Ari these are legitimate points. I'd also argue that JDS have a history of publishing top-dollar full-pay MSRP, instead of actual average tuition paid, or instead of utilizing "Tuition starting at..." verbiage. Day school is not an ecommerce transaction. Nobody buys online. So the goal of any marketing/communication strategy by a JDS (as you outline above) is to fuel conversations with families. To that end, the goal of any marketing/communication strategy should be to eliminate friction, remove obstacles, and maximize the number of conversations that can be had with families. In other words, what any JDS should be trying to avoid is a situation in which a family looks at website and says, "No way" before even having a conversation with the school. That's the goal.
Thanks Scott. Totally agree. We recently conducted research that suggested that a large portion of families who didn't choose a JDS underestimated both the % of families that were on aid as well as how much those families received on average. JDS is really an unbelievable outlier with regard to the magnitude of its financial aid relative to other Jewish institutions and even relative to other deep pocketed independent schools. People almost don't believe it. I think this points to our schools, and other institutions, finding simplified ways of expressing these data points to avoid the "No way" response you mention.
Ari these are legitimate points. I'd also argue that JDS have a history of publishing top-dollar full-pay MSRP, instead of actual average tuition paid, or instead of utilizing "Tuition starting at..." verbiage. Day school is not an ecommerce transaction. Nobody buys online. So the goal of any marketing/communication strategy by a JDS (as you outline above) is to fuel conversations with families. To that end, the goal of any marketing/communication strategy should be to eliminate friction, remove obstacles, and maximize the number of conversations that can be had with families. In other words, what any JDS should be trying to avoid is a situation in which a family looks at website and says, "No way" before even having a conversation with the school. That's the goal.
Thanks Scott. Totally agree. We recently conducted research that suggested that a large portion of families who didn't choose a JDS underestimated both the % of families that were on aid as well as how much those families received on average. JDS is really an unbelievable outlier with regard to the magnitude of its financial aid relative to other Jewish institutions and even relative to other deep pocketed independent schools. People almost don't believe it. I think this points to our schools, and other institutions, finding simplified ways of expressing these data points to avoid the "No way" response you mention.