first blush, like marketing-friendly research.

Merriam-Webster, the dictionary folks, recently announced the “Top Ten Favorite Words.” These words emerged as the “winners” of a survey conducted by Merriam-Webster OnLine. The words were:

defenestration
callipygian
serendipity juxtapose
onomatopoeia persnickety
discombobulate kerfuffle
plethora flibbertigibbet

Someone might look at these wonderful words and think, “Aha, the top ten favorite words. These would be perfect to use in my title, my session description, my web site, my overall marketing.” One might think that, but one would be wrong. These are favorite words, not the “top 10 most effective marketing words.” With the possible exception of serendipity and plethora, most of these would not be helpful. We love ‘em all, but….No.

There are many examples like the above. Many years ago, a pop music group took their name from a list of “the most warm and fuzzy words” in English. The group’s name? “Bubble Puppy.” Bubble Puppy should have focused on their music, though, not a misplaced marketing message. Name one song by Bubble Puppy. We thought so.

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Marketing Tip #15: Consider learning levels.

At what level is the audience of learners? At what level are you? How does one know? Why is this important?

When you deliver a program or presentation, whether by distance education or in person, how do you know that the material you’ve prepared fits the level the learners are at? How do you know you’re not “over their heads” or presenting material they already know? Isn’t it amazing that people simply walk into a room and begin presenting or teaching with no real clue as to where their customers, clients, or students are developmentally?

Our tip? It seems self-evident, but consider learners’ levels. How? Here are some options:

Ask them. You can ask them informally. You can ask them ahead of time. You can do a poll on-line first thing. You can give a (non-graded) pop quiz. You can give a faux, fun pop quiz. You can conduct a simple survey. You can conduct a focus group. You can observe behavior. You can chat with people before a class. There are lots of ways to do this. The idea is to be learner-centered, not presenter-centered. Start with the level your learners are at and go from there.

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Marketing Tip #16: “One size fits all” or “one size fits one”?

One of the advantages of learning and teaching technologies is that they can help us customize learning. The days of “one size fits all” are waning. Today, learners want and expect customized learning: “one size fits one.”

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Marketing Tip #17: Word of mouth; word of mouth; word of mouth.

For the last half-century or more, virtually every study, no matter what the field, has shown that the primary way people learn and attend to something is via word of mouth. We tend to believe something when we hear it from a family member, friend, neighbor, or valued colleague. We tend to believe things when we hear them from a real-live human rather than read about them, hear about them, or see them on some medium.

Some people mistakenly think this means we shouldn’t market, advertise, or promote our programs, services, or products: “just let word of mouth take care of it.” That isn’t the correct interpretation. Word of mouth and the product or lesson or instructor or gizmo in combination create the “buzz” that makes one sit up and take notice, then take some kind of action. The lesson for us is: Create the “buzz.” Part of creative educational marketing is creating a “buzz.” If people are telling others about the great presentation they’ve seen or heard, that in itself is educational. Some component of the lesson is being spread via word of mouth and more people want to learn about it. Isn’t that the ideal we all seek in learning and teaching?

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Marketing Tip #18: There’s a reason they call it “popular culture.”

It’s important to keep up with “popular culture.” Although many in education denigrate it, another word for “popular culture” is “life”—it’s what people are doing, reading, buying, visiting, talking about, thinking about, and experiencing. We ignore it at our peril. If we don’t pay some attention to popular culture, we miss out on references our learners use and we miss opportunities to reference things we can use as hooks to hang lessons on. If we come across as elitists who think popular culture is something below us, we risk being seen—and along with it, our information—as irrelevant to our learners’ experience. This doesn’t mean we should pander or only teach things which apply to popular culture, but some awareness of what’s going on in the lives of our learners is, and always has been, helpful in education. It’s another way to be student-centered. Just as historical references are useful, an occasional pop culture example sprinkled judiciously into a learner plan can be helpful.

To that end, it’s important to read newspapers, scan blogs and web sites; take a peek at a television schedule once in awhile; peruse the New York Times best-seller list, stroll through the self-help section of a bookstore on occasion; watch Oprah, catch an episode or two of The Daily Show, read a magazine you don’t usually read, be familiar with the latest water cooler chat, know how the local and regional sports teams are doing, know what the hot toys for kids are, humble yourself and skim a tabloid once in a blue moon, be aware of the latest buzz word. It’s called life. As John Dewey famously said, Education is life, not preparation for life.

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