Size Matters: Your Ideas on Making the Most of Being Small?

The recent announcement of 2008 Nonprofit Tagline Award winners sparked incredible interest among orgs wanting to make more of their taglines, and many requests for help.

I'll be sharing these requests with you over the months to come, and asking for your input. Here's the first query, from Rebecca in New York City:

The Challenge

I’m working with a Jewish independent school that is developing a new tagline and marketing campaign centered around their being a small school. All of its local competitors are now very large schools, and this school's small size has become a selling feature rather than a weakness.

We're looking for some examples of organizations or schools that focus on their small small and/or personal attention as a selling point, in a tagline or more broadly. Do you have examples to share, or any guidance? Thanks for your help.

My Recommendation:
Focus==> How Your School's Personal Attention for Students Improves Learning and Lives
Rebecca, my core guidance for clients is always to know what the competition is doing (program- and marketing-wise) but resist being shaped solely by those activities.

What Big Can't Be is a tagline Rebecca mentioned as a possible model, from the K-12 North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, IL.

Rebecca, you can do better than this. It will be far more effective to highlight your school's small size and personal attention but focus on the value generated by this attention.

I'm sure you have concrete stories and perhaps even stats to share on how personal attention enriches student's lives and learning. That content is the deal breaker here, and the competitive advantage delivered by your school.

Warning: Many of the taglines submitted to the Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Survey focused on personal attention, integrating phrases such as "one child at a time." But few of them conveyed the value of that approach.

Without that key ingredient, the recipe flops. Don't forget to articulate what that value is for your students and their families, and feature it front and center in your tagline.

What's Your Advice for Rebecca?
Are any of you marketing small? If so, what's working? How are you conveying the value of your approach in your tagline and other marketing content?

Please share your ideas with Rebecca by clicking the Comments link below.

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Comments

[Jay Hamilton-Roth]

Some tagline suggestions for Rebecca:
* Remember David?
* We Cater To Each Student's Needs
* Every Student Is Different. So Are We.
* Creating Mensches (and Womensches)
* ...And A Little School Shall Lead Them
* We Delight In Every Child
* A Small & Mighty Campus To Inspire Students

[Roger]

Success: Think small plan big.
The difference is in the small details.
Excellence is found in the small details.