Thanking and rewarding parents and teachers. It's just good manners.

Published by Chris Ogilvie-Taylor, CEO, Marsden Grant Int on 03 May 2017

The education sector is the last frontier for rewards programmes, the vehicle by which organisations give-back to their customers, clients and staff. An engagement and rewards programme for teachers and parents should add value to their daily lives, make their costs of living easier, support teacher recruitment and staff retention and show that your school/college/university cares about the well-being of its communities.

There are two routes to launch a rewards programme for your school/college/university -

1) Pull several staff off their day-to-day duties and brief them to begin approaching likely partners such as airlines, hotels, rental and consumer goods and ask for meaningful discounts and privileges. Expect to be asked what size community you are representing and then be laughed out of court when you mention any figure less than 500,000 individuals. Allocate a budget of major proportions to fund development costs and charges.

OR

2) Apply to access and host an existing turn-key rewards programme centred around a global multi-partner website specially created for schools, colleges and universities. No heavy duty budget needed and prepare to receive an in-bound income stream from launch.

Our turn-key rewards programme uses the strategies of relationship and rewards marketing and is entirely human and technology resource-free for its hosts. This programme will -

• deliver a continual revenue stream (as opposed to being a cost centre)
• include both teaching staff and parent communities
• focus on building/strengthening the groups/schools communities
• centre around a worldwide website offering cash-savings on all major consumer product and travel/service categories

For parents, the programme is focussed on supporting their needs whether as expat or local parents and demonstrating that the host school/college/university values their custom, with a secondary objective of tuition-fee neutrality. For teachers, the programme is focussed on assisting with their lifestyles. For both these important communities and for the host corporate, there is no down side. Those who are active in using the benefits within the programme and enjoying the rewards will be grateful to the host for its existence. Those who are less or not at all active will recognise the intended goodwill of the programme and its purpose of assisting themselves and their families, showing that the host cares about its staff and parents. With teachers, the programme is also based on the becoming increasingly problematic issue of teacher recruitment and retention and delivers added-value and competitively-priced purchases on higher ticket products and services such as travel and leisure which match the profile of your teachers’ lifestyles. Throughout, always demonstrating that the school/college/university cares and goes the extra mile for its staff and parents communities.

This is a turnkey opportunity. We are uniquely equipped to create a branded privileges programme offering staff and parents access to a wide range of lifestyle benefits. This will be accessible through a branded portal and an existing global-coverage website covering all consumer purchase categories which will produce an on-going revenue stream back to the host from an agreed percentage of the value of purchases completed. Even forecasting on the basis of a very low level of programme members uptake, the majority of launch and delivery costs will be repaid to the host within the first 12 months.

Qualifying criteria do apply so contact our Head of Marketing Services Chris Ogilvie-Taylor on 0044 20 7706 2896 or cot@marsdengrant.com to discuss eligibility. Schools groups, individuals schools, colleges and universities worldwide are all eligible to apply.