David Garden on shared & earned media in establishing trust with your audience
David Garden, Group Marketing Manager at Australian Christan College, sits down with host Mark Jones to discuss how marketing professionals can use communication channels as tools to amplify a brand’s impact.
Whether you have fond memories of the playground, thriving in your favourite classes and spending time with friends, or if you just got by day by day, one thing is undoubtable - school makes a lifelong impact on us all.
The experiences we have at school helps shape who we are for the rest of our lives. It’s a profound impact, and one which David Garden, Group Marketing Manager at Australian Christian College (ACC), is responsible for measuring. Today’s hybrid learning environment has allowed David to implement real time impact measurement and feedback collection through distance learning.
He’s also using storytelling to amplify this impact. As a marketing leader in the education sector, David has seen first-hand how taking a simple approach of starting with one story and using the integrated PESO Model - the paid, earned, shared and owned media model - presents a unique opportunity for marketers to not only find success in one channel, but to build on it across multiple channels.
“Engaging with the local media helps to amplify the specific stories coming out of that local ACC school. So that's why we found the local media is still a worthwhile strategy.” Hyperlocal targeting is working well for Australian Christian College. “The aim of our marketing is actually to get people to go to the school for a visit. That's where they get to experience the culture firsthand and see how our school is different to the local public school,” says David.
“We've come to realise that the local parent isn't really impressed or concerned with the fact that we've got a national brand across the country. They just want to know what's happening on the ground at ACC in their local community.”
To hear more from David and find out how marketing professionals can use communication channels as a tool to amplify a brand’s impact - tune into this episode of The CMO Show.
Resources
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Transcript
Host: Mark Jones
Guest: David Garden
Mark Jones:
This season on The CMO Show, we've been talking a lot about the positive ‘impact’ that businesses are trying to have on the world. Businesses, organisations, and brands all have the power to shape our understanding and reaction to the environment in which we live, work and play.
Mark Jones:
Some organisations even have the responsibility to help shape our most formative years and ignite our purpose for the future. These organisations have a unique opportunity to connect their culture and unique differentiators with their purpose, to ensure that they are aligned with the community and lives they are shaping. So what's your experience been like when you have reflected on your purpose and ensured that it’s understood and communicated?
Mark Jones:
Hello friends! Mark Jones here. How are you? It’s great to have you with us again on The CMO Show. In this episode, I’m joined by David Garden. Group Marketing Manager at Australian Christian College - one of our fantastic clients here at ImpactInstitute. David and I discuss building trusted stakeholder relationships and partnerships, the role of shared and earned media in establishing trust with your audience, and how marketing professionals can use marcomm channels as tools to amplify a brand’s impact. So let’s go to my conversation with David.
Mark Jones:
David, great to have you on the show.
David Garden:
It's a pleasure. Thanks, Mark.
Mark Jones:
Now firstly, Australian Christian College. Tell us about what the college stands for, where it comes from - what's the story? And where you're at in the broader education landscape.
David Garden:
The organisation was originally founded with the purpose of developing curriculum for Christian schools - and homeschoolers, actually. But within the first couple of years, there were some school boards that spoke to the members of our board and said, "Would you be interested in running a Christian school?" And so, one after another in quick succession, the board took on three Christian schools in three different locations. And then just as the years have gone by, there's been more schools approach us and asked if we'd be interested in taking over their school and running it. So now we're up to 10, as of today.
Mark Jones:
That's awesome. So that actually sounds quite entrepreneurial.
David Garden: Our CEO is actually an entrepreneur. He comes out of that small business space, rather than out of the education space, which is quite unique in the education sector in Australia. So certainly at Head Office, there's a real entrepreneurial spirit.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. Your own career, you've been at the college now for 10 years, right?
Mark Jones:
Tell me about what it's like to see growth through that period of time.
David Garden:
It's the longest I've worked in one organisation - I didn't know. Because I'd always stayed in the other places I'd worked maybe for three, four or five years, I didn't realise what I was missing out on, which is, when you're in an organisation for a period of time, you get to see dramatic changes, and they tend to take that length of time really to come to fruition. You get to see your team members, your fellow colleagues grow and develop and change. When I started, there were three schools, now there's 10. So the staff team has grown from a bit over 100, to 500. It's very encouraging to be inside an organisation that is seeing that level of growth, playing out around you and you're playing a small part in it.
Mark Jones:
So David, I'm really interested to talk about how you've approached marketing in the broader sense. Obviously, we have the earn, paid, owned and shared, the traditional ways that we think about channels. So what's the strategy that you bring to that? Obviously, I know a little bit about this, because we work together. But I'm keen to hear you reflect on your approach.
David Garden:
For us now, I think most of the marketing that we do falls into those categories. And with the longer term objective being that you're continuing to shrink the area of paid, and grow the other three areas. So we will still do some paid media stuff around things like short-term campaigns for our open days at our schools. But more and more, we're shifting our focus to the earned, the owned and the shared media. One is it just makes sense from a budgetary perspective. And the second thing is that from a consumer's perspective, those are actually more authentic than just paying for advertising to be blasted at an audience.
Mark Jones:
So when you think about the integration side of the split between those channels, is that something you manage? How do you think about it in terms of strategic allocation of resources and how you tie together central creative themes for example?
David Garden:
So we have one centralised marketing budget, that then I administer across the school network. We've been more tightly integrating those as the times gone by actually. So for example, if we generate some earned media, then as a very first port of call is to definitely share that through the social channels, depending on what it is. So if it's in the education trade media, we're likely to share that piece through LinkedIn, with the objective of building credibility for future staff. However, if it's in a more traditional media, the local paper for one of our schools, then we're likely to share the digital version through their Facebook page. On the owned side of things.
David Garden:
So this is only a relatively new space - we've gotten more heavily involved, actually, in the last few years. So we've launched a podcast, a blog, a couple of academic journals. We've launched some co-branded e-guides all within the last couple of years. And some of those, for example, one of the e-guides, a couple of extracts from that was picked up by online publications.
Mark Jones:
Let's dive into PR and earned media a bit, primarily because that's where you're doing a lot of work.
Mark Jones:
So there's three areas of activity where the measurement is taking place around KPIs, but there's local PR, there's trade, and then of course, mainstream.
David Garden:
So there's nine Australian Christian College branded schools. And then there's another one that we acquired, Brightwaters Christian College - which we haven't changed their branding. So at the moment, we've got three schools in New South Wales, one in Queensland, one in Victoria, two in WA and three in Tasmania. And three of those schools are also registered to deliver distance education within their state also. The reach of our schools is quite broad across the country.
Mark Jones:
So hyperlocal is a strategy. Why is that so important?
David Garden:
Well, what we've come to realise is that at the stage that we're at, at the moment, the local parent isn't really impressed or concerned with the fact that we've got a national brand across the country. They actually just want to know what's happening on the ground here, at this particular Australian Christian College in my local community. Us engaging with the local media helps to amplify the specific stories coming out of that local ACC school. So that's why we found the local media is still a worthwhile strategy.
Mark Jones:
A good reminder that there is still quite a bit of local media out there. I think in the broader marketing circles, we tend to write it off.
David Garden:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think the reason why there's been perhaps a little bit of a reduction reached in that space, because the newspapers in particular, have been scaling back, et cetera. But I think there's a credibility factor that still comes with the local media, so that if one of our schools gets coverage in the local paper, and we put that through their Facebook page, it will be one of the most popular posts of that month. So parents still think that it's impressive to get covered by the local paper.
Mark Jones:
Well, actually, it kind of is impressive. From a community perspective, people love it, right? There's the emotional thing. But I understand it's had a direct impact on enrollments?
David Garden:
Yes, yep. Certainly during COVID. Because of our Online Distance Education expertise, schools that weren't even registered for distance education were still able to gain that expertise, those online lessons, et cetera and very quickly transition to moving to online schooling when that was happening last year - and it's happening again now in New South Wales. And so, the idea there was that was actually a unique angle on the whole COVID and Education story, because of the fact that we had that expertise within the organisation. Of our nine schools, eight of them got local media coverage about how we'd been able to transition to online learning so seamlessly, because of that. And in particular, I'm thinking a school in Hobart, they had 11 enrollment inquiries as a result of the coverage that we gained in the media down there.
Mark Jones:
That's awesome. And I particularly love the community aspect of that. So schools, as we all know - being a parent - you do feel connected to the wider community through your school. But then stepping out, the trade and the mainstream media, how have you approached that?
David Garden:
The trade media was something that actually wasn't on our radar originally, but we realised that there was a good opportunity there. There's probably about half a dozen education trade media in Australia. And it's become more important to our strategy in recent times, because you may have heard about the looming shortage of teachers. And for us, we're looking for Christian teachers. So we're looking for a segment of the market that's got a shortage in it. So, we saw it as an opportunity to really start to develop an employee brand, through the education trade media. And the good news is that they seem very hungry for our stories. In fact, I don't think we've ever not had a story picked up that we've pitched to them. So we are striking at a pretty high success rate there.
Mark Jones:
Yeah. So, it's always fun when you get all the clips flowing through. And I think the key thing here is that business strategy - and I can imagine, from a management team perspective, that's a very real issue that you're facing - not just from a growth perspective, but just the sustainability of the schools, right? There are some big issues playing out in the education space. But I think, teacher shortage, quality and distance education - there's some really big, chunky kind of political and economic things floating around at the moment in this space. So how have you taken that - and even in the mainstream - connected that back into the conversations you have with your leaders?
David Garden:
Yeah, so there are a lot of big topics in the education landscape in Australia, particularly, it seems at the moment. And we have had some success. I think we've had articles published in the Australian and certainly in some of the metro news - I think that this is an area where we will continue to improve. So I see this area as a thought leadership area.
David Garden:
Particularly within education, they're looking for a very specific expert. So if they're talking about, for example, student mental health, they're looking for a school psychologist to provide comment, not the CEO of Christian Education Ministries, for example. If it's a topic around academic outcomes, then they're happy for that to be the principal of one of our schools, who has some specific expertise in generating improved academic outcomes.
Mark Jones:
Has it ever been a conversation with the management team about all these different spokespeople that you have across the organisation - I see it as an asset. But it's very typically a sensitive topic about who are the key spokespeople? There's a control around who's allowed to represent us. And so that can be a really emotive management conversation, how does it work out for you guys?
David Garden:
The vast majority of the PR that we've experienced, in the last, say, three years has been positive, there's been one or two smaller incidences. And then in those cases, we will defer to the principal of that respective school and they need to take the media inquiries in themselves. And that's partly just because we want to make sure that we're delivering a consistent message. If there's a crisis that's happening, you don't want to hear from 10 different people in an organisation about the issue. One spokesperson is the best way to handle it.
Mark Jones:
So from a measurement side of things, how are you tracking the ongoing impact? How are you thinking about measurement in the broader terms and really looping back to that integrated approach?
David Garden:
Yeah, so we have, essentially a CRM, but it's purpose built for schools. And within that CRM, we have what's called an Enrollment Pipeline. So it shows me for each one of our individual schools, how many inquiries they've received, how many of those inquiries have been converted to what we say Campus Visits - which could be an open day, or it could be a campus tour, et cetera. And then on to submitting an application, and then a principal's interview, and then an enrollment confirmation. So we track that monthly.
Mark Jones:
And so you can correlate various marketing communications activities, with that, obviously, at a school level, at a state level, and national and so on?
David Garden:
Exactly. Yes, we do ask people how they found out about us. But I don't make all the decisions based on just that one piece of information, I look more broadly at what's going on. An example I can provide there is - it's actually in the paid media space. But we have a rotating billboard campaign for one of our schools. And every now and then, someone would mention in the inquiry form that they had seen the billboard and that's why they had inquired, but I suspected that it was performing a bit better than what that result indicated. And so then we mapped where the new families were actually located. And it was quite interesting to see the growth of the families that were in these satellite locations and the billboards were on the arterial roads connecting that satellite location back into where the town - where the school was. And there'd been dramatic growth in those enrollments within those pockets. There was no other explanation except for the fact that subconscious driving past our billboard, probably two or three times a day had impacted on their decision to make an inquiry to our school.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, that's awesome. So obviously, there's a brand awareness impact, which you would hope from a big billboard. Right?
Mark Jones:
But again, also that hyperlocal marketing. You're not just sticking them up all over the country. You're looking for those arterial roads and I think it's really important to be reminded about the importance of really getting down to that level of specificity.
Mark Jones:
So distance education, as you mentioned, was actually part of your origin story. The shift from school to online, and then back to school, and then now back online, again - it's not terrible, but it could be a lot better. There's a lot of clunkiness that kids experience - actually just psychologically, as well as where staff, the teachers have got to do a lot of additional work. That's a bit different in your case, can you explain why that is?
David Garden:
Our main model for distance education is called Asynchronous. So it's not live like through Zoom lessons being delivered all day long. It's pre recorded teacher videos, and so the students can jump on there and watch the video and then undertake the activities associated with the content in the video. We have a common learning management system that we use across the network as well. So it's easy for us to transfer information within that learning management system from one of our schools to another one.
David Garden:
And I would say it's a very schmick operation these days. We've got recording studios and professional videographers, and teachers that know how to speak to a camera and engage the student through that method, consistent lesson plans online so that students know what to expect.
David Garden:
We actually have running - equivalent of a Survey Monkey style - surveying instrument inside the learning management system. So the kids are constantly providing us with a stream of feedback about the quality of the lessons that they're receiving from the teaching staff.
David Garden:
So if we're noticing that one particular teacher is getting low results, as far as the feedback from the students go, well, then it's obviously just an intervention to coach that teacher and say, “Well, here's another teacher in your key learning area who's delivering at a very high level. Let's look at a few of their lessons and see what they're doing well, and maybe areas where you can improve to the lift the result.”
Mark Jones:
So, obviously confronting for a teacher, but if you have the right spirit of constant improvement, that would have to have a huge impact. So you get a more honest set of feedback than you would from a classroom environment where it's harder to elicit all of that maybe in an efficient way.
David Garden:
Yeah, that's something that surprised me is that the online schools create their own culture as well. Obviously, a different form of communication channels and what have you, but nonetheless, still are an online form of culture. They respond positively. And even if it is a piece of, I guess you'd say critical feedback, they still do it in quite a gracious way, recognising that the teachers got feelings as well.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, well, that's constructive. And it's great to hear. I did want to ask you more broadly about the culture at ACC, because I think it's something we all relate to, and not just the vision and values and your mission, but how culture is understood, and how you translate that into your marketing communications work. What's the essence of that culture that you think is so important?
David Garden:
Yeah, we do our best to communicate it through the marketing. Really, the marketing's aim is to get people onto the school site. Unless it's distance education, obviously, then it's to engage with our videos online, et cetera and learn more through that channel. The aim of our marketing is actually to get people to go to the school for a visit. And that's where they get to actually firsthand experience the culture and actually see how our school is different to the local public school.
Mark Jones:
So, in one sense, you can trust the principals and the other leaders in the schools to carry the culture and allow those registrations to flow from people opting in or giving it a pass, right? So maybe there's a partnership aspect to that?
David Garden:
Absolutely. And that's one of the things that I think that I've learned in the years here from my entrepreneurial boss, is just the importance of recruiting well. We spend a lot of time deep diving in the interviews to get a real sense of who the person is and to make sure that they're really going to fit in with the culture and display that culture on a daily basis.
Mark Jones:
And I mentioned the mission. Tell me a little bit about that, because I think that's part of the guiding light here. Mission is always a tough one to get sorted.
David Garden:
Well, the mission is really around improvement, growth, transformation of the students. So we're not just looking to produce a generation of rocket scientists or doctors. We acknowledge that each child is an individual, they're unique. And they're at a certain place in their spiritual growth, their academic growth, their physical growth - and we just want to help them move forward. If we can impact the generation like that in a positive way, then obviously, the impact on society at large is going to be huge when those children all graduate and then move out into the world.
Mark Jones:
I think the joy of being at a school is that the purpose is much easier to identify from the perspective of kids going on to have rich, deep, fulfilling lives and experiences that have been positively shaped by their school. I think that's an enormous purpose. And we could look at all the different ways school shapes us into the future, in terms of confidence, and resilience, and all those human qualities, I think that's particularly fantastic. But even within that, you have to connect that unique purpose, from a brand point of view to the culture we just mentioned, and unique differentiators of the school, and finding something that is truly aligned with how managers and principals and the community see themselves. So I imagine it can also be quite complex, too, because you're trying to keep everybody happy, to some degree. What's your experience been like when you have reflected on the purpose and making sure that's understood and communicated?
David Garden:
Yeah, I must say that we have an excellent culture. And we were talking to another school board recently and I was trying to think of a time where there's been some form of conflict between myself and one of the principals of one of our schools over the 10 years I've been here and I couldn't think of an example. So I had to say, "Look, hand on the heart, I'm telling you the truth. That's just not the way that we operate." So if we differ in our opinion on something, that's okay. Our culture is very much just take small little steps and small risks, don't bet the farm on anything. So we talk about the idea of 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0. So if I disagree with one of the principals about a particular marketing strategy, I'm likely to just say, “Well, look, I could be wrong. So let's give it a go. But I'm only going to spend X amount of dollars, I'm not going to spend a big chunk of my budget on it. And let's just see how that pans out. Let's just see the results from it.”
David Garden:
And when we're talking at the higher level, I guess, there's been agreement around the brand story, if you like, is about academic improvement, character development, student well being. And then the way that that's actually lived out, if you like, within the individual school, there is some variety because the principal is given quite a bit of autonomy but still within under those sort of pillars.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, that's great. We were talked about measurement of marketing, but I wondered how your school and the community is thinking about that impact piece.
Mark Jones:
I've been reflecting on how profound school experience is for all of us, good or bad, right? And alumni associations, if you look at - I think universities tend to be a lot stronger, maybe some private schools have quite strong alumni. But alumni is where you get some of that going on and it tends to be more sort of the networking focus. Encouragingly, schools are getting more and more sophisticated as time goes on with the technology, the ability to - as you've already said, with the distance education platform - get that real time feedback. Going back decades, we've not had that level of sophistication, which helps us iterate and improve our teaching. So, yeah, interested in how you might think about developing out those impact measurement strategies and thinking more in that long term way and how that can connect to your storytelling?
David Garden:
I think that you've probably hit the nail on the head with the example you provided. So alumni, tracking the progress of alumni is the way that comes to mind. In terms of Australian schools, we're actually very young. So the organisation's only been around since 2006. And so we don't have vast numbers of alumni. In fact, it was not all that long ago that our school in Sydney actually started offering the HSC. So we're certainly still in that mode of growing the actual schools at the K-12. level. We have started an alumni programme at our school in Queensland. It's our largest school, but it's only been going in the last 12 months. So yeah, we'll be keen to continue to track that and see where the graduates end up in the future, et cetera.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, great. Well, obviously, now is the chance to put all those tools in place and start thinking about it, which is a great opportunity. So in closing, what's the future look like for you in terms of how you see the school, it's brand and your activities changing over time?
David Garden:
At this stage, I'm keen from the marketing perspective to continue to do what we're doing, where we're getting excellent results. So I'm keen on just continuing to hone our skills in that earned, owned and shared space, and continue to reduce our spend on paid advertising.
Mark Jones:
Yeah, that's a bit of a takeaway for me, too, is how you've been tracking that all back to enrollment. And so one of the things that we're faced with in marketing is the temptation to keep trying new things. But ultimately, when you do find those tactics, those techniques and strategies that are driving your core KPI - which in your case, is that enrollment number - you double down on it, right? You just keep going consistently and pour more resources in the stuff that's working and pull away from the stuff that hasn't worked. And, obviously, that's different for every organisation out there. And I think there's, as you say, that celebration pieces like there is a joy, I think in communications in marketing, where we find those things that where there is traction, and you don't have to worry about reinventing the wheel. So, it's a great position to be in.
David Garden:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think also, you just made me think of something. I remember back in probably the 90s and the 2000s, there was quite a bit of discussion and debate in marketing circles around brand marketing versus direct response marketing. And small business marketing consultants would argue that it was all about direct response and organisations that were more involved at the big end of town were all about the brand. My experience in the earned, owned and shared space is actually you're doing both at the same time. So actually, you are building that brand story and that brand reputation, but you're also generating inquiries, enrollment inquiries for the schools. So it's the best of both worlds.
Mark Jones:
Well, David Garden, Group Marketing Manager at Australian Christian College, thank you so much for being my guest on the show today.
David Garden:
My pleasure. Thanks, Mark. It's been great.
Mark Jones:
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with David Garden. Really good to chat with him about the way Australian Christian College continues to live out its purpose of transforming young people through education - even during periods of growth and change. I loved David’s advice for marketers in the corporate and not-for-profit space on how to use what’s known as the PESO Model - orthe paid, earned, owned, and shared media model - to establish not only trust, but authority as a thought leader.
Mark Jones:
And I got to say, I agree - I think taking a simple approach of starting with one story and using the integrated approach to look at paid, earned, owned and shared to distribute that content or that story presents a unique opportunity for marketers to find success that they can build on by haring messages that their audience can relate to and care about. So I’d like to challenge you actually to consider how you can amplify the positive impact of just one story. How far can you take it through all those channels?
Mark Jones:
Now, before I go, a quick reminder - if you haven’t already, search for The CMO Show on your favourite podcast app and subscribe so you don’t miss out on a brand new episode every fortnight. As always, thank you so much for joining us on The CMO Show. t’s been a pleasure, and great to have you. Until next time.