Outside-Inside Marketing - maximizing community involvement

School Administrator, August, 2001 by Susan Rovezzi Carroll, David Carroll

Second, the group dynamics, where one person might dominate, are eliminated. Sensitive topics are more confidential in a one-on-one interview than when others are sitting around you. The amount of data accumulated is extensive and detailed. The major downside is that in-depth interviewing requires a great deal of time--to schedule, conduct and summarize findings. As with focus groups, a building leader or even the superintendent can conduct these interviews. Or an outside consultant can assist the school system with an independent ear.

This method is particularly ideal to use with influential community members when assessing your image. These leaders might include heads of the local government, public agencies, hospitals, Chambers of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, newspapers, businesses, corporations and others--anyone who shapes the community's thinking. What they say about the school system carries weight. Word of mouth is a powerful image builder.

In-depth interviews were conducted with influents in a large city. Each interview added new insights about the school's declining image. Reasons offered included economic disparities, in-migration, heavy handedness of teachers' unions, lack of school board leadership, emergence of gangs and a host of other problems. The results seemed to present insurmountable barriers

to recapture a positive image. Yet the school system felt it could make a dent in the armor. Using team building, the staff brainstormed ways to communicate the actual good news. On the local cable TV, through presentations at community meetings, over the radio, on the Web and in school newsletters and brochures, the strengths and achievements of the school were highlighted over and over.

The key influents were placed on all mailing lists and were brought in for roundtable discussions four times a year with the superintendent and building leaders. This allowed information dissemination as well as an opportunity to keep the communication channel open. Although image is hard to build and easy to destroy, you cannot manage your image until you find out what it is--from the outside.

Fortified Data

Currently, many leaders in public school settings are espousing the value of data-driven decision making. They are using data from achievement tests, drop put percentages, college placement rates, attendance, SAT performance, discipline referrals and other statistics to make strategic decisions about their school systems. This is an excellent development. However, the majority of these data are generated inside the schoolhouse walls.

If the philosophy of outside-inside marketing is implemented in public schools, the data from inside will be fortified and enriched by data from the marketplace, the community. The benefit to your school system will be tremendous, It will capture and retain the support of important stakeholders--members of the community.

When you ask those in the marketplace through surveys, focus groups or in-depth interviews what they think about something and then follow up what they say through action, you will have taken a significant step in building support for and public confidence in your school system.