Celebrating 15 years of school marketing 🎉

Today marks 15 years since I left my final corporate role and started my first day as a school marketer.

Back then, I was a lone wolf in a team of one.

I wasn’t a member of the leadership team.

And, for the first time, I didn’t have a more senior marketing or PR professional to report to.

I think that was the scariest part.

In my corporate roles, I was fortunate to have exceptional managers who guided me, shaped me, and helped me to grow consistently as a professional.

People like Anita Thompson, Leonne Fitzgerald, Anita Beasley, and Karen Anning.

My final role in the corporate sector.

So, despite having eight years of corporate PR and Marketing under my belt when I started at my first school, it was still daunting to realise that I was now the one in charge of marketing.

This is potentially one of the biggest flaws in school marketing – relatively green marketers reporting to an educator, not a marketer.

Over the years, I’ve spent a considerable amount of time and money investing in training and professional development.

Marketing is a field that is constantly evolving and it’s so broad and multi-faceted that there’s always something to learn – particularly when school marketing demands for you to be a marketing generalist who can wear a multitude of hats on any given day.

I’ve reconciled with the fact that I’ll never know it all, because the reality is: The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.

I now mentor a small number of school marketers through School Marketing Manifesto – it brings me so much joy to share my knowledge and experience (particularly lessons learned the hard way) with other school marketers who are missing out on reporting to a senior marketer.

When I think about that version of me that walked into school for the first time 15 years ago, I think she’d be shocked, amused, but ultimately delighted by the twists and turns that working in schools has delivered.

Looking forward to seeing what’s next!