BrandED: Tell Your Story, Build Relationships, and Empower Learning

by Eric C. Sheninger

A school brandED Strategic Plan, built under an innovative leadership employing a collaborative effort, will create the essential conditions for making school promotion part of daily school life. Leaders who promote brand without the budget of a marketing executive are sound communicators. They have a sense of the needs, goals, and actions that will attract community interest in supporting the school brand. They get attention that leads to positive relationship building. Word of mouth is necessary to promotion, and the most successful school brand communicators get their communities talking. Using small communities and subgroups of interested stakeholders, schools can gradually develop a capacity to get the word out. To sustain the promotion, the creation of affinity—the good feeling that comes from the brand narrative—must be a leading part of the effort to promote image, promise, and result.