My first marketing campaign started on the first day of school. “And Ms. Neely loves loves loves coffee and books.” I found that saying loves three times and quite dramatically increased the likelihood of receiving these lovely items for Christmas, teacher appreciation day or birthday.
I have to include a disclaimer here. I don’t know anything about effective marketing. (My museum of interesting teacher gifts is a testament to that!)
That having been said, I think marketing is more effective when there are two or three key ideas presented throughout the year.
So for instance, if I boiled my History 5 class down to two takeaways I wanted students to leave my class with, they would be
the importance of relevant, reliable resources
history doesn’t happen in isolation
What if we turned the tables? What if instead of being the target of so many marketing campaigns (boxed curriculum, standardized prep books, reward systems that offer students a free kids’ meal if they have perfect attendance), we began to market for ourselves? And what if that marketing were so successful that we started being asked to be the decision makers of our own profession?