Essentials Magazine Essentials Fall 2017 | Page 24

From The Marketing Side
School Secretaries vs School Marketers
Which Marketing
Media Works Best?
BY BOB STIMOLO
F
or many years SMRI conducted an annual survey of school secre-
taries. School secretaries distribute most catalogs and direct mail
and they are often involved in processing requisitions and pur-
chase orders. Consequently they should be knowledgeable about the
process by which educators learn about products and make purchas-
ing decisions. We thought we could unlock the mysteries of the school
purchasing process by surveying school secretaries.
We also regularly conduct a survey
of school marketers asking their opin-
ion about which marketing media are
most effective. We expected that we
could learn which media school mar-
24 essentials | fall 2017
keters believed to be most effective by
aggregating the survey results.
Recently I compared the responses
to both surveys. I was expecting that
they would be similar and that school
secretaries would confirm the beliefs of
school marketers and vice-versa. But I
was in for a surprise.
What They Agreed On
A little less than one-third of school
secretaries said that direct mail was
the means by which most educators
learned about products and services.
A little more than one-third of school
marketers agreed that direct mail was
the most effective media when selling
products and services to educators.
Both groups were in agreement that
print advertising, telemarketing, and
search engine optimization did not
play a significant role in the purchase