The education sector is a sector focused on schools and products and services surrounding schools. This is such a diverse sector because of the range of schools in this market as well as the different products. Schools include primary, secondary, colleges and universities as well as private and public schools this means that you need to be a lot more accurate with who you want your product marketing at.
Key points to telemarketing to in the Education sector
- Know who your target client is. For example there is no point selling climbing frames to a secondary school or college as climbing frames are built for smaller children such as primary schools.
- Know the specific decision maker you are aiming at this could be a head teacher, head of department or a teacher knowing who you are aiming at make the process a lot quicker on both ends.
- Teachers and head teachers do not spend all day at their desks they travel around a lot you may have to call them back at a more convenient time
- Timing is key. Whether it be the time of year or time of day it is key to get your timing right otherwise you may find yourself having to call back or missing out on a few sales
- Do some homework. Find out a bit about the school e.g. size, number of students, level, type of school, etc.
Teachers are difficult to get into touch with they don’t often have much free time early morning between 7-8:30 is the best time. You could also find teachers free periods and contact them during them. Do not contact during lessons you will not get an answer. Have all key information on hand. Respect there busy schedules call back when they ask and if they request an email send it to them and wait a few days for a reply.
Decision makers in schools don’t often take too likely to a forced sales approach they decide what they want they don’t want you to sell stuff to them. Instead of trying hard to sell to them think what drives them towards a purchase get your product in their head instead of selling it down the phone offer to send them something to look at or offer a meeting composing of a demonstration.
Schools are coming under increasing pressure from the drops in budgets this is why you cannot sell stuff to teachers down the phone as a lot of them do not have direct access to where that budget goes or even if they do they may not have the budget all together, you need to show that your product is worth every penny spent on it by the school.
This brings me on to my next point, the best time to get to decision makers will be February to May/June time this is when the heads of departments have been given a prediction of what next year’s budget will look like; this is the time that schools will be looking at for stationary and other new equipment for the school. You could also try to give out your information about your product around autumn to winter term time this insures that schools have your information ready for the budget of the new academic year to be released towards the end of winter/ start of spring. Whereas people may believe summer time to be the worse time this is in fact incorrect getting your product across to potential clients in schools gives them plenty of time to look into your product and make the decisions ahead for the next academic year. It also gives you a key opening to get across to the person you want as the staff will have lots of free time during the summer as jobs die down till the beginning of the school year.
