Can You Define What Sets Your School Apart?

When we speak to school administrators, it’s notable how often they struggle to identify and vocalize their school’s unique selling proposition (USP). Put another way, people often can’t define what sets their school apart and why families choose them over other institutions.

Being able to answer the USP question is fundamental for a school’s success. It helps establish school culture, it helps define priorities, and it leads your admission and marketing messaging.

Your USP Isn’t…

When we ask the USP question, the answer is often a variation of, “We have small class sizes.” Or, “Our faculty knows the name of every student.”

We refer to those answers as “baseline truths” that apply to many independent schools. In nearly every case, those baseline things are not your USP. Drill deeper and ask yourself better questions to determine your USP.

The Questions to Ask Yourself

To drill down to your USP, explore questions like these:

• What do we do better than anyone else?

• Who are our competitors?

• Why do families choose us over our competitors?

• What are the specific ways we carry out our mission?

• In what areas do our students excel?

This list is just a start, but these are the types of questions you need to ask yourself.

Involve Your Stakeholders

You may find that internal constituents (faculty, staff) answer the questions above differently from external constituents (current families, alumni, prospective families). Involve your external stakeholders and ask them these questions above. Also, why did they choose your school? What stood out to them? Explore the ways in which those external answers differ from your internal ones. Those differences are very telling.

If you’re really engaging in these questions, consider designing a survey for your stakeholders. If you’ve undergone a strategic planning process recently, you’ve probably already conducted this research. If it’s been a while, consider sending a survey.

Study the survey data with an open mind and use tools like AI to look for themes, sentiment, commonly used words, and more.

It Has to Be Real

It’s good to be aspirational, but authenticity must be front of mind when defining your USP. In most cases, your USP needs to reflect where you are now – not where you hope to go.

Your existing families and alumni know who you are and will engage with your authenticity. You will yield far more prospective families if the school they find on your website and marketing materials matches the school they find on their visit.

Lean into who you are and don’t try to be everything to everybody. Embrace the fact that your school isn’t the right fit for every family. If you start doing that, you’ll find it incredibly freeing and empowering.

This All Ties Together

Before we start any client projects, we explore and document their USP. As a communications and marketing agency, a school’s USP is at the center of everything we create. We build marketing plans based on USPs. Our branding work communicates and embodies USPs. Simply put, you must be able to define and speak about your USP.

Sometimes, it’s helpful to have an “outsider” walk your school through this process. If you want to know more, or even just want to brainstorm, shoot us an email at info@38house.com.