How to measure the ROI in Marketing

First up, sorry about the cover photo for this (it’s a stock photo, I really had nothing suitable to use myself).

When it comes to start a podcast for school marketing and recruitment I’m sometimes told the new podcast project will only go ahead if the SLT can see a clear ROI on the investment.

Good luck with that one.

Podcasting for schools is long-form marketing. It’s not a Facebook Ads campaign where you start it on 1st May and run it through to 30th June, knowing exactly how many people clicked on your Open Day advert, how many of those then completed the form, how many of those turned up on the day and how many of those completed an application form.

A podcast for school marketing is very different.

The episodes are recorded and shared with the audience (usually current parents and prospective parents) who’ll come back to listen way into the future.

For example: A podcast episode with a parent talking about what the Admissions process was like for them 12 months ago will be as valuable as gold for a parent who’s 12 months behind them on that journey. And next year it will be just as valuable to parents 24 months behind them. And the year after.

This is what long-form marketing is all about.

📖 Story time

Last year I heard a story about a school Head who had a slightly-frosty relationship with a Dad who dropped his son off at the gate every morning. Despite the cheerful greeting from the Head it never seemed to be reciprocated by the Dad. It was bad, just seemed to be missing something.

Then, six months into the academic year, a podcast episode was released where the Head (somehow) mentioned he was into heliskiing during the winter months, an extreme sport of being taken up a mountain by helicopter and James-Bond-style jumping out to ski off-piste down the mountain.

The next day we see the same Dad dropping off his son but now it’s all different. He bounces up to the Head, excited that they both share this love of heliskiing. They speak excitedly for 45 minutes over coffee and now that dad is probably the school’s biggest ambassador.

Try putting an ROI on that. Good luck.

So if you have an SLT that demands to see an ROI on everything you do in Marketing then maybe put the podcasting project on ice.

Or seek another job in a school that appreciates you can’t necessrily measure everything in marketing.

Thanks for reading 🙂

The Bonjour Agency Ltd