Discover how school branding can set you apart and guide your audience through the education landscape.
CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on Blue Apple Education
Effective and consistent school branding holds the key to conveying the unique qualities of your institution to students, parents, staff, and the broader community.
The strength of your branding lies in its ability to distinguish your identity, a result of the magic encompassing your values, strengths, approach, and actions – understood and shared by all those involved. These distinctive attributes must be reflected in a resolute and dedicated school logo, tagline, colour palette, and design.
This is the essence of branding. This is what sets you apart.
Put on Display
Branding – represented by your school logo, colours, crest, or tagline – brings about a tangible impact. Yet, branding’s influence goes beyond this, operating as a strategy to ensure your visibility. In the realm of education, consider branding as an aid to the audience.
The intention is not to deceive but to guide them through the multitude of choices available, helping them discover what aligns with their needs. This is achieved by offering information, eliciting an emotional response, and extending an invitation to engage with something tailored to meet their requirements.
Embrace Authenticity
Branding serves as a tool to revitalise or reimagine your operational approach – the endeavour of capturing and sustaining interest, the pursuit of education, the extraordinary, profound, and intricate task of nurturing individuals. Branding amalgamates every facet of your identity and purpose, infusing it from the uniform style to the teaching methodology, from official stationery to the school principal. It spans from the vision you aspire to embody to the reality of who you are.
Tips on School Branding:
Know why you’re doing it
- To have an impact (it’s calling people to take action)
- To create an image and make it known
Know what it is
Branding is not just about a logo, school crest or set of colours, nor just about your image – it is everything you do, everything you stand for – branding reflects you.
Understand how it works
To be effective branding should:
- Maintain consistency across all channels
- Have integrated purpose and values
- Be built on clear goals
Deal with the opposition
- Stay informed about others in the field
- Be the best of your kind
Go digital
- Monitor your progress through collection of data
- Encourage engagement and feedback online
- Use the tools available to get your message where it needs to be
Learn about your audience
- Build trust
- Understand who you are appealing to
- Keep your eyes open for change
Consider brand specifics
- Visuals: Assess the effect on your audience
- Words: Be mindful of associations people will make
- Communications: Consider your online and off-line messages
Measure Impact
Know the effectiveness of your branding – and the effectiveness of your everything – by evaluating the services you provide and the improvements brought about as a result of your new branding.
Branding will serve you well if you invest sensibly and creatively at the beginning, continue to pay attention to it thereafter and keep on doing it.
