Products designed for the classroom must meet the needs of teachers first. If students are the primary users of your instructional materials this may sound a little backwards – but it isn’t. Teachers can make or break your product before a student ever sees it.
Designing for teacher ease-of-use should be a core competency at any education publisher.
Today we tackle issue #4 in the series on selling and marketing to educators.
In times of disruptive change the cutting edge is the safest place to be.
To many people this seems counterintuitive. If there is rapid change the inclination of most people is to circle the wagons around the familiar. But, when the market is moving, breaking camp and moving forward is actually a lower risk approach. If you are taking risks in your job and trying to invent the future you are actually in a safer position than those who cling to the status quo.
Education Market Forces
Another entry in our sporadic series on bad marketing.
This video is hilarious. I love the “my daughter didn’t get it” and “we’ve love it but have some minor tweaks.” I’ve been known to say the latter.
From the target market definition to the creative it skewers slack thinking and over-engineering.
Can a new product enter the education market and generate organic growth in the market? Not really. This is one of the core issues new entrants have to wrap their heads around as they think about how to sell and market to schools. Education is (mostly) a zero sum game.
Today we tackle issue #3 in our series on selling and marketing to educators.
The global economic meltdown is going to affect education budgets. States and School Districts will react to a drop in tax receipts and a credit freeze. This entry is an attempt to map out some of the possibilities for how the slowdown will play out in schools.
First – some good news. No matter what happens in the economy kids still show up in school needing an education. The market is not recession proof but it is also a core service of civilization. Unless we end up in some Mad Max dystopia there will be a market.
Second – any market will have losers and winners. There are several market trends that will be accelerated by a budget crunch and companies that are poised to take advantage of them will do just fine. If your strategy isn’t focused clearly on core funded needs you will struggle (strategic focus is a service I provide).
In my post about Barack Obama’s focus on early childhood education I noted that the gap between low performers and high performers gets much more difficult to bridge as students get older. Obama’s early learning proposals are pragmatic because they aim to close the achievement gap when it is easiest and most effective.
Michelle King, today’s guest blogger, makes the important point that it is the relative gap not the absolute gap that presents a challenge to teachers. Michelle is an administrator at a large urban school district and a former 1st Grade bilingual teacher.
Michelle’s insights amplify the urgency for intervening in the early grades. She also points towards a Response to Intervention (RTI) program that is addressing this challenge here in Texas.
Do you need to pick a target market when entering the education market? One of the true signs of a rookie is a business plan built on selling to all schools. Just because all schools should be using your widget doesn’t mean they are ready to buy it.
Picking a target market is a discipline many people try to avoid – they don’t like getting boxed in. Others don’t understand just how big the education market is or think all schools are the same. If you are in love with your product you may resist the idea that some schools don’t want it or don’t need it.
Today we tackle issue #2 in our series on selling and marketing to educators. As a consultant in the education market I work with a wide range of businesses. This series covers the common execution errors I see with new executives and companies when they enter the market.
Rookies in the education market make a set of common mistakes. There are five concepts you need to grasp about selling to schools that will help you avoid execution error as you enter the learning market. Consider these the iron laws of marketing to public schools. Accept them, nay embrace them, and your job will be easier.
In my consulting practice I go through these topics with almost all clients who are entering this market from other industries or countries. In this series I will post my thoughts on each of these rules and I welcome your comments and reactions. We will cover:
Part 1. Obey the calendar. Schools buy on a regular schedule, design your business around it.
Piping hot education related blog topics served here! The debate over formative assessment, the top 10 sites for educational games, crowd-sourcing the next great novel, controversy around Microsoft’s new ads, the relationship between quality and advertising, and a hilarious spoof of Politicians all get the nod this week.
Education Week has a very interesting article about Formative Assessment. Given the burgeoning mantra that formative assessment makes the biggest difference in outcomes it is revealing to see how little consensus there is on what it really is. Is it a practice or is it a product?
John Rice has a list of the top 10 sites for free EduGames. It is worth a peek and linking through to get a sense of what kids are actually playing. This should dispel the myth that EduGames need to rival commercial games in graphics and sound. What matters most is fun game play.
Education Channel Partner published a story I wrote about partnerships for companies that serve the education market. Whether you are a textbook publisher, an education technology developer, a fellow management consultant, or a reseller/dealer I hope you will find some useful ideas in the article. Think of it as Business Development 101 for education.
Too many partnerships fail because the partners didn’t work through all the questions they needed to address individually and mutually. This article attempts to lay out a process for evaluating partnerships and a partnership taxonomy to help determine what kinds of partnerships are right for your company. It draws on my experiences at Apple, Chancery, Pearson, and Harcourt.
From the blurb:
