Why EdTech Marketing Works Better with Educators on the Team
Expert Q&A
Too often, EdTech products that could genuinely support learning are positioned with language that feels misaligned with school realities. Educators and school leaders immediately sense that disconnect.
You can’t market to schools without understanding classrooms.
Embedding subject-matter experts, like licensed educators, into your marketing strategy is a competitive advantage that will help your EdTech brand connect with your target audience in a more meaningful and effective way.
In this Q&A, we sat down with former teacher and current Clever Lucy team member, Jaci Fong, to unpack what non-educators often miss about school decision-making and how an educator’s lens fundamentally shapes strong EdTech marketing.
If you market to schools and educators, you won’t want to skip this.
How does having a licensed educator on a marketing team change the way EdTech products are positioned and communicated to schools?
Having an educator gives the overall team a unique benefit during strategy development. Understanding the inner workings of a school, the pain points of a school’s faculty and staff, and the constraints to buying and decision-making for the district are all important when developing content for marketing to a school district.
Each member of a school ecosystem has different challenges and commitments to a child’s development and instructional outcomes. Knowing how to speak to each one is essential to helping develop a sales pipeline and understanding the limitations of school buying timelines.
What nuances of school decision-making do non-educators often miss?
There are two key nuances we often see when EdTech clients specifically come to us for our team’s education background.
First, depending on what school types you are marketing to, there is a huge difference in marketing to a K-12 public school, a private school, and higher education. Even if the product supports student learning or safety in the same way regardless of school type, the priorities and needs of the community, the buying cycle, and the procurement process differ.
Secondly, most marketing teams don’t fully understand the stakeholder dynamics when working with a school. Your decision makers are not your end users, but they hold the finances and final approval. You need to ensure you are able to address the needs of district leaders, teachers and staff, parents, and students at different stages throughout the decision-making process.
Often, companies try to address everyone’s needs all at once and quickly dilute their messaging instead of focusing on the collective outcome and developing a customer journey per persona.
Can you share an example of how an educator’s perspective helps ensure marketing messages resonate with teachers, administrators, and instructional leaders?
As an educator, I am always focused on “how will this have a positive impact on student growth?". Education is outcome-focused, and educators are mission-driven people who are looking for empathy and relevance in the EdTech messaging they come across.
Providing a list of features or functions isn’t as impactful to an educator upfront, but outlining student-related benefits like your positive impact on learning is attention-grabbing.
In what ways does educator expertise help EdTech companies avoid common missteps or red flags when marketing to schools?
Things in education are always shifting. Priorities change with new government administrations, as district and student test results are released annually, and in response to the job market.
New teaching strategies and curriculum are released and adopted with speed, and your marketing team needs to be agile enough to help identify those trends and develop new content to meet the need.
Why is it especially important right now that EdTech companies work with marketing partners who truly understand classrooms and learning environments?
Over the last few years, in response to COVID-19 and an influx of government-backed grants for schools, the market has become saturated with new digital tools and services.
Many schools developed a huge tech stack and are now evaluating which resources to continue using or which they should source for new features. With budgets now reduced to pre-COVID spending again, schools need to be even more selective.
Also, there is pressure from parents and guardians for students to spend less time on digital tools while in the classroom. How schools respond to that will impact the market, and only those companies nimble enough to meet the changing needs in education through nimble value propositions and marketing tactics will continue to succeed.
Educator-Led EdTech Marketing Drives School Adoption
When educator insights and expertise are roped into your EdTech marketing strategy, you can frame products in ways that resonate with teachers, administrators, and district leaders without diluting your brand story or overselling your solution.
If you’re building or marketing an EdTech product and want your message to land, we should chat. Our team of EdTech marketing experts combines years of higher ed and K–12 experience with strategic creative to translate your product’s value into stories that resonate and sell.
Let’s make sure your product marketing reflects the impact you’re trying to create. Contact us today to get started.