Understanding the Basics of Selling to Schools

When selling directly to consumers, having them order your product and delivered to their door is a big landmark in the customer journey however, when selling to schools the customer journey is a little more complicated. Receiving the product is only the beginning for the teacher, they then have to be able to use that product to enrich teaching and learning in their school.

Having a list of colleges in Toronto, isn’t enough for a business based in Toronto to have. You need an accurate and reliable source along with a plan to best utilize it to provide optimum service at every step of the customer journey. Before you begin the sales journey, you may ask yourself:

1. How can I personalize our communications to each school or college?
2. Who are our targeted colleges or how do we identify them?
3. Do we target a handful of colleges?
4. Will that leave other potential targets behind?
5. Are we limiting our pipeline?
6. Do you have the right data on all customers and consumers?
7. How do we prove ROI?

It’s time to do your homework!

To answer these questions, you need to first understand the basics involved in making a full-fledged strategy.

1) Make Sure Your Product or Service Is Relevant

The main purpose of teachers and schools is to educate its students. Does your product contribute to the learning process or is it educational in any way? Your product may be useful to carry out administration services. Either way, ensure your product creates solutions and not more problems.

2) Understand Who Your Consumers and Customers

Are Your product or service offering could be for teachers, it could be for admin staff or maybe it’s for the students studying in colleges. In which case, you have to try to tailor your promotional material and your marketing efforts for the right people. Besides understanding who your consumers, you also need to understand who your customers are as they may not necessarily be the consumers. At the end of the day you have to remember that you are not really selling to ‘schools’ you are selling to a person, so getting to know that person is part of the process.

3) Identify Opportunities

Now that you have a product and an audience, you need to find the right opportunities i.e. you need to identify the colleges that are most likely to purchase your product or service. Do you need a list of colleges in Canada? Or something more specific like a list of private colleges in Ontario? With this data, you can then breakdown specific locations where there is a demand for your product and services.

Getting the basics right is always the first step to any activity. To do so you need the right resources and data tools like Scott’s Directories. For example, if you’re a business operating in Ontario, Toronto is one of the biggest markets you can capture and our thorough list of colleges in Toronto will give you that edge.