All or .... All, (As it relates to Audiences)

This is somewhat stating the obvious, but I thought I would post this reminder regardless for my fellow PK-12 school communicators:  Our reality, as it relates to audiences, is that we must consider how to communicate across all generations. We don't get off easy and allowed to focus on a single set of demographics. For us it's not "all or nothing" but "all and all." (This was especially brought home to me the other week at CASE-NAIS 2013, via the tremendous keynote speaker Jane Buckingham from Trendera.)

This is both good news and bad news.

Good in that (seriously!) it takes the guess work out of our planning. There is no big debate about which audience segment to target with what media. Bottom line: we have to consider communications across the board and from the teenager to the traditionalist, whether we want to or not. They are our potential students, our current parents, students and staff, our prospective families and employees, and of course our alumni (assuming yours is an institution that's been around for at least a couple decades).

Bad in that it it makes it that much harder to prioritize messages and channels. In theory this is where an institutional strategic plan is critical - establishing focal points around which to allocate resources and which create a timetable that should assist in communicating what, when, who and why. With that said, I confess I have rarely seen a school's strategic plan that includes a specific marketing track and as such, often we have to extrapolate. But you take what you can get, yes?!

In theory the work to force a prioritization should be that much easier (with or without a strategic plan) with a solid focus internally on who is most important to us at this time and why. (Not that we want to minimalize any of our 'peeps.') However getting to the focal points for our work using internal priorities, can sometimes be a challenge - partially, I believe, because even our staff base cuts across all generations. Your Gen Yer's and your Traditionalists like and respect each other hugely, but they consume different media in different ways and often never the twain do meet. You have administrators and faculty who perhaps are not big consumers of social media. Or direct mail. Or who don't have a smartphone. While they are willing to believe me when I share the statics about the number of young adults on Facebook, or using Instagram or the importance of tablet growth - it is a removed belief.

Regardless of size of our school or market of alumni base, if we are serious about building and strengthening relationships with our contituents we are going to have to be smart and savvy about print and social media; about broadcast media and apps; about desktops and mobile devices and tablets....And there is more lurking around the corner we know!

What do you do to keep same as you contemplate your many options? Or, what's your favorite tip for establishing priorities?