‘Our Stories’: Why Randolph School’s students wrote the viewbook

In recent years, Randolph School’s marketing materials have included more voices. From a steady stream of faculty tweets to a school blog with multiple contributors to a student-designed and written admissions viewbook (prospectus) with crowdsourced photos, the school has sought to communicate in a more personal and more authentic way. This approach dovetailed with our realisation that word of mouth, aided by the ubiquity of the smartphone, is more powerful than a direct mail piece or print ad, and that our marketing needed to be more of an ongoing conversation about the school than simply positioning. Giving faculty, staff, students and administrators a role in this effort created discussion internally about institutional value and values, and the need to share these with the market. Finally, this shift towards a more personal voice allows the school to be more authentic in talking about its marketing efforts and in creating content that demonstrates value.