September 30, 2024  |  Peter Long

Selling to Schools and Districts: Part 3

The How, When, What and Why of K-12 Purchasing Cycles

In Part 1 of this blog series, we explored the timing of the K-12 purchasing cycle, focusing on when schools and districts make their buying decisions. We also provided an overview of the different phases (how), from gathering information to budgeting and purchasing. In Part 2, we discussed what schools are buying and how companies can leverage modern marketing channels—such as social networks and feedback platforms—to better understand their needs. Now, in Part 3, we dive into why schools and districts choose to buy from you or your competitors, uncovering the factors that influence their decisions.

Over the past decade, MCH has partnered with thousands of educational curriculum companies, witnessing the rise and fall of many. While innovative products and enthusiasm are important, they don’t always guarantee success in the K-12 market. Selling to schools is a challenging endeavor, requiring patience and a long-term strategy to see meaningful results.

Sales growth in the K-12 education market is often a slow, steady process. Companies selling to schools must embrace a long-term strategy for success, which can be a tough sell to investors looking for quicker returns. Schools and districts have limited discretionary funds, making them cautious buyers. Strict educational standards and best practices require schools to thoroughly vet solutions and ensure they deliver on promised outcomes, adding another layer of complexity to the purchasing process.

However, once a company achieves success in this market, it often earns long-term loyalty and recurring revenue. The high barriers to entry and the stickiness of success make the education sector highly rewarding for those who can navigate the challenges and establish a strong foothold.

In today’s dynamic market for educational products and services, educators have countless options. So, what makes a school or district choose your solution over a competitor’s? The good news is there are actionable steps your company can take to influence this process and stand out in the crowded marketplace.

Now is the best time in history to be involved in the K-12 educational market—though not necessarily the easiest. The difference today lies in the powerful and cost-effective marketing tools at your disposal, which simply didn’t exist a decade ago. Many of these channels, such as social media, are free or low-cost, providing far greater opportunities to connect with and educate schools about your solution than ever before.

Looking back 10 to 20 years, selling an educational solution—whether paper-based or software—came with significant costs. The traditional processes of printing, shipping, and timing for paper-based materials were expensive. Meanwhile, early computer-based solutions were not much easier. Software had to be installed on specific hardware models, updates were cumbersome, and costly technical support was often needed to resolve compatibility issues.

In the past, software and educational product companies often had to invest tens of thousands of dollars in high-end video production for training and marketing demonstrations. These videos were deliberately broad and generic to ensure they had a long shelf life. Traditional marketing efforts, like tradeshows, catalogs, direct mail, email marketing, and industry awards, played a central role in creating awareness, but they were slow and expensive. Getting noticed by a significant number of educators required substantial time and financial investments, with each tradeshow cycle starting from scratch year after year. Even webinars—while helpful for sharing advice, recommendations, and content—faced the challenge of drawing a large enough audience to justify the production effort. Building basic brand recognition and trust in the K-12 education market often took many years of dedication and resources.

Fast forward to today, and while trade shows, email, and catalogs are still relevant, they are just a small part of what’s now possible. The number of marketing channels available to reach educators and truly help them solve their challenges is vast. Platforms like social media, YouTube, podcasts, professional development networks like edWeb, programmatic digital ads, webinars, influencers, and educator product review blogs have dramatically expanded the tools available for marketers. These modern channels offer robust and dynamic opportunities to amplify your message, build connections, and provide solutions that educators need—far surpassing the limited options of just a decade ago, and at very affordable price points to do so.

The reality is that there are now almost too many channels available to marketers. The challenge lies in determining how to navigate, master, and effectively use the dozens of options for amplifying your message. While large companies can afford to spread their marketing budgets across multiple channels, smaller companies need to be more strategic, carefully selecting the platforms that will provide the greatest return on investment and offering content that educators will truly value.

Content that delivers help, advice, and solutions is far more effective at building connections than pure sales messages. Establishing trust and credibility with prospective educators requires providing real value through the content you share. When educators are still prospects rather than customers, the value you offer has to come from the content you engage them with. If your content is helpful and valuable, educators will naturally engage with it, building affinity and trust toward your brand.

While marketing messages can drive sales, they often miss the opportunity to create lasting brand impressions with those who don’t immediately purchase. Building an audience is key to long-term success, and valuable content can be amplified across multiple channels, maximizing your return on investment and maintaining relevance over time. For example, a well-made YouTube video can continue generating engagement years after its creation. However, achieving this requires sustained effort, expertise, and a commitment to providing ongoing value to educators.

Unfortunately, MCH has observed many companies cutting back on their marketing spending—precisely when they should be increasing it. With so many new opportunities to get your message out, embracing modern technologies and marketing amplification tools is crucial to staying competitive in the K-12 market.

You might be wondering, "Does MCH provide access to all of these marketing channels?" The short answer is no. However, the data that powers these channels is the foundation of your marketing success. Whether you’re building relationships through YouTube followers, edWeb webinar attendees, Facebook communities, email responders, catalog users, or blog readers—tracking and understanding the educators, schools, and districts that are making these connections is crucial for effective outreach and long-term engagement. This is where MCH connects the dots and enriches the success and targeting abilities of any marketing channel used.

Ensuring that your company has comprehensive audiences, institutional coverage, and depth of attribute coverage is essential for gaining a complete understanding of your audience. MCH data is used throughout the marketing and CRM cycle to:

• Append attributes and auto-complete educator registration records for content access or order entry
• Pre-populate CRM and MAP systems with contact and prospect data, ensuring consistency and accuracy
• Enhance marketing and financial models with reliable data for better decision-making
• Building and analyzing targeted marketing audiences
• Identifying new school and district personnel
• Tracking educators who have left schools, helping to reduce wasted outreach
• Enabling geospatial data mapping to identify trends and insights critical to your strategy

And of course, direct marketing outreach with email campaigns, programmatic digital ads, or more traditional direct mail using verified name and address data for targeted catalogs or other marketing materials.

While MCH can assist with ensuring your emails reach educators' inboxes and support you in building programmatic digital campaigns or tried and true direct mail efforts, we also encourage companies to experiment with a variety of new outreach technologies. Educational marketing has become a year-round activity and building brand awareness is now more critical than ever. Continuous engagement with educators is now possible through numerous low-cost or no-cost methods, but the key to success remains high-quality data that fuels these efforts used in conjunction with the content that educators want, need, and value.

It’s essential to remember that educators are consumers too. By focusing on brand building, offering valuable content, and providing solutions to the challenges educators face, you can foster a loyal audience that leads to building a brand trust and ultimately increased sales.

While traditional marketing methods are still valuable, you're missing out on significant opportunities if you're not embracing at least some of the future digital marketing channels. By utilizing modern amplification tools and informational outreach methods, you can build and establish a strong brand presence. Connecting with educators through multiple channels, staying available when they’re ready to engage, and maintaining a 24/7 presence year-round are true game changers in today’s educational market.

Is it time for your company to embrace new ways to get your message out? Investing in building a well-constructed marketing strategy—complete with channel targeting and a robust, continually updated data platform—can make all the difference. While not every new marketing channel will suit your needs, with a bit of research, you can identify a few key areas to invest in for message amplification and brand building.

The marketing landscape has never been more dynamic. What is your company doing to stay ahead and avoid being left behind?

More Insight from MCH

• Sign Up for our Monday Marketing Moment, and stay up-to-date on upcoming blog posts and more!
• Read Part 1 in our Selling to Schools series here!
• Download our School Calendar Reference Guide for the 2024/2025 school year and get key insights from over 80,000 school calendars across the U.S.
• Download our Email Marketing to Educators 2024 whitepaper.

About MCH

For nearly a century, MCH has empowered educational marketers with the data, tools, and solutions needed to thrive. Our cutting-edge technology continuously updates and verifies millions of educator records, ensuring you have the most accurate information for your campaigns.

Use our free ListBuilder tool to explore our education data, or Contact Us to strategize as a team.