Do you know which marketing tactics are working at your school and which ones require your attention? Find the answers with a marketing communications audit.
ISM defines marketing communications as how your school develops messages and carries out integrated strategies. Your approach informs the ways you promote your school values and nurture constituent relations, commitment, and investment.
A marketing communications audit helps identify the efficacy of your school’s communications. It empowers you to understand how your constituents value your messages and uncovers strategies that require attention. This audit will highlight your strengths and challenges, providing an opportunity to reshape your marketing strategy by listening to the community.
If you’re ready to undertake a marketing communications audit, here’s how we suggest you start.
Step 1: Define the Scope
Determine your audit’s direction and scope. Think about which aspects of your communications you want to include. You can focus on digital, print, or a combination.
Step 2: Gather Constituent Feedback
In order to determine what’s most effective, you need to gather feedback from your constituencies. We recommend surveying your parents, faculty, and alumni. This helps you get a better sense of what’s working and what isn’t. Address teacher-parent communication, school-parent communication, school publications, and interpersonal interactions.
Step 3: Review Your Materials
Evaluate everything your school has sent over the past six months for consistency in message and tone. Do they align with your image, brand, mission, and values?
Review your social media, website, email, newsletters, and any print media. You can also include spirit wear, fine arts and athletic event fliers and programs, campus signs, and even parent group communications. Is everything consistent with your brand?
Next, zero in on your email strategy. Do you track how many emails families receive from all departments and divisions at your school? As you assess your email strategy, look for things like the quality of your content, the frequency of your messages, and the open and click-through rates.
Many schools still create and share print media. Review what you currently produce—is print the best medium for those messages? Are some of these print materials still appropriate or necessary? How much time and money does it take to produce these items? Assess your print media with the same targeted strategy you use for digital marketing communications.
Tune in to live webinars every week during the school year to get specific, research-backed insight you can immediately apply at your school.
Step 4: Review Your Competitors
A competitive analysis helps you gain a clearer understanding of your own marketplace position by examining your true competitors. Remember, not every school in your area is a competitor. Look only at those that match your value and price point.
Compare their value propositions, message frameworks, and marketing strategies to your own. This process helps you avoid becoming complacent, encourages differentiation, and develops your self-awareness.
Ready to Get Started?
Conducting a marketing communications audit can provide a road map to stronger relationships with your constituents through better brand management, messaging, and strategic execution.
Prepare to hear some harsh realities—but use these as opportunities for improvement. Don’t be discouraged by the time and effort that will be required to complete the audit process. A full marketing communications audit can take a semester or even a whole academic year.
A marketing communications audit gives you the tools to better communicate with and serve your students, parents, faculty, and staff.
