Independent school communications directors, as a group, have never been more versatile, better supported or more highly paid.

Their offices have become more specialized, in part because of new audience and technology demands.

Managers suggest that professional development has become more vital to their continued success.

And schools look increasingly not within their own ranks but rather to other industries when searching for senior communicators.

These conclusions come from InspirED School Marketers’ latest Private School MarCom Survey Report. This publication, based on responses from hundreds of communications directors, puts a spotlight on broad trends and emerging areas of opportunity. The result is useful context for directors and heads of school alike.

This is InspirED’s fifth such survey. A comparison of the 2022 report against the first, published in 2017, reveals significant changes over the five-year period.

Better pay, more responsibility

There are several encouraging signs:

• Marketing and communications offices are larger: 42% of respondents report their school has four or more FTEs in communications, double the percentage who said the same in 2017. This growth means not only capacity to complete more projects but also that managers have more opportunity to focus on the big picture — to analyze, as well as to do.
• Directors have more institutional responsibility: 72% report to the head of school, up from 59% in 2017. (The survey doesn’t ask whether respondents sit on their school’s senior administrative teams, but that’s a fair implication of this finding.)
• They are better paid: 31% say they make $70,000 or less a year, while the cohort was 51% of respondents five years earlier. On the other end, 24% say their salary is at least $110,000; only 12% could say the same in 2017.
• They have more longevity: 73% have been at their current school for at least three years, up from 60%.

A move away from generalists

These larger communications offices house plenty of specialists: Schools are much more likely to employ a social media manager, a graphic designer, a digital marketing manager or a photographer/videographer in 2022 than in 2017.

The larger headcount has allowed schools to bring certain communications tasks back in-house. For instance, they hire fewer freelance writers and photographers to fill their magazines. On the other hand, they outsource magazine design more often (63% in 2022 vs. 57% in 2017).

Hard-copy magazines are published just as often today as five years ago, and online magazines have not taken hold as an alternative. But printed viewbooks are in a sharp decline: Only 41% of respondents say their school has one (down from 72%).

Surveys have become much more common: Schools are four times more likely to have surveyed magazine readers recently.

Two-thirds of respondents said their school’s website is three years or older, a big jump of the 37% number of 2017.

Are managers ready for the future?

This survey makes plain how much school communications has changed in five years. No longer is the communications office simply an in-house print shop, producing two magazines a year and a weekly newsletter, and maybe helping with the yearbook.

Now these offices churn out video content and virtual tours, they are responsible for social media and digital marketing, and they must know the workings of search engines as well as they know crisis communications.

As the work grows more complicated, though, communications directors report that their skills are strongest in writing and managing production — talents, in other words, that were critically important to schools 10 or 20 years ago.

In an era where media releases are passé and adults read less, are textual skills still the most important qualities for a senior communicator? Or do school leaders base their selection of directors on an outdated understanding of communications, putting less weight on cutting-edge talents?

Managers, meanwhile, report that they could use professional development especially in the following areas:

• Video production
• Search-engine marketing
• Search-engine optimization
• Crisis management

On-the-job training — including through attendance at conferences — is common for development and admissions personnel, far less so for communications. Are schools budgeting the necessary dollars to develop communicators’ skills?

Who’s in the pipeline?

Finally, nearly half of respondents are relatively new to educational communications, with less than five years of experience. That’s another jump from 2017.

The statistic is a bit disconcerting, especially as managers report that they need more training. That combination points to a “pipeline problem,” where schools rely on other industries to develop their future communications leaders, rather than cultivate talent themselves.

The InspirED folks strike a cheerier note about this finding, calling this “influx of new MarCom talent from outside the private school world … a positive trend (attracting) experienced professionals.”

There is no doubt that fresh views and voices can energize a communications department.

At the same time, bringing in a communications leader from outside education provides no guarantee that a school can hang onto that person.

While the job skills transport easily into schools, academic folks tend to miss that theirs is a different type of workplace. A newcomer has much to learn about school culture, and acclimating to the internal and external politics can take a while, even years. Some never get used to the dynamics and ultimately choose to return to their previous line of work or go where the culture shock is not quite so severe.

Meanwhile, what about the young talent in communications offices? Will they become demoralized, seeing top jobs go not only outside their school but outside the industry?

Schools need to give junior communicators a reason to stick around and, ultimately, work their way up. If the odds of getting promoted or advancing at another school are no better than a coin flip, what’s the point of remaining in education?

This post is adapted from the October 2022 issue of Refill, a newsletter published by Fine Point Communications.