Posts by the MDR Marketing Team
We’re the MDR Marketing Team and education marketing is our beat. We’ll help you stay up to speed with the latest news, trends, and opportunities as education reinvents itself, once again.
You may have heard of the federal Blue Ribbon Schools award program recognizing schools for academic excellence and closing the achievement gap, but did you know about the U.S. Department of Education’s Green Ribbon Schools awards? The goal of this program is to inspire schools to strive for 21st-century excellence by highlighting promising school sustainability Read More »
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Email marketing campaigns are a terrific way to reach prospects and secure qualified leads. However, we know the educators you want to reach receive hundreds of emails every day – even more during prime times in the academic calendar like back to school and the spring buying cycle. How can you be sure that your Read More »
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As schools continue to work to mitigate the learning loss resulting from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, many are offering summer learning programs that combine academics and enrichment. And because of the billions of dollars in ARP ESSER funds that have been distributed to states and districts, they have the resources to invest in Read More »
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Teacher Appreciation Week 2022 is May 1-7 It’s been a rough couple of years for all of us, especially our country’s teachers. They’ve had to learn how to teach remotely, help their students overcome unprecedented learning loss and support them as they face mental health challenges brought on by the isolation and uncertainty of the Read More »
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It’s hard to sell something if you don’t understand who you are trying to sell it to. Yet, marketers face the challenge of clearly defining who their target buyer really is, particularly in education. In many K-12 environments, decisions are made at the school district or even school board level, but often teachers, parents, and Read More »
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It may only be February, but the end of the 2021-2022 school year is as little as three or four months away. And with the end of the school year comes the scramble by districts, schools, and even individual teachers to spend down their budgets. Whether this “use it or lose it” scenario includes millions Read More »
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The U.S. Department of Education has approved the final state and territory plans for using their American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds to support the safe and sustained return to in-person learning for U.S. K-12 students. Other states and territories had their ARP ESSER plans approved in 2021. All 52 Read More »
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It’s been quite a year for all of us in the education community, especially teachers. Earlier this year, we predicted what we thought might be the hot topics for education in 2021 and we were pretty close to accurate with topics such as learning loss, educational equity, and remote learning. But who knew that districts Read More »
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The U.S. Department of Education approved plans from 12 more states and Guam for use of the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds. Earlier this year, the department distributed two-thirds of the ARP ESSER funds, totaling $81 billion, to state departments of education. The remaining third of the funding is made Read More »
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At their annual Worldwide Developers Conference on June 7th this year, Apple announced a new policy on email privacy. According to Apple, their Mail Privacy Protection (MPP) “hides your IP address, so senders can’t link it to your other online activity or determine your location. And it prevents senders from seeing if and when Read More »
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Every November, Merriam-Webster picks the “word of the year.” For 2020, it was “pandemic.” (Go figure!) While it is still a bit early for the 2021 word to be announced, it might well be “disruption.” And among the things that have been most disrupted over the past year or more is the way that we Read More »
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MDR Insights There are 95,478 public schools in America, serving over 49 million public school students. Let’s look at the different school district sizes and what types of businesses match their needs. At MDR, we consider a district large if it enrolls over 10,000 students. A medium district enrolls 2,500 to 9,999 students, and a Read More »
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We’re all familiar with Teacher Appreciation Week. Considering everything teachers are dealing with right now–return to in-person instruction, keeping kids safe, helping students catch up, and controversies about curriculum—we’d like to make a suggestion… Let’s make every day Teacher Appreciation Day. Here’s why: whatever expectations you may have in a typical year for teacher time? Read More »
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The U.S. Department of Education recently approved 21 state plans for use of their American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) funds. These states join 11 others and Washington, D.C. whose plans were approved earlier this year. The plans detail how each state is using and plans to use ARP ESSER funds Read More »
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Educators couldn’t miss the headlines about the additional $122 billion allocated for ESSER in the American Rescue Plan (ARP), signed into law in March. But there was another boon for education in the ARP that you may not have heard about: the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF). Administered through the Universal Service Administrative Company of the FCC, Read More »
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States and school districts around the country are seeing the influx of American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) funds. The U.S. Department of Education recently approved plans from 11 states and Washington, D.C. for using the funds to safely reopen and sustain the operation of schools, and address the needs of Read More »
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As teachers exhale and hopefully get some well-deserved R&R, we thought it was time to reflect on some of the changes coming out of the COVID-19 experience. Sometimes out of chaos comes positive change, here are five ways we think schools will have changed for the better: Remote learning may be here to stay. Not Read More »
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As of April 2021, the CDC reported nearly 80 percent of teachers, school staff, and childcare workers have received at least one shot of COVID-19 vaccine*, recently the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine for children as young as 12 and experts are predicting even younger children will be eligible to be vaccinated by the end Read More »
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One of the major challenges in selling to education is getting your product in the right hands, using the right channels, and then securing the sale. The trick is to reach out and develop a connection so you can confidently inform decision makers, “This product will meet your needs or address your problem!” Establish Relationships Read More »
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What’s moving the needle in sales and marketing these days? Complete, Accurate, and Fresh Data. The definition of data quality is changing, largely because today’s education sales and marketers are using data as high-octane fuel for sophisticated activation strategies, like: Personalization Account-Based Marketing Customer Data Platforms Programmatic Advertising Defining Buyer Personas Identifying Lookalike Audiences Marketing Read More »
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With the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the headlines every day for most of this past year, it may seem that the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) has taken a back seat. However, that is not the case: the CCPA’s regulations became final and effective as of August 14, 2020. Now that it has taken effect, Read More »
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We’ve all been paying close attention to the news and our local school communities, following the opening plans. MDR data experts have been capturing when and how school will be in session and which learning models each school will follow. Although, some schools started a little later this year, as of this week, most schools Read More »
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Thank you to The Marketing Scope for sharing our guest contributed article. Educators are a band of wise warriors quietly cultivating the minds that will form our future — they’re some of the most valuable people in society. But how often do you think of them as an investable audience when it comes to building Read More »
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Thank you to Marketing Insider Group for referencing us in this great article. If you’ve read the news lately, you’ve come across Greta Thunberg’s name. Since skipping school to protest at Sweden’s parliament building in 2018, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist represents the teen-led climate strike movement.Thanks to Thunberg and the millions she’s inspired, it’s become clear Read More »
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That’s scary – and here are four reasons why! With Halloween upon us…made me think about a haunting dirty trick. I’m talking about being ghosted. It’s the worst. You think you’ve made a connection with someone, and then they stop responding to your calls, emails, texts, whatever. Whoosh—they’ve vanished. It’s the ultimate insult. You weren’t Read More »
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Thanks to ReadWrite for referencing us in this great article. Nearly 200 chief executives from some of the world’s largest companies met in August as part of the Business Roundtable. Discussing the most pressing issues facing modern corporations, their manifesto signaled a departure from old-school corporate philosophy. Its primary message? Shareholder value isn’t everything. Regardless of how far-reaching their call Read More »
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Renaissance Collaborates with MDR to Build Continued Awareness Among School Leaders School leaders regularly clock more than a standard, full-time workload every week. In fact, a recent study showed that on average, principals work nearly 60 hours a week. This makes them an especially challenging audience to reach for the thousands of education technology companies Read More »
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If educators respond to relationship marketing, and every relationship starts with a good conversation, then content marketing is your best opening line. Thoughtful, captivating, relevant content that strikes a chord with the teacher audience is an ideal ice breaker. Make an educator feel like you’re worth listening to, and you are heading for the top Read More »
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Thanks to CEOWorld Magazine for referencing us in this great article. Over the last few years, you’ve probably noticed a disturbing business trend for organizations interested in continued growth: Hiring has been getting harder. For the first time, the number of job openings exceeded the number of unemployed workers in the U.S. In order to fill vacant positions Read More »
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It’s the most wonderful time of the year, and well, the busiest! With the start of the new school year upon us, we are consistently asked “what are the few things we can do now to keep our campaigns fresh for educators and give them an edge up to our competitors?” Well, to help you Read More »
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