The field of marketing is always changing, requiring teams to stay up on trends with constant training. This training uncovers new techniques and tools which lead to adding new outreach efforts and adjusting existing ones. 

At one of my offices, it was commonplace for the team to constantly be sharing articles. Did you see this user trend? Did you know about this algorithm change on Facebook? Check out this new tool … Our learning never ended, and many of us rely on Twitter and LinkedIn for a constant stream of industry resources to keep us current on marketing best practices. We follow startups, higher ed institutions, and marketing agencies to see what’s happening there, giving us standards to aspire to and goals to work towards.

Unfortunately, this constant flow of information, new tactics, and strategy suggestions often mean that we must add new initiatives to our plates to stay relevant. But we can’t always remove initiatives, in fact, it’s customary to layer new strategies onto old ones to bolster success. It’s a never-ending cycle of growth without reprieve.

Ideally, our teams need to grow to accommodate the ever-increasing workloads. But, we can also strive to work smarter, not harder, and retire older and less successful marketing tactics in favor of newer, data-driven methods (that are also often less expensive). This is where school leadership and the head of school can have a significant impact, developing a strong marketing team with ample resources and clear institutional objectives. But what should that team and workload look like? It will differ for every school, but if the makeup of the office and the needs of the school don’t align, that’s a problem.  

Regardless of the approach to staffing, it’s important for school leadership to recognize the needs of the school and the marketing team in order to advance the school’s mission and achieve the goals of the strategic plan. You can’t be successful without the right tools, roles, and skills. It’s great to have three people on a team, but if they all have the same skill sets, you likely will have holes when it comes to creating a fully coordinated marketing effort.

Same goes for having fancy equipment, detailed analytics and expensive CRMs. If no one knows how to use these tools, you’re wasting your resources. This often means embracing new staffing and operation models, evaluating the success and skills of existing staff, and making strategic decisions to better utilize existing resources and determine where to allocate future resources in order to advance the institution.

So, what should you do? A marketing consultant can assist the head of school with making these assessments and decisions, providing the expertise required to set the school on the right path.