Thomas Jefferson High School just started implementing the Fifth Sun framework
Overview
What is the framework?
In today's fast-paced educational environment, schools face an array of challenges, from declining enrollment to budget constraints and reputation management. To address these challenges, our company offers a robust marketing framework designed to tackle specific school metrics and deliver measurable results.
Our framework is built on three core pillars—Campaign Websites, Video Production, and E-commerce. Each pillar is designed to create targeted campaigns that align with your school's unique goals, and integrates with our Project-Based Learning (PBL) program, allowing students to actively participate in the process.
How It Works
The Plan
Our framework operates through a streamlined, five-step process designed to address the specific metrics your school needs to improve. Here's how we make it happen:
Phase 1: Research & Strategy Development
Overview: This phase involves a deep dive into your school's current metrics, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. We conduct thorough research and analysis to understand your target audience, school culture, and community needs.
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What it Includes:
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Comprehensive Metrics Analysis: Detailed assessment of existing metrics such as enrollment, attendance, reputation, and school employment.
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Target Audience Research: In-depth analysis to understand the needs and behaviors of students, parents, staff, and the broader community.
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Strategy Development: Crafting a tailored strategy that aligns with your school’s goals, focusing on enhancing key metrics.
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Student Collaboration: Students are involved in research, helping to collect and analyze data, and contributing to the strategic planning process.
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Phase 2: Campaign Website Development
Overview: The campaign website is the central hub of your strategy, designed to be user-friendly and focused on driving improvements in your chosen metrics.
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What it Includes:
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Website Design & Development: Creating a custom campaign website that reflects your school’s identity and supports your campaign goals.
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Front-End Development: Building a visually appealing and engaging user interface that captures your audience's attention.
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Back-End Development: Ensuring the website’s performance, reliability, and data security, with analytics tracking to monitor key metrics.
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SEO: Implementing search engine optimization to increase visibility and drive traffic to your campaign site.
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Student Collaboration: Students participate in front-end design, content creation, and back-end development, gaining hands-on experience in web design and user experience.
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Phase 3: Video Production
Overview: This phase focuses on creating compelling video content that will live on your campaign website, guiding users towards your call to action and improving key metrics.
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What it Includes:
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Content Strategy: Developing a video content plan aligned with your campaign goals, covering all key talking points for the website.
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Pre-Production: Planning the video shoots, including scriptwriting, storyboarding, and location scouting.
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Production: Filming and editing high-quality videos tailored to the campaign, ensuring each video is polished and engaging.
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Student Collaboration: Students assist in all aspects of video production, from concept development to filming and editing, learning the fundamentals of film production.
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Phase 4: E-Commerce Implementation
Overview: This phase brings your campaign to life by launching an integrated e-commerce platform that aligns with your school's metrics and goals.
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What it Includes:
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E-Commerce Platform Setup: Building an online store that features school merchandise, designed to drive engagement and improve metrics like reputation and school employment.
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Inventory Management & Sales: Handling all aspects of sales, inventory, and delivery, ensuring a seamless operation.
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Design & Branding: Creating custom merchandise that resonates with your school’s culture and values.
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Student Collaboration: Students can be involved in designing the merchandise and participating in marketing activities to promote the e-commerce platform.
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Phase 5: Monitoring & Adjustment
Overview: This final phase focuses on tracking the performance of your campaign and making necessary adjustments to ensure continuous improvement.
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What it Includes:
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Analytics & Reporting: Regular monitoring of key metrics, providing detailed reports on the campaign’s impact.
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Ongoing Strategy Adjustment: Refining strategies based on data insights to optimize results.
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Student Collaboration: Students engage in data analysis, helping to evaluate the success of the campaign and suggesting adjustments.
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This comprehensive approach ensures that every aspect of your school’s campaign is meticulously planned, executed, and monitored, with continuous opportunities for student involvement at every stage.
The Stakes
Say No More to Bad Practices
Failing to address critical school metrics can lead to significant consequences. Here are some of the stakes when schools resort to outdated or ineffective practices:
Traditional School Websites
Often cluttered and disorganized, these sites are filled with irrelevant information, making it difficult for parents and students to find what they need. This confusion can deter potential students or staff.
Poorly Produced Marketing Videos
Bad videos without a clear distribution strategy fail to engage and can even harm the school’s reputation, giving the impression of unprofessionalism.
Outdated Merch and Sales Methods
Using old designs or selling merch in outdated ways misses opportunities to boost school spirit and guide campaigns. Modern e-commerce methods can significantly enhance these efforts.
How We Measure
Key Performance Indicators
Our framework utilizes Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to rigorously measure the success of each campaign, ensuring that every effort aligns with the specific goals of your school. We track a range of KPIs, including enrollment growth, attendance improvements, and reputation enhancement, using sophisticated data analytics to provide actionable insights. These metrics allow us to monitor progress in real-time, assess the impact of our targeted campaigns, and make data-driven adjustments to optimize outcomes. By focusing on measurable results, we ensure that our initiatives not only meet but exceed your school’s expectations, driving tangible improvements across key areas such as student recruitment, staff hiring, and budget enhancement.
Enrollment
We evaluate the effectiveness of our campaigns by tracking the increase in student applications and enrollment conversion rates. Key metrics include the percentage growth in inquiries, the conversion rate of applications to enrollments, and time-to-enrollment after campaign launch. We also analyze demographic data to ensure that the campaign attracts a diverse and targeted student body.
Attendance
Attendance improvement is monitored through daily attendance rates, absenteeism reduction percentages, and engagement with school-sponsored events. We utilize data analytics to compare attendance patterns pre- and post-campaign and identify trends that correlate with increased participation.
Reputation
To measure reputation enhancement, we track social media sentiment analysis, net promoter scores (NPS), and online review ratings across platforms. We also analyze the reach and engagement of our branded content, looking at impressions, shares, and community response metrics. Merchandise sales data, correlated with specific reputation-driven campaigns, provide additional insight into brand perception shifts.
School Employment
We assess recruitment campaign effectiveness by tracking the number of job applications, the quality of applicants (measured by qualifications and experience), and the offer acceptance rate. We also monitor employee retention statistics post-hire and engagement levels with recruitment content on the campaign site, using advanced analytics to correlate site interactions with application and hiring trends.
Budget
The financial impact on school budgets is gauged through revenue analysis from e-commerce activities, focusing on gross sales, profit margins, and the return on investment (ROI) of merchandise campaigns. Additionally, we track the success rates of grant applications supported by our campaign sites, analyzing the funding amounts secured and the impact on overall school budget growth.
PBL
Project-Based Learning
This curriculum integrates Project-Based Learning (PBL) into each of the five phases of The Fifth Sun Framework, allowing students to gain real-world experience while contributing to their school’s campaign. Each phase offers students the opportunity to develop skills in research, strategy, design, technology, marketing, and analytics.
FAQ
Your Questions, Answered
What makes your marketing framework different from traditional school marketing methods?
Our framework is designed with a clear focus on the specific metrics that schools need to improve, such as enrollment, attendance, reputation, budget, sports and club involvement, and teacher recruitment. Unlike traditional methods that rely on outdated and cluttered school websites, we create targeted campaign sites that are user-friendly and goal-oriented. Our approach also integrates high-quality explainer videos and an e-commerce feature to engage and drive results. We also engage students in the marketing campaign process.
Why don’t you use the school’s existing website for campaigns?
Traditional school websites are often like an Amazon rainforest—dense, unorganized, and overwhelming for users. They contain a lot of unrelated information that distracts from the campaign’s goals. Our campaign sites act as a highway, guiding users directly to the objective, whether it’s enrolling students, boosting attendance, or improving reputation, without the traffic of unnecessary information.
How long does it take to see results?
The timeline for seeing results varies depending on the specific campaign and goals. However, our approach is designed to deliver impactful results within a school year. For example, Belmont saw a significant increase in enrollment and budget within a year of launching their campaign. We work closely with schools to set realistic timelines and expectations for each campaign.
Stay engaged with us
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