Catering to your marketHere’s an illustration of exactly what I mean by catering to all target markets. During a market research project we conducted for a secondary college, we interviewed a mother who reported having visiting three secondary schools’ open day/information evenings with her son to determine which school suited him best.They liked all three schools. The mother had one clear preference and that was the strongest academic school, but the son still had no clear preference.Of the three schools, one gave the boy some promotional material that included a DVD of all the fun activities on offer. The boy watched the DVD, saw the camps, travel, sport and extra curricular offerings and told his mother that was where he would like to go to school. His reasoning was that he liked the fact that this school engaged students by offering fun activities. The mother was happy enough with his choice even though it wasn’t her first choice.When we asked her why she was happy for her son to have the final say, she said that if he was happy and engaged, then she felt he would work harder in class.This is an illustration of the need to appeal to two target markets, external parents and external students, because the two groups are seeking similar, but still distinctly different benefits. The parents are seeking end results and the students are seeking engagement and fun.Truth is, all three schools would have offered camps, bands, travel opportunities and sport, it’s just that only one school thought to communicate these offerings to prospective students.So my message to schools is simply this: as you start to identify the wider array of customers segments that influence the perception of your school, it becomes clearer that you need to actively consider how to position yourself, how to communicate with and market to many – and in some circumstances – all of these market segments.