By Connie Ozan, Co-Founder, TWIST Creative

In our last post, Six Key Elements of an Integrated School Marketing Plan, we explored how a shared strategy connects a school’s mission, messaging, and everyday experience. Now, let’s look at the people who bring that plan to life.

Ask your head of school, an admissions director, a teacher, and a trustee why a family would choose your school. Each will bring a different perspective. The question is whether their answers reinforce a shared understanding of what makes your school distinctive. A family speaking with all four people needs to come away with a clear, consistent reason to choose your school.

For girls’ schools, those answers need to convey both the value of an all-girls education and the particular experience your school offers. Promises of confidence, leadership, and belonging become persuasive when families can see how girls experience them.

Your marketing or communications lead can coordinate these conversations and translate the insights into a plan. In smaller schools, one person may cover several functions. What matters is including each perspective early enough to shape the strategy.

1.    Start with leadership and admissions

Your head of school or principal brings the long-term vision. Admissions brings firsthand knowledge of families’ motivations, questions, and hesitations. Together, they connect the school’s priorities with the decisions families are making.

Begin with a few questions: Which enrollment or retention challenge matters most? What do families understand about your school, and what do they miss? What helps them distinguish your school from other options?

If leadership is central to your promise, explore how girls practice it and how those opportunities develop over time. That gives admissions concrete examples to discuss and marketing a clear foundation for the story.

The outcome: Agreed priorities, measurable objectives, and a clear explanation of the school’s distinctive value.

2.    Give the board a clear strategic role

Invite trustees or governors into the conversation while the direction is taking shape. Share the challenge, the evidence informing your approach, and the investment required. Ask whether the strategy reflects the mission and supports the school’s future.

Clarify how they can help through strategic input, introductions, and advocacy, with staff retaining responsibility for day-to-day execution. This keeps decisions moving while making good use of the board’s perspective and relationships.

Ask whether board members can explain what makes your school distinctive in a brief conversation with a prospective family or donor. Their answers can reveal where the story needs greater clarity.

The outcome: Agreement on direction, investment, and the board’s role in advancing the school’s story.

3.    Ask faculty and staff for the evidence

Faculty and staff bring the school’s promises to life. They can describe how a quiet student finds her voice, how a girl learns to take an intellectual risk, or how an advisor helps a new student build a sense of belonging.

Short conversations can uncover these examples. Ask what girls experience that families might overlook on a tour, and where the school’s messaging captures that experience accurately or needs refinement.

Share the resulting work with contributors. Seeing their input reflected gives faculty and staff ownership of the story they help deliver.

The outcome: Specific, authentic examples that support the school’s promises across tours, campaigns, and family communications.

4.    Align advancement from the beginning

Where your school has a development or advancement function, involve it from the start. Its knowledge of donors and alumnae adds another perspective on the school’s lasting value.

Admissions and advancement can share an institutional story while addressing different decisions. A family wants to understand what an education here could mean for their daughter. A donor wants to know what their support will make possible.

A program that creates leadership opportunities can provide evidence for enrollment communications and a case for philanthropic support. Alumnae perspectives can show how graduates understand the value of those experiences over time.

The outcome: A shared story with messages tailored to families, donors, and alumnae.

Listen beyond the planning team

Internal agreement needs to be tested against experience. Research with students, current and prospective families, and alumnae helps reveal whether the story your team tells matches what others understand and value.

Ask families what influenced their choice and what they now appreciate most. Invite students to describe when they feel challenged, supported, and heard. Where possible, include families who chose another school; they may identify questions your communications have left unanswered.

Use those findings to refine the message and identify gaps in the experience that need attention beyond marketing.

How this came together at Beaumont

Our recent work with Beaumont School, an all-girls Catholic high school in the Ursuline tradition in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, illustrates this process. A fellow ICGS member, Beaumont offered a revealing example of a challenge many schools face: its strongest qualities were easier to appreciate in person than to understand from the outside.

Research and discovery conversations revealed that the warmth, personal attention, and sense of belonging families experienced at Beaumont were not always apparent before they visited. The strategic task was to make that value clear earlier in the family’s decision process.

The work also clarified different audience priorities. Parents wanted confidence that their daughter would be challenged, supported, and prepared. Girls wanted to picture themselves making friends, finding their voice, and feeling at home. The strategy needed to connect those perspectives.

Those insights shaped a positioning centered on leadership that begins within. Beaumont’s personal attention, all-girls environment, Catholic and Ursuline values, and International Baccalaureate approach became connected parts of a story about who a girl becomes.

The resulting strategy gave admissions, faculty, and advancement a shared foundation, with messages tailored to their audiences. Research identified what needed to be understood, discovery gave it human meaning, and strategy turned those insights into a story the school could consistently tell and demonstrate.

For your own team, a useful question is: What do families only understand about our school after they arrive, and how can we make that value visible sooner?

Give the conversation a practical outcome

At your next planning meeting, ask:

• What are we promising?
• Where is the evidence?
• Who is responsible for communicating and delivering that promise?

Capture the answers in a brief covering priority audiences, the core message, supporting examples, responsibilities, and measures of progress. Revisit it as campaigns develop and feedback arrives.

When the people across your school can explain and demonstrate its value, families have a clearer basis for deciding whether it is the right place for their daughter.

For help aligning your school’s story and marketing plan, start a conversation with TWIST.

 

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Connie Ozan is co-founder of TWIST Creative, a women-owned and led brand strategy and creative agency helping schools, nonprofits, and purpose-driven organizations clarify their value and communicate it with confidence.
 

 

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