Developing your
Communications
“Louise has a holistic understanding of PR and the press, including crisis management.”
Schools are busy places. Quite rightly so. They are focused on providing the very best education they can offer. Sometimes though, they are too busy to reflect on how they could improve the way they communicate – what they are saying, how they are saying it and even where they are saying it!
Communication is absolutely vital. It is the lifeblood of any successful school:
“It has been a pleasure to work with Louise for 8 years as the PR Officer for Oakham School. As Head I have worked closely with Louise in a number of contexts: advising on interviews with journalists; preparing key press statements; developing new approaches to social media communication and, very importantly, taking ideas and writing engaging copy for a variety of publications both online and in hard copy. In all contexts she has been quite outstanding. It is her enthusiasm and proactive approach that means Louise stands out from the crowd. She is not someone who simply waits to be instructed as to what to do. She is not one for a quiet life and rarely does a week pass with her approaching me with a new idea or initiative. She certainly keeps us as a school on our toes and that is exactly what we want from a PR Officer if we are to continue to develop our communications strategy and to make the most of a rapidly developing social media world. I cannot recommend Louise more highly.”
reminding your parents that they have made the right choice, to reaffirm that your fees offer good value for money and to encourage them to spread the word about how satisfied they are with your school.
building relationships with prospective parents, pupils and feeder schools to outline why they should consider your school, to sell them the benefits of the education on offer and to keep them up-to-date with everything that is happening to ensure they feel part of your community and convert to joiners.
keeping an open dialogue with parents, pupils & staff; to ensure that feedback is open, welcomed and there is a process in place to take action.
How can I help?
developing the right message - working out exactly what it is that you want (or need) to say, developing your school's unique voice and making it loud and distinctive from your competitors.
devising a communications plan to ensure your school knows what it needs to be saying and where – across all aspects of your school communications. If your response to advertising is scattergun and reactive, your school magazines take years to come into being, or parents complain they never know what is going on - we can work with you to plan what gets said, when and where.
producing new prospectuses & printed materials - from developing clear briefs (to ensure you get the most out of your budget) to managing the creative process or copy writing.
establishing an effective online presence - through developing your own website and social media presence. Online marketing is a scarily fast-paced business; keeping up, choosing to take part and maintaining a great presence all takes work, effort and planning.
training staff to understand how to plan the school’s communications and how to write for different audiences and media (writing online news articles, letters to feeder schools, tweeting or composing a press release are all very different skills).