It seems rather odd writing about spring in the beginning of winter, but this is the time that most school marketers are busy thinking about closing sales. The prospect has all the information they need, and now just requires a push to make that final buying decision.

But this school year began like no other, and in fact, the fall marketing season is still being affected. Educational conference attendance is down and mail is being delayed as the U.S. Postal Service is trying to grapple with ways to ensure the safety of their employees. Because of all the uncertainty, it might make some sense to rethink your spring marketing strategies. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Review Mailing Options for Your Promotional Materials: Question whether mailing materials in envelopes is absolutely necessary. Can the job be done in a self-mailer, a post card, a catalog?
  
  
• Get Closer to Your Customers: Personal relationships are more important than ever, and getting close to your customer will be a strategy that pays off often in future revenue. Now would be a good time to isolate your top 1,000 buyers from last year and develop a customer appreciation program to let them know you recognize them and value your relationship.
  
  
• Strategy and Timing: Most educational publishers had their catalogs in the mail well before September 11th, and the next season will be the first time most of these companies will have the opportunity to address the national tragedy. I'm sure discussions are taking place about "putting the American Flag on the catalog covers, or "donating a portion of our sales" to the relief effort. These are good marketing strategies that many consumer companies have used this fall. But a word of caution prevails when thinking about using these same strategies in the education market. By the time January rolls around, the country might be in a different mood altogether.
  
  
• Review Your Product Line: Using current events to highlight educational materials has always been a good selling strategy into the market especially now that teachers are scrambling for help in explaining these complex issues to their students. Now would be a good time to review your product line and highlight multicultural, religion, history, and geography products. If you have enough of these types of products, you should consider doing a special thematic mailing to your targeted audience and giving them a special package price.
  
  
• Build Your Database of E-Mail Addresses: With traditional direct mail issues brought to the forefront by this tragedy, it is logical to consider multi-marketing channels to reach your customers and prospects. Begin building an opt-in e-mail list. The process may be time consuming, but well worth the effort. You can start by using MDR’s E@ppend service to add e-mail addresses to your customer file. Once you have this information, you need to begin a campaign to gain permission from your customers to send them e-mail messages from time to time. And you need to maintain an "opt-out" list.
  

Now get your marketing team together and come up with some other ideas to effectively navigate the new (and changing) environment! While things "will never be the same," it sometimes takes a jolt to begin the process of jump-starting American creativity and problem-solving skills — an area in which our nation excels! And, the most creative and capable people I know are education marketers, so I'm looking forward to hearing about your new approaches this spring.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This article was written by Carol Ann Waugh, President of Xcellent Marketing a marketing and new business development firm. Xcellent Marketing offers a variety of marketing services to help education and reference publishers increase their sales and profits from; identifying new markets; providing critiques of Web sites and marketing communications such as direct mail, catalogs, space ads, etc., as well as developing effective marketing plans and strategies. Carol is the co-author of i-Tips 2000: The Insiders' Guide to School and Library Marketing and co-editor of The Experts' Guide to the K-12 School Market books published by the Internet Monitor (http://www.internet-monitor.com) Carol can be reached at cwaugh@xcellentmarketing.com or by calling (303) 388-5215.