SAMPLES


Cate School

Cate SchoolServed as a marketing consultant to Cate School in Carpinteria, California. I was initially engaged to help the school recognize and enhance a competitively, differentiated position in the marketplace. This was accomplished by conducting brainstorming sessions with Cate's administration and staff, as well as focus groups with, and surveys of, students and parents. Consequently, I analyzed the data and wrote a positioning statement for Cate School. I then developed a theme, “Shared Perspectives," which Cate uses in admission and development publications. I subsequently became the project manager for the creation of three new admission publications, hiring designers, photographers and conducting final edits on the copy. Because of my extensive background in the printing industry, I was able to provide advice and solutions that saved Cate thousands of dollars in printing costs. Cate's administration then retained me to oversee a total redesign of its web site using the same,"Shared Perspectives" theme. The site www.cate.org incorporates streaming video, audio, flash animation, ASP and SQL design features, and extensive use of non-proprietary, back-end, administration tools allowing user-friendly access to dynamic pages. By using dynamic pages, Cate school can create and delete pages and menu items without the need for expensive, time-consuming reprogramming of the site.


Ojai Valley School

Ojai Valley SchoolOjai Valley School is a pre-K through 12, independent, boarding school with two campuses. The lower school offers boarding beginning in the third grade. The project included interviews, focus groups and parent and student surveys. We determined that the Upper and Lower Schools had sufficiently differing target audiences that we would create two different view books with a single theme, "A Place of Awakenings." Likewise the web page www.ovs.org followed this theme and branched into two sites for each school. The web site gave access to many dynamic pages with user-friendly, non-proprietary back-end administration and editing tools.




Marymount

MarymountThis project called for several new admission publications and a complete revamping of its web site. Because Marymount's budget was limited, the creative use of resources was a challenge. Building on a positioning statement, we developed a new theme for the school, "Knowledge, Values, Community." we hired a photographer and designer and wrote copy for an entirely new admission packet. This included a pocket folder, brochure, curriculum guide and several factual insert sheets. As part of the marketing plan, I was responsible for creating several display ads for local publications. This included three, full-page ads for the Santa Barbara News Press. These ads required us to hire a photographer and a designer and to write the copy. We also oversaw the creation of Marymount’s new website www.marymountsb.org using in-house design resources.




Chatsworth Hills Academy

Chatworth Hills Academy approached us about helping them create new admission materials. This marked the first time the school had sought professional help with the marketing of the school. Although the school’s budget did not allow a complete marketing research program, we did conduct extensive interviews with critical members of the staff along with brainstorming sessions with the faculty. This, along with the available secondary sources such as competitor school’s publications and web sites, allowed us to develop a picture of where the school should position itself. Using this information, we created a branding theme, “Together We Learn, Grow and Discover.” A team was assembled including a designer, photographer and copy writer and the new view book was created.




Santa Barbara School District

We conducted a series of focus groups over a 2 month period to research opinions about and options for, improving the School District's Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) program. Groups included school principals, teachers, students and parents. Following the focus groups we wrote individual reports and an overall analysis of our findings. We also facilitated a brainstorming session for the GATE committee of the Santa Barbara School Board, which helped the group focus its recommendations. The School District concluded that the GATE program should be merged into the Honors program at all schools.