Today’s guests are Rob and Liza Norman from InspirED School Marketers. Rob and Liza are a married couple that have been business partners for 27 years. They were in business for 25 years as Turnaround Marketing exclusively working with independent schools doing brand development, enrollment marketing as well as other types of development marketing. About four years ago Liza came up with Inspired School Marketers because there really wasn’t a resource targeted to independent schools for marketing and communications (MarCom). Inspired School Marketers offers a podcast, blog, daily e-newsletter with one idea being shared every day and other resources targeted to the independent school MarCom community.
Our topic today is The Brilliance Awards, which are MarCom awards for the independent school community.
I want to get the word out about this award opportunity. This is the third year of the awards; Rob and Liza are starting to gain momentum. The Brilliance Awards are a great way to receive recognition as well as a great professional development opportunity. Past winners of the awards are listed on the website, which provides an opening to see what other schools are doing to get ideas and inspiration.
I’ve known Rob and Liza for a long time and we always have a good time when we get together. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!
In this episode here’s what we’ll cover
- Background of The Brilliance Awards
- Who is eligible to apply for The Brilliance Awards
- Why The Brilliance Awards are great for professional development
- The goals of The Brilliance Awards
- What judges think of The Brilliance Awards
- How to use past Brilliance Awards to learn more about creative approaches to MarCom
- Discussion about new categories this year (there are 29 total categories)
- Small Doesn’t Mean Limited (discounted price)
- In-house vs Outsourced
- New advertising category
- Still photography (campus and architecture, people, sports, performing arts, etc.)
- Branded webpage
- Viewbook writing
- Magazine feature article design
- The inclusion of international schools
- About Steppingstones Scholars, awards beneficiary
- Early bird special through September 14th, final deadline October 19th
- Winners announced December 28, 2018
- Previous winners and why they stand out
- In-depth case studies completed on gold winners
- A stand out video you won’t want to miss
- How the judges are chosen
- How schools can participate
- How The Brilliance Awards can provide valuable feedback to participants
Items mentioned in this episode include
- InspirED School Marketers website
- Steppingstones Scholars, Inc. – beneficiary of The Brilliance Awards
- 2017 Gold Winner – Viewbook – Girls Preparatory School, Chattanooga, TN
- 2017 Gold Winner – Enrollment Video and AF Appeal Video – McCallie School, Chattanooga, TN
- 2017 Gold Winner – Hashtag Campaign and Out of the Box Concept – Stuart Country Day School, Princeton, NJ
- 2017 Gold Winner – Homepage, In-House – Presbyterian Day School, Memphis, TN
- 2017 Gold Winner – Single Webpage or Microsite – Taft School, Watertown, CT
- 2017 Gold Winner – School Logo – Hellomethod for Chappaqua Friends Nursery School, Chappaqua, NY
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