Qatar has put considerable efforts and investments on its education sector and these efforts have unfolded positively throughout the past few years leading up to occupying the 1st position in ranking for Quality Education in the Arab world and the 4th position worldwide.
This is great news for the expanding sector, but the growth in number of educational institutions in Qatar with respect to the size of the population layers and additional challenge for marketers working within this sector to claim a bigger market share from the competition to eventually thrive and sustain.
When I was going to school back in the 90s, marketing for educational institutions was obsolete, enrollments usually happened solely through word of mouth or friend and family recommendations. Beside that, total number of schools in a city was easily quantifiable by hand. Now with the rapid expansion of sector and the ever-growing importance of education and higher education, many institutes are tending to focus on marketing efforts and strategies to reach their targeted enrollments, KPIs and claim a respectable market share.
Where do we stand as parents in this equation?
As a professional parent and a working mother, choosing the right school for my daughters was the most challenging project I have worked on in my life and career.
Was advertising an essential pillar for my decision-making process?
What helped me choose the right school for my kids or (at least what I think is right based on our family standards)?
I have tried to understand the difference between the diverse education systems available here in Qatar and worldwide. I have researched schools online, offline and have asked around, none of which eased the selection process especially that the criteria for quality education vary between one family and another. I eventually based my choice on my gut feelings, school history and word of mouth. These variables helped me come up with an answer that I felt was right for our family.
Choosing the right education system for our kids, is directly correlated with their success in the future, we feel any mistake we do in this choice will impact their future as they grow up. Even though the standards of a successful future differ between us, the capitalist world we live in made it simple by associating it to income.
But what matters the most beyond choosing a school or an education system is trust.
Trusting the teachers, trusting the parents, trusting the admin team and trusting the community.
We grow into brand advocates when we strongly believe that the community will provoke a positive impact to our children’s lives.
The people running the school are the main contributors for the education system’s success or failure, online and offline marketing efforts should revolve around the people to cultivate, sustain, and grow an educational empire.
If we go through the stages of a marketing funnel starting from awareness leading to conversion or purchase, deciding on a school ideally follows the same cycle of any tangible product or service but instead of purchase we call in enrollment.
However, in choosing schools, for parents to reach the diamond point (decision making point), marketing efforts focus on one more complex variable other than the obvious product, price, promotion, etc. mix. It considers mainly the student experiences as the main cultivator for prospects’ decision-making process.
To be able to provide a healthy and up-to-date reflection of student experiences, schools need to continuously assess and introduce trends within their education system to stay relevant to the everchanging world needs we are living in. By having such an approach, reflecting a harmonious educational ecosystem within a school will eventually foster feelings of predilection within existing students and prospects. This will consequently attain a growing market value and share.
Our marketing spectrum should always be people focused rather than the promotion or product focused. It is more personal, more human, and more centered around the human intellect and interaction. If we have good experience, we will have positive sentiments which will grow the school beyond its walls.
If we were to strategize it, the major catalyst in growing education is effectively communicating customer experience. This plays the major role in growing beyond the thought of sustainability to reaching multiplied growth, which makes the acquisition cycle magnetically natural and easy for any educational institute.
Let us not forget that we are where we are today not mainly because of the school or university we went to but because of personal experiences and interactions we had with the people in it.
Rarely would we remember a book, but we always remember the teacher who explained it to us.
Rarely would we advocate an educational system, but we always support an ideology it reflects.
Rarely would we remember a class, but we will always remember the smell of its corridors.
This leads me to the conclusion that when marketing for a school or a university we should first and foremost highlight the people and the experiences awaiting us in it and then, secondarily, communicate the education system it follows. This is what makes all the difference and forms the fertilizer which will grow education and our Gen Alpha’s future.
