 Think of your corporate brand as a home. The start to any structure is a solid foundation; in branding, this is the brand platform. A foundation is built upon quality materials to ensure your structure has a long and successful life. That foundation is also built on personal beliefs, values, and integrality. What will influence day-to-day operations in your home? What is acceptable or unexpectable behavior? What are the expectations for those within the structure? How will guests be treated? What are the ground rules? How will money, resources, and time be allocated?  Then, to transform a structure into a house, you need a blueprint of walls, windows, and doors that identify your structure as a house rather than a business complex, school, or retail store. This is your visual approach.
And finally, your house needs curtains, furniture, landscaping, and décor to establish a tone, or a vibe. This is your editorial approach. Do you want your furniture to be modern with crisp and cleans lines? Do you want to establishing a welcoming environment with overstuffed furniture and lush carpets? Will your curb appeal be inviting and open or will it provide privacy and mystery? Together, your foundation, your blueprint, and your vibe take a house and make it a home. Together, your brand platform, visual approach, and editorial approach take an organization and make it a brand.
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It is a busy time of the year where schools are sending messages to parents/guardians regarding weather announcements, upcoming spring events, and even plans for the fall. As you compose messages for your families, consider the following guidelines to ensure the importance of your message is not overshadowed by language or grammatical errors.
Establish a communication process between the school and the district as a whole. If the school district is sending an official communication to families via a mass communication system (Blackboard, Seesaw, PowerSchool, etc.), it does not need to be resent by an individual school. Families receive enough emails as it is and inundating their inboxes with duplicate messages not only causes frustration, but implies a lack of coordination and communication within the district. If a district-level official is sending a communication to families, request they share the message and timeline with the appropriate staff (principals, administrative assistants) to ensure staff are equipped to provide additional customer support. Utilize an inclusive greeting as many families do not fit the mold of a heterosexual, two-parent household. Rather than identifying the message recipient as a parent, consider the following examples:
Reference the school and district in their entirety and with proper capitalization. This is especially important if your school district includes names that could be mistaken as generic nouns, locations, and directions:
Spellcheck. Consider composing the message in Microsoft Word first and then copy and paste it as plain text into your mass communication system, email, or website. When referencing a date and time, spell out the month in its entirety. This is particularly beneficial for comprehension, translation services, and English learner families.
Utilize a closing to identify who is sending the message and who may be contacted for additional parent/guardian questions.
Avoid abbreviations and acronyms that the intended audience would not quickly recognize. This guideline is especially important when communicating with stakeholders outside of the district (families, businesses, senior citizens, etc.) who do not have a background in the education industry. Always use the full name of a person, institution, or organization upon first reference; follow first reference with the appropriate acronym in parentheses. Avoid using abbreviations or acronyms in headlines or titles. If your district has not done so already, establish a word bank to support your brand during written and verbal communication. Establish consistent verbiage and adjectives to describe your operations, teaching methods, and learning methods. By implementing these guidelines in your organization's communication procedures, you're providing your audience with a more concise and accessible message. In doing so, the important elements will not be lost amongst confusion and errors. Continually strong messaging builds a brand of accuracy, reliability, and trust. Time is short, budgets are tight, and staff are minimal. In today's climate of education, institutions find it difficult to research and implement improvements in operational efficiencies. One key area of operations is communication, both internal and external. From our experience in education, we have put together a list of considerations to implement within your organization's staff and operations; even one change can have a profound impact on the efficiency and value of communications.
If your organization is looking to address inefficiencies or reinvent your communications operations, contact Hansen Public Relations today to find out how we can help you.
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AuthorStephanie is a lifelong learner trained in education, communications, and history, and passionate about writing, branding, and stakeholder engagement. ArchivesCategories |
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Hansen Public Relations is a public relations company that focuses on providing strategic communication, marketing, and brand management services to educational entities. We strive to protect the image, voice, history, and investment of educational entities while building brand awareness, trust, and support amongst their stakeholders. Our unmatched service and expertise in the often overlooked, and complex, education industry allow us to be an industry leader in educational public relations.
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