Blogs

My friends at Turnaround Marketing recently asked the question: “Are Viewbooks Dead?”

Their answer: Not Yet – and I couldn’t agree more.

Turnaround Marketing does a great job of supporting their answer and I would like to offer why I think admission viewbooks, through their evolution, should remain a vital part of the admission process.

Part Of A Larger Whole

In the past, viewbooks were at the center of a school’s marketing efforts. As Turnaround suggests, schools can control the reader’s experience and deliver your school’s brand messages.

I absolutely agree with their assessment but feel that with the advent of social media, search engines, and inbound marketing, the viewbook’s position must shift from the center of a school’s marketing plan to just another piece in their inbound marketing strategy.

We’ve recently freshened our viewbook at my school and had discussions about the future of this type of publication. We now think about our viewbook as a very important second piece in our content marketing strategy and have moved our content away from text toward using more photos to make the experience more visual. Let me now explain…

Visual Experience

We now assume that most prospective families find my school through the internet and their first contact is our website. We make two assumptions about a prospective family’s experience with our website: 1. It is mostly text based and although we try to include visual elements, we are inherently limited by the capabilities of the web experience, and 2. As Turnaround suggests, we can not control the reader’s experience and can’t be certain that a prospective family will even read everything we would like them to see.

As a result, we now think about our viewbook as being the second major piece of our inbound marketing strategy with the following assumptions:

1. If we assume that a prospective family’s web experience is more text-based, we are attempting to make the viewbook experience more visual. Print allows us to include more dramatic and inviting photos our people, campus, and school life in general.

2. We have parred down the length of our viewbook to include only essential branding elements to make sure that each family has experienced the core of what we do and who we are – we don’t want to dilute that message.

3. Our viewbook consistently points back to our website in a complimentary relationship for a couple of reasons: 1. We’ve tried to keep the viewbook school year independent to allow us to have a longer shelf life of this current version to help save money – it’s much easier to update the website, and 2. By pointing back to the website we are able to convert students to inquires, from inquiries to applicants, and from applicants to enrolled students.

It’s Your Turn

I would love to hear your thoughts about the future of admission viewbooks and where you think they should belong in the admission process. Please share your thoughts by posting them in the comments section below.

About Brendan Schneider

Brendan J. Schneider is the Director of Admission and Financial Aid at Sewickley Academy. He is one of the leaders in the field for teaching on and knowledge about inbound marketing for schools. He presents and consults on inbound marketing, branding, marketing technology, and social media at the regional and national levels. With his workshops, the SchneiderB.com blog, and over 40,000 tweets of insight over the last four years, he continues to advance the abilities of the independent school admission, communication and marketing professional.

Brendan is also a Board of Director for the Association of Independent School Admission Professionals.

Find him on Google+. Subscribe to his blog and receive his Social Media System for Schools ebook for FREE. Download the eBook now!