There are thousands of other private post-secondary schools out there, only a small fraction of them are in direct competition with your school based on your programs and what you teach. All the others who are not in competition re potential partners. There are hundreds of ways to create symbiotic relationships with other schools and colleges that can be beneficial not only for marketing your school, but these relationships can help enhance your programs and resources.
Begin exploring possible partnerships by approaching it as if you were creating a cross-functional team for a large business. What you teach your students “creates” one member of that team with a specific skill set and way of thinking or solving problems. If you as a manager were to add people to that team, what sort of other skills would you like to see?
If you’re a music school, how would film or audio engineering fit into a partnership? If a business school, what about media production or paralegal? If you have a HVAC repair program, what other commercial services could be added to essentially create a “total commercial services company”?
Building partnerships is just like packaging or bundling. Once you identify some partners, how can you work together to help get a larger marketing reach? Co-host events? Cross promote on campuses or in advertisements? Create a type of affiliate relationship?
In the end, we all can use as much help as we can get. Partnering with other schools that help expand your reach is one method to help promote your school.
