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‘Our Stories’: Why Randolph School’s students wrote the viewbook
Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing,
1
(1),
74-81
(2016)
Abstract
In recent years, Randolph School’s marketing materials have included more voices. From a steady stream of faculty tweets to a school blog with multiple contributors to a student-designed and written admissions viewbook (prospectus) with crowdsourced photos, the school has sought to communicate in a more personal and more authentic way. This approach dovetailed with our realisation that word of mouth, aided by the ubiquity of the smartphone, is more powerful than a direct mail piece or print ad, and that our marketing needed to be more of an ongoing conversation about the school than simply positioning. Giving faculty, staff, students and administrators a role in this effort created discussion internally about institutional value and values, and the need to share these with the market. Finally, this shift towards a more personal voice allows the school to be more authentic in talking about its marketing efforts and in creating content that demonstrates value.
Keywords: viewbook; prospectus; word-of-mouth marketing; social media; Twitter; crowdsource; #rstories13
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Rebecca Moore is communications director at Randolph School in Huntsville, AL, an independent, co-educational, K-12 day school with a student body of 973. At Randolph, she has worked to empower more people to share their stories through school publications and social media. She launched Randolph’s blog, ‘The Randolph Journey’, in 2010; it is among the school blogs featured on the Southern Association of Independent Schools’ website. Rebecca has been a presenter with the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), the Association of Independent School Admission Professionals (AISAP) and the Alabama Independent School Association, and was a guest on the SchneiderB podcast, discussing how schools can use Instagram. Rebecca has worked in independent schools in New York City and London since 1988. As communications director at the American School in London, she spoke at CASE Europe in London and Dublin about the power of institutional storytelling. Rebecca holds an AB from Vassar College and an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She is a frequent contributor to the Sundial Writers’ Corner on WLRH, Huntsville’s public radio station.
