A course for school marketers who want to promote their school powerfully, but never have enough time or budget

Want a shortcut to understanding the best (proven) school marketing strategies?

Need to show results but only have minimal resources (team, budget, time etc.)?

Want to be sure your team are focusing on the right things?

Our short online marketing course is a smart, time-saving solution that has helped school marketing teams all over the world to work smarter, not harder.

Having provided specialist support to a broad range of schools for over a decade, The Stickman Consultancy leverages proven methods in this course that deliver a fantastic Return on Investment (the course pays for itself several times over via the boosted profile and reputation it will give your school, filling school places and so on).

The below outlines the details and gives insider views of the course.

Specifically designed for busy, budget-conscious school marketing professionals, our course offers specialist, no-nonsense, flexible, and practical guidance in bitesize chunks — allowing them to work at a time and pace that suits them, in a manageable way. It fits seamlessly around their jobs and complements the work they do, without adding to their workload.

Stickman have done the heavy-lifting for you – we’ve downloaded our years of experience and our school marketing brains so that you can enjoy a proven, swift and direct route to results.

THE DETAILS

Course curriculum:

The course is divided into 6 modules:

• Module 1: How to power up your key identity (USPs and brand).
• Module 2: Power up your core platforms (website and social media) & define your ‘hot list’ (target audience/s).
• Module 3: Build the ‘know like trust’ factor with prospective families.
• Module 4: Promotion time – your winning digital marketing channels.
• Module 5: Promotion time – your winning marketing channels (offline).
• Module 6: Your WOW event & nurturing and converting prospective families.

Each module is broken down into manageable steps, making it easy for even the busiest school marketing professional or team to digest, complete tasks and see immediate improvements.

Each module contains:

• 1-2 short video tutorials (average just 20 minutes each).
• A transcript of the video/s (course delegates find it really useful to print this and refer back to it).
• A workbook with exercises to put the learning into action (because just theory sucks).

So, for example:

Module 1 – How to power up your school’s identity:

There are 2 short training videos to watch, a transcript, and workbook tasks per video:

First video (Powering up your key messaging – USPs):

• Workbook task #1: define 3 big, powerful key messages (content pillars)
• Workbook task #2: finding stories to support the 3 key messages
• Workbook task #3: turning your key messages into sizzling, benefits-driven messages

Second video (Powering up your school’s visual identity):

Workbook task #1: visual identity checklist
Workbook task #2: how to embed your identity across your whole school so that it’s super consistent

a) The videos:

Starting with the videos, these are typically made up of a short introduction by Emily Richards – Stickman’s Founder & Director – then we dive into the teaching.

In the first video in Module 1 for example, we take you through our ‘Sweet Spot’ exercise for identifying 3 BIG POWERFUL key messages (USPs) for your school. This is to ensure you have a proposition that makes your school stand out in a crowded marketplace.

The ‘Sweet Spot’ exercise is one of the most popular on our course, as this alone instantly solves a big headache for school marketers (they’re always telling us how hard it is to identify their school’s USPs and to know what to talk about in their marketing – so we show you exactly how!).

b) Workbooks

Secondly, workbook action – after watching the video tutorial, we then ask course delegates to complete a bitesize exercise in their workbook that relates to what was taught. This is to help you to implement as you go.

Bonus – we also share a ‘Key Message Framework’ that shows you exactly how to obtain quality news stories from teaching staff quickly and easily – overcoming any ‘resistant’ teachers, as well as controlling (ahem) the efforts of any overly-enthusiastic teachers.

OTHER POPULAR FEATURES IN THE COURSE:

POPULAR FEATURE #1 – the Campaign Marketing Plan

In Module 3, excitement levels really kick off because we introduce you to your juicy Campaign Marketing Plan.

School marketers love the Plan as it is ‘ready to go’ (we’ve done the heavy lifting for you). It also removes any guesswork and ensures that every effort directly contributes to promoting your school without wasting precious time or budget.

The Campaign Marketing Plan ALONE is why many school marketers across the globe take our course. Just click the video below to hear the type of feedback we receive about it.

The Plan outlines the EXACT mix of tried and tested marketing activities to deploy across a 6 week period, on a day by day basis – ‘Day 1, do this. Day 2, do that’ – …exactly what emails to send, what daily content to post on social media to grab the attention of prospective families, Facebook & Instagram ads, Google ads, social media, email, feeder liaison, Word of Mouth and so on.

Something we often hear from schools is: ‘We convert families once they’ve visited our school.’ So…our view is…let’s get them on site! Our 6 week Campaign Marketing Plan shows you exactly how to do this.

In a nutshell, the Plan shows you how to get more [prospective family] eyeballs on your school. After all, the more eyeballs, the more success (enquiries, conversions) you will see. Marketing is a numbers game. 

The Plan alone, is a game-changer.

POPULAR FEATURE #2 – Social media templates

The course has lots of useful tools and templates, all designed to help you implement with ease. This includes social media post templates.

Making efforts count on social media can be so hard for school marketers, yet it’s so crucial to get right, as social media, along with the school website, is the cornerstone of the enquiry journey.

The concern is, that if schools don’t get social media right, they risk losing the attention of the prospective family and them heading to a competitor school. In the course therefore, we provide templates that makes your content stand out and showcases your school to the maximum.

POPULAR FEATURE #3 – Checklists

There are also checklists for your school website and social media to ensure everything is in order to impress prospective families.

POPULAR FEATURE #4 – 24/7 support

School marketing can be a lonely affair, so schools love the fact they can tap into our expertise and get the support and expert guidance they need. Thinks of us as an extension of your team.

The support includes:

a) 6 check in sessions with the expert Stickman team – the Stickman team run regular, hour-long sessions so that course delegates can drop in to ask questions, share their progress, and receive tailored advice. If they’re short on time, they can dip in for just a few minutes and go again. Or they can stay for the full hour. It’s whatever suits them best.

Bonus…schools love the peer-to-peer support that these group sessions offer too ie gaining tips and insights from other schools in the same boat as them.

b) Unlimited email support – email us any time with questions or challenges. We will respond promptly to ensure you get the answers you need.

POPULAR FEATURE #5 – Best practice examples

The course is packed with best practice examples drawn from leading independent schools around the world. Each module showcases real-world strategies that have been proven to work—helping marketing teams see exactly how to apply the principles in their own context. They are practical, inspiring, and built for immediate impact.

WHAT RESULTS AND OUTCOMES DO SCHOOLS ENJOY FROM OUR COURSE?

These are just a couple of examples of the results we see. More below:

• School in Bermuda: Increased enquiries, became the school of choice. We aren’t ones to brag, but we won an award from COBIS for this project too!
• School in Cheshire (UK): Stemmed a 5-year decline and increased numbers to the value of £680k per annum.
• School in Uganda: 13 additional students (an additional £324k per annum).
• School in Oxford (UK): Largest ever attendance at an open event, with 20% of families enrolling within 1 week (this was a record).
• School in Yorkshire (UK): Enrolled an additional 4 families within just a couple of months (worth £60k+ per annum).

We could go on, but that would just be big-headed. We’ll just let the slide below do the rest of the talking:

THE COURSE IS FOR YOUR SCHOOL IF…

If you answer ‘yes’ to any of the below, the course will be definitely help:

• You would like to have cheaper, better, quicker results from your marketing
• You need to stand out in a crowded marketplace
• You’re currently a ‘hidden gem’
• You wish to upskill your school marketing team (e.g. perhaps they’re new to the sector)
• You would love to save time and money in relation to school marketing
• You have a reactive rather than proactive approach to marketing
• You currently are unsure of the correct marketing activities to pursue (throwing spaghetti against a wall to see what sticks)

IN A NUTSHELL, WHY SCHOOLS LOVE OUR COURSE

Ultimately, the course helps schools to do (and spend) LESS, but achieve MORE, but here are some of the top reasons why schools love our course:

✅ Cost-effective marketing: because the most effective marketing strategies cost nothing, AND because schools have small marketing budgets and need to get bang for their buck.

✅ Time-saving: everything in the course is designed for the busy school marketer e.g.

• The Marketing Plan is ready to go (done for you).
• The templates provide a shortcut to success.
• We show you how to do fewer of the RIGHT activities ie those that will ‘move the needle’ for your school.

✅ Creme-de-la-creme guidance:

• You have access to a team of school marketing experts, who for 13 years have worked exclusively with schools, day in, day out – it’s like having your own Marketing Director and team, without the hefty salaries.
• Many of our team have worked in schools themselves.
• The course shortcuts you to the warmest opportunities that deliver immediate impact (too much marketing advice out there skirts around the edges).
• Focuses on the tried and tested strategies that we know WORK.

✅  100% flexible: accessible online, anytime, anywhere, fits around a busy job, work at your own pace – do the course in school, during the holidays, at your desk or on the sofa!

✅  Action: it’s not just theory. Your time and effort spent on the course needs to count.

FAQs

Who takes our course?

School marketers, bursars and Heads. Lots of schools choose to take advantage of the fact you can have 2 members of staff on the course.

Will I be able to fit it in in addition to my job?

The course is designed for busy school professionals, so we have made everything deliberately bitesize and give you 6 months access

When does the course start?

You can start the course at any time that is right for you and your school, but as we know, every missed term or intake means fewer pupils—and less income. Plus, your competitors are marketing right now, so the longer you delay, the further ahead they get—and the harder it becomes to catch up. So don’t delay in getting started.

What support is provided in addition to the course content?

Tonnes. There are check in sessions with the Stickman experts, 24/7 email support, hugs on demand and so on.

WHAT NOW?

If you’re ready to make school marketing simple, but powerful, free up your time, and impress colleagues with meaningful results, you have a few options:

1. Find out more
2. Get in touch with us (use the ‘Book a call’ option below).

BOOK A CALL