How Your School Photographer Can Step Up Your Game

How Your School Photographer Can Step Up Your Game

Are you struggling to brief your school photographer with creative ideas for your next photoshoot? The world of school photography can become very stale and ensuring creativity in photos that will help you to stand out from the crowd, can become hard to achieve. But did you know that if done well, your school’s photography can be a key differentiator for your school? After all, a major component of your brand is your photography. Almost every aspect of your brand presence is represented through your use of school photos in your marketing collateral, website and advertising. So, put away the unprofessional on-the-go shots and start to consider how you can lift your game by working creatively with a professional school photographer.

Why you should use a professional school photographer

It is easy to underestimate the vital role a school photographer plays in your overall marketing strategy. If you find a photographer that can capture the essence of your school and consistently deliver images that are on brand, I would build a long-term relationship with them and empower them to bring creative ideas to the table. A professional photographer should help you build your school brand in the following ways:

1. Lift the first impression of your institution

A professional photographer will lift the appearance of your school across the board with shots that are well-finished and professional looking. They will also help you to get across the subtle secondary messages that you wish to convey through the staging of the shot, the warmth of the photograph, and the moments they capture. 

2. Provide artistic direction for your school photoshoot

It’s time for us to step away from the “three students under a tree” approach to our school photography and start thinking about creative storytelling. How can we reinforce our brand message through our photos and how can we give outsiders a glimpse into what it is like to be a student at our College? These are the questions we will need to work through with our photographer, who will be able to bring creative suggestions to the table on how to communicate your message through staging and styling. 

3. Professional post-editing

We may think that all the hard work is done once our photos have been taken, but a photographer’s skill really comes to light in post-editing. Your school photographer will spend time refining your photographs to correct alignment, colours and tone. You may have a specific ‘colour treatment’ applied to each photo that is a part of your brand feel, or you may have photos that ‘pop’ by adjusting the sharpness of the image. It is important that you have a chat about your post-editing expectations and how much time you want the photographer to put into doing this while you are planning the photoshoot with them. 

4. Streamline your look

One of the most important things that your school photographer can achieve for you is a consistent look and feel to your photos. This will lift your brand and ensure your school always looks its best in marketing collateral and on your school website.

Once you have decided to go with a professional photographer, you must do your part to ensure you get the best product. The more you are involved in the process, the better the outcome will be. Below are a few ways you can prepare and run a great photoshoot for your school.

 

Planning your school photoshoot

1. Creative concept – look and feel

Start your planning by thinking about the look and feel you want for your school photos. Write down the subtle message you want to convey, for example, individual attention, genuine care for students, innovation, and opportunity. Think about how this is communicated through your images and discuss this with your photographer.

2. Put together a run sheet for the day

When deciding on a date for your photoshoot, make sure you check the whole school calendar and plan the day around student activities and the uniform they will be wearing. Once you have decided on a day, the next step is to put together a run sheet of the shooting schedule, locations and students involved. I like to put all the information into a table, like the example below: 

Ensure that you time any outdoor shots for either first thing in the morning or in the afternoons. This is so you get the best lighting while the sun is not too harsh for everyone. It is also a good idea to have shots with younger children before lunch while they are still ‘fresh’ and their uniform is tidy. 

3. Pick students

Your run sheet will give you a great overview of how many students you will need for your photo day. A huge success factor for the day is to ensure that you have enough variety of students chosen for each shot. So many times, schools may end up with a great variety of shots but use the same students in many of their photographs. I would try to plan for as many different students as possible. I also like to have a backup set of students for each shot so that if a student does not feel right for the shot, you have a few students on hand to swap out. A student that does not work in one scenario, may work perfectly in the next, so try as many variations as possible.

Remember to also run your student shortlist through with academic staff to make sure that you have chosen students who represent the culture of your school, both inside and outside of the classroom. 

4. Letters home and permissions

The last thing you want is the perfect photo for use on a bus or billboard, only to have a family request that it be removed after the fact. It is important to go the extra step of getting students and parents on the same page for two reasons, so:

1. Students arrive for the day looking their best

2. Parents understand how the photos of their children may be used for promotions.

Letters home should provide examples of how the photos might be used so that parents are OK with this. The collection of these permissions can be made simpler by asking parents to opt out if they do not want to participate, rather than requiring every family to opt in before a specific date.

If possible, provide students with at least a week’s notice so that they can purchase any additional uniform items required and get a haircut if needed. 

5. Organise additional help for the day

A photo day is surprisingly exhausting and having extra help on hand will ensure your success. Have another staff member clear their schedule for the day to help you collect students and prepare for the next shot, while you are overseeing the current shot. This way, you will get the most out of your time with the photographer. Additional help at hand will also ensure you minimise small errors from appearing in shots, such as incorrect uniforms or non-uniform items worn, untidy hair and stains on clothing.

 

Looking for a school photographer?

Roberts Digital offers photographer services to schools across Australia. Our services go the extra mile by helping you plan your day around your marketing objectives and providing creative ideas that will make your school stand out.

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How to Promote Your School in the Community

How to Promote Your School in the Community

As education marketers, we can be tempted to think that our brand presence, local advertisements, and billboards do a lot of the heavy lifting for us to get families and students over the line. And while it all plays its part, a great marketer knows that hearts are really won over through active engagement rather than passive advertising. While it’s true that a garden that has not been watered will yield less fruit, the same is true for a community that has not been invested in – it will yield less enrolments from its marketing efforts.

It is important that we take up our role as living and contributing members of our communities, rather than institutions with closed doors and a message to push. If you invest in your local community correctly, you will become:

  • A school that shapes the long-term economics of your local community by increasing local real estate demand and local business.
  • A school that is connected to the heart of our communities and able to build long-term partnerships.
  • A school that is a valuable contributor to its community, a giver rather than a taker, and one that locals will advocate for.
  • The go-to school of choice for your area.

Community engagement has long-term benefits that will secure the viability of your College and is an especially important part of your marketing strategy. Let us look at a few ways you can start to engage your local community.

 

 

Local Business

Engage local businesses by taking up sponsorship opportunities, participating in their events and negotiating signage and brand presence.

Investing directly in local business engagement opportunities can often be more cost-effective than other advertising platforms and often provides more direct engagement opportunities.

 

Community Organisations

Get involved with community organisations such as local sports clubs, churches, youth groups and holiday programs. Again, look for ways where you can participate in their programs rather than just having your logo on their wall.

Key Stakeholders

Spend some time with your team (and parents) to identify key influencers in your local community. These may include local real estate agents, political figures, community advocates and pastors. Build meaningful connections with these people and start to involve them in your community events.

 

Community Events

Events such as Fete’s and Fairs reach far beyond immediate prospective families and are a great way to connect current parents with the local community and to give back. Be strategic about getting the local community involved in your event by inviting local community members onto the planning committee, sending invitations to local sporting groups, businesses and organisations, and including them in your entertainment program for the day. While growing enrolments will be one of your strategies for the day, the feel-good message from the day will make your event a local highlight that the community looks forward to each year.

 

Facilities

So many schools have state of the art facilities that can be used strategically to engage the community. I’ve seen many schools open up their facilities to their communities through public access to after hour gyms, hosting local events such as chamber of commerce meetings, community vegetable gardens and venue and facilities hire and sports coaching.

 

Online Forums

The world of social media has opened up increased access to local community forums. Look for opportunities through local web pages and community based social media groups where you can get involved in the discussion.

Now that we are engaging our local community, it is important that we have an intentional strategy to drive enrolments This can be done through:

  • Your Outdoor Presence – Ongoing local presence is particularly important (we don’t want to hear any more of the cringe worthy comments “I didn’t even know there was a school here”). My favourite way of maintaining presence is through the use of great campus signage, outdoor signage and flagpole banners.
  • Leaflet Drops may be an oldie, but it is a goodie. They are very effective in driving local awareness, especially when following our formula for success.
  • Referral incentives are a great way to leverage members of the community for mutual benefit. Try to build referral schemes with people of influence such as local real estate agents and businesses that work with families and children.
  • Local childcare centers and mums and bubs groups present a great opportunity to hold evening events on the transition to Primary school.
  • Driving people through your Digital “Funnel” is a huge strategy that will help you to catch any community members that are looking for a school.

 

Community engagement that is done correctly will secure the long-term viability of your school. It may be daunting to start, and it takes so much more than the marketing department putting aside an hour a week (see my video on how to grow your marketing team), but your College will flourish in every direction because of it.

Questions regarding this article? Please email me at mara@robertsdigital.com.au

Your Three-step Framework for Marketing Success

Your Three-step Framework for Marketing Success

School marketing and communications are marked with busyness, frequent deadlines and a repetitive cycle that is based on a termly school calendar. But it’s this repetitive process of putting your all into a campaign, learning how to master the details and then getting to do it again the following year, that I absolutely love about marketing schools. Each year, we should be learning and refining so that our competitive edge is sharpened as we grow.

The process of continuous improvement is best managed when your team has a big-picture understanding of what your marketing puzzle is going to look like and how the pieces fit together. Today we are going to look at lessons learnt from almost a decade of implementing school campaigns so that you too can have a framework for success.

 

Laying the brand foundation

How is it that some schools seem to have ongoing success with the smallest of campaign efforts, while other schools can work as hard as ever but never seem to reap the results and cut-through they are looking for? In my experience, the difference lies in the perception that your audience has about your school. Families may be hearing about your College and seeing your campaigns but they are not considering your school as a viable option because of a negative perception or preconceived ideas they have about your school.

I have seen many schools waste their marketing money by pushing out advertising campaigns without understanding the perception the local community has about their school. Also, many schools lack a consolidated approach to their school marketing. Their advertising campaigns lack the punch and clarity needed to change their audience’s perceptions and grow your school’s market share because each campaign is pointing in a different direction.

 

A strong school branding strategy will have an extensive plan on how to “expand the pie”, so to speak, by using educational brand-building campaigns. An intentional effort is needed to change people’s perceptions about your school and increase market share from families that would not normally consider your school. These brand campaigns should be consistently delivered and updated as your brand evolves.

A brand with clarity is sure about its brand identity (logo, corporate colours and fonts) and its differentiating uniqueness that enables families to choose your school over others.

Further to this, your College will also need to be effective at converting audiences that are being engaged by your brand campaigns into enrolment enquiries. For schools, the decision of which school to choose for their child is a long-term one that can take anywhere from 2 months to 2 years. Therefore, we need the ability to not only engage our audience once, but to re-engage them based on their interaction with your school. This is where your digital marketing campaign starts to pull its weight in your overall strategy.

Digital marketing for schools

My opinion is that school marketers are currently under-investing in their digital strategies. Because of the way parents shop for schools and the learned online behaviour, digital plays a huge role in your overall marketing success.

A school’s digital marketing strategy should include:

  • A website that can convert prospective families into enrolment enquiries. This includes being mobile friendly, technically sound, and fast to load.
  • Search visibility in major search engines, such as Google and Bing. This requires an intentional strategy of adding SEO keyword-rich content to your website regularly and a strategy to appear on top of search results for an ever-increasing number of keywords.
  • A social media strategy to not only engage current families but to utilise positive word of mouth to reach new audiences through social media advertising. This can also include a strategy to remarket to your audience and show them advertising based on their engagement with your school.
  • A strategy to build your email list and nurture families from their first point of contact through to enrolment.
  • Display advertising that uses the power of data to reach the right families in your target market so that your brand is shown on a huge network of complimentary websites.
  • An automated way to regularly view your marketing results on a live reporting dashboard so that school leaders and the marketing team know their numbers, can implement an agile marketing plan, and make adjustments as they go.

While your digital strategy does a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of measurable results, no marketing plan is complete without traditional marketing.

Traditional marketing for schools

Traditional advertising works best when it is part of an overall strategy. The central message of your campaign should be clearly communicated on your website, social media, digital display ads and traditional mediums. Further to this, traditional marketing can help you reinforce your digital campaign messages by, for example, doing a leaflet drop in the same geographic area as your digital campaign targeting.

By focusing your campaigns around your target audience, your marketing campaign will be able to make enough of an impact to result in your audience taking action. Your marketing manager should have a clear picture of your target audience and then plan how to reach that same audience through different traditional and digital mediums.

In implementing this strategy, schools can often fall into the trap of using the same mediums each year because that is what they know and they are unaware of any alternative options. Unfortunately, many of the mediums that schools use are over-saturated and decreasing in effectiveness. Schools should test out new mediums by allocating a portion of their annual budget to trying out new ways of advertising on a small scale. If these campaigns bear fruit, they can be scaled in your following year’s strategy.

Having said that, once you find a medium that works, consistent placements will win over once-off ad placements. Ensure you have enough budget to “do it well”, by choosing a few billboards throughout the year, or if your budget doesn’t allow, choosing a medium that you can consistently place in through the year.

On a last note for traditional advertising, I have found that “frequency” is the key to success. Frequency is the number of times your audience will be exposed to your message. A higher frequency always outperforms. When choosing radio ads, opt for a tight schedule of airings through your campaign rather than a longer campaign time. For billboards, opt for digital billboards.

The best school marketers are those who let the data make the decisions for them. A culture of strong reporting that is driven from the top down, will enable your school to make the necessary adaptions sooner rather than later and take advantage of opportunities well in advance. Our school marketers are so much more than advertising coordinators, they should have a seat at the leadership table so that schools can effectively bridge the gap between what the CUSTOMER wants and your school’s offering.

Questions regarding this article? Please email me at mara@robertsdigital.com.au