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.
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 […]
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The first of their generation was born in 1997, the year that Google.com was registered as a domain name, IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer made history for beating a reigning world chess champion, and everyone who was anyone had a Palm Pilot. Gen Zers are the fastest-growing group of educators in our schools today. These new […]
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Kids go to school to learn reading and math, but it is also important that they learn more about the world around them, including how to protect our environment and improve health and wellness in their communities. Since 2012, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s (USDOE) Green Ribbon Schools program, 712 schools, districts, and […]
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It’s hard to believe that only three years ago, we were in the first month of the COVID-19 pandemic, with schools striving to successfully implement remote learning and cope with growing uncertainty. Among the opportunities and challenges that came with the disruption of the pandemic was an unprecedented level of federal investment in K-12 schools. […]
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Remember the adage, “If you can read this, thank a teacher?” Well, as we all know, there are hundreds of things, including teaching us to read, that we should thank today’s teachers for. And during Teacher Appreciation Week we have the opportunity to amplify the thanks we should offer teachers every single day. Of course, […]
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Last month, we looked at the number of teachers who are considering leaving the profession and the reasons for the teacher shortage that is impacting parts of the United States. But it is futile to present a challenge without considering solutions so now let’s explore potential remedies to this situation – specifically how companies that work […]
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For many years, we’ve heard about shortages of qualified teachers and big numbers leaving the profession, particularly in some states and school districts. And like so many things, the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic increased the frustrations for many teachers by magnifying the problems that have plagued them for years, including low wages, long hours, […]
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A movement that started in the United States more than 30 years ago, public charter schools serve more than 3.7 million students in about 7,700 schools around the country. According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, they saw an increase of nearly 240,000 students since the beginning of the pandemic—a 7 percent increase—while […]
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Why integrated marketing for education marketing? Because educators seek information from multiple channels before making decisions. You need to meet your audience where they are and where they spend time, rather than expecting them to come to you. It takes multiple touches-10 or more-to create brand trust and conversion with educators. Yes, that many touches, […]
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“Influencer marketing” continues to be a top strategy – especially in the consumer world. But when you think about it, it’s been happening informally in education for decades. There may be no other vertical market where word-of-mouth recommendations matter more. But what does “influencer marketing’ really mean in today’s environment and how can your company […]
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It may seem hard to believe but it is (once again) the time of year when schools are faced with the “use it or lose it” challenge when it comes to spending the remainder of their 2022-2023 school budgets. And while lack of sufficient ongoing funding remains a problem for many districts around the country, […]
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Mitigating learning loss. Declining enrollments. Ensuring student social and emotional health. Managing increased parental involvement. Providing a safe learning environment. These concerns are just the top of the laundry list of challenges that education leaders face in 2023. Plus, they face the looming September 2024 deadline to allocate Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund […]
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“Out with the old, in with the new” is a great attitude for starting the year! But it also applies to the data that you use for your successful marketing programs. An MDR report on the risks of dirty data revealed that cleaning up your database could boost your company’s revenue by up to 66 […]
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Content marketing is a mature and irreplaceable part of the marketing mix. Marketers appreciate its effectiveness for establishing thought leadership, promoting brand awareness, and keeping products top of the customers’ mind. Marketers needing to keep the pipeline filled with quality content are always looking for new sources, and user-generated content can be an option. User-generated […]
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U.S. education is in the midst of a resurgence of what has been dubbed the “Reading Wars.” For more than 40 years, there has been a conflict between proponents of explicit phonics instruction – structured literacy – and those who promote the whole-language approach. The heightened focus on this debate may have been ignited by […]
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Our country has nearly 50 million K-12 students enrolled in public schools. However, a lot has changed since the days of the traditional little red schoolhouse with desks all in a row, where kids studied reading, writing and arithmetic. Today a significant number of students are attending specialty K-12 schools, such as charters and magnets. […]
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It’s no surprise that the disruption of COVID-19 school closings had an impact on student learning, but assessments are now showing that the learning loss may be graver than anyone anticipated. And recent results of the 2022 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—dubbed the “Nation’s Report Card”—revealed that there has been no greater impact than […]
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As the year comes to a close, you are likely deep in the middle of marketing and sales planning for 2023 – plotting out your themes and campaigns as well as the conferences and events where you will meet with educators. We’ve all learned over the past few years that everything can change in a minute, […]
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In this series of blog posts, we are featuring the 36 new job titles we recently added to our database of school personnel. These titles reflect the ways that school districts are responding to our changing world with new positions that help them address today’s challenges and those they will face in the future. We’ve […]
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As the headlines are declaring, the U.S. is in the midst of a national teacher shortage. In fact, the National Center for Education Statistics’ (NCES) latest survey results on public school experiences with COVID-19 shows that, 53 percent of all public schools felt understaffed entering the 2022-2023 school year, and 69 percent reported too few […]
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In last month’s post, we introduced new “Facilities Management & School Safety” job titles and we also previously examined new “Health & Wellness” positions. Now let’s look at the important category of “Technology.” While K-12 schools have been making significant investments in technology for decades, the events of the past few years, including the unanticipated switch […]
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Each year MDR examines data on public school enrollment and offers a snapshot of the state of the country’s schools. This year’s results show interesting changes, likely resulting from the unanticipated events of the past few years. U.S. public school enrollment remained relatively stable over the past decade with 91 percent of all school age […]
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Our database of school personnel recently grew with the addition of 35 new job titles and 11 title changes at the district level, reflecting the current educational landscape. In last month’s blog post, we introduced new titles in the “Health & Wellness” category, representing an increased focus in schools on those important two areas. As […]
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As the 2022-2023 school year begins, it is a great time to review the six phases of the digital marketing funnel to help you successfully reach the perfect education prospects and convert them into customers this school year. Discovery: At the top of the funnel this is where your targeted audience finds out about your […]
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Things change. And over the past few years it seems like things have been changing at an accelerated pace, especially in education. At MDR, we knew this likely had an impact on the organizational structure of school districts and new positions may have been added to reflect emerging needs. To ensure that you can target […]
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The past two years, there’s been a lot of talk about the return to “normal” or, at the very least, what’s come to be referred to as the “new normal.” Well, when it comes to education conferences, we may be there! However, with the majority of education conferences back to being “live” events, companies are […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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