Transformation Alliance’s Communications and Engagement Committee discusses how best to reach out to families with information about school choices in the city of Cleveland

(Plain Press, December 2020)           At its November 17^th meeting, the Communications and Engagement Committee of the Cleveland Transformation Alliance, which is charged with marketing responsibilities for the Cleveland Plan for Transforming Schools, discussed how to best reach parents looking to select a school for their child. Cleveland Transformation Alliance Executive Director Meghann Marnecheck said the organizations’ School Quality Guide (available online at mycleschool.org) was due for an update and should be ready soon. There was some discussion about whether or not to include schools that have closed in the guide. Several committee members opposed including pages for schools that have closed.

   Tina Rice of T Rice Communications LLC, director of the marketing campaign for Cleveland Transformation Alliance (CTA), promised to use her contacts and expertise to reach parents in a budget conscious way. Committee member August Napoli said CTA would benefit most from “grassroots outreach that is as organic as possible, including nontraditional marketing and advertising.”  

   Pam Turos from Good Cause Cleveland said her goal is to be specific in messaging, especially in the monthly general newsletters that are distributed to target audiences.  She is gleeful about the success of incorporating an opt-in popup that allows the website to track the critical demographic information that identifies interested entities. The challenge is to encourage visitors to stay on the website longer.  She said the Find a School link is the most visited page on the site and zoning in on areas most visited on the site would increase length of visits. 

   Nic Abraham from Good Cause Creative discussed how a $10,000 October 2020 Google Grant for digital advertising boosted website analytics.  Page views doubled from September to October, with impressions and appearances in Google search ads also revealing “powerful upward trends.” An expansive keywords list and geo-tracking were highlighted as the largest factors in this increase. Marnecheck suggested a budget of $1,000 per month to continue to reap the rewards of geo-tracking. The committee nodded at the idea.

   Napoli conferred with the committee on decisions made.  Marnecheck motioned to defer decisions until 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec., 7th at the Transformation Alliance Board of Directors meeting.  Access that meeting with this link: https://zoom.us/j/98094926783?pwd=MCtSYVFzbi9ENS9OaEVxREMyQ3UvZz09

Editor’s Note: The Plain Press would like to thank Cleveland Documenters and Documenter Teela Patterson for providing the notes for this story. Cleveland Documenters, powered by City Bureau and Neighbor Up, trains and pays Greater Clevelanders to document government meetings in Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. Find out more at https://cleveland.documenters.org or call 216-361-0042.