Communicating with education professionals: how do you do it?

You have a clear objective, a great product and researched your target audience. Yet your message is not landing with the education professional you want to reach. Why is that? Lane Stadelmaier and Lieke Lemmens explain what it takes to reach education.

Education has its own language, its own decision-making structures and its own customs. “You shouldn't underestimate those,” says team lead Communications Lane Stadelmaier. “Many organisations are confident about the quality of their product or service. Logical, as there is often a lot of thinking and expertise behind it. But the step to school practice is not always made. How does the product fit into daily work? What scope is there to work with it? What does it actually deliver? Without that translation, it remains abstract. You have to be recognisable, applicable, relevant. Someone reads or hears something and immediately thinks: can I do something with this? Does this fit within my school? Will this help me further? In other words: in education, everything is measured against the bar of practice.”

Relevant communication, according to Lane, starts with getting a sharp sense of where you stand as an organisation and what you want to do for education. “What role do you take? Who are you there for? And how do you relate to other parties in the field?” This goes beyond positioning on paper. “It means you also look at your offering. Does what you develop actually match the practice of schools? Or is it mainly conceived from within your own organisation?”

These are the kinds of questions DUO-Onderwijs helps organisations with. “We advise in three areas,” adds Sr communications consultant Lieke Lemmens. “Organisations that want to play a role in education, we help them think about how to set up or position themselves. Think about setting up a knowledge centre or sharpening services so that they optimally match what schools need. Then we look at communication: what story do you tell, through which channels, and how do you execute it?” DUO-Onderwijs represents around eighty per cent of the education media in this respect. “That makes a big difference, because that way you not only reach the right people, you also reach them through channels they trust.”

Once you have your own position clear, the key is to map out your target audience. “That means delving into who you want to reach,” says Lane. “Not just in outline terms, but also in how they talk about issues, what they encounter, what concerns them. Research what people spend their time on, what trade-offs they make and what is on their plate.” This is also where communication advisers have an important role to play. “They have to make that translation from policies, products or ideas to something that fits within the reality of a school.”

This can be done in various ways, such as articles, meetings, newsletters, online formats. But those choices only make sense if the content is right. Lieke: “You can't just ‘translate’ a general message to education. You have to rebuild it from their perspective, otherwise you hit the mark.” That is also why DUO-Onderwijs works with consultants, researchers and content creators who all have experience in or with education. “You can be good at communication in general, but the tone of voice in education is specific. The way you address a teacher differs substantially from how you approach a manager in an office environment.”

The main difference according to Lane? “In education, content always wins over form. In many sectors, you score with pretty visuals, a smooth slogan and a sleek design. An education professional is too critical and too busy to be seduced by pretty packaging. Who wants to know what he can concretely do with that information tomorrow.”

It is a lesson that DUO-Onderwijs sees repeatedly confirmed after 30 years of working with unions, professional associations and education councils. Lieke: “Because we are so widely represented in the field, we see what works.” At the same time, this collaboration creates a large network. Why is that important? “A lot of parties work in education. It can be very effective for an organisation to collaborate with another party around a certain theme. For us, it is easy to make that contact.”

Lane's main advice: “Take the time to understand how education works, what schools need and what language best suits it. If that foundation is right, your message will land. And then something happens.”