Assess the Distinctiveness of Your Independent School Offerings

Independent schools often fall into the trap of trying to be ‘better’ instead of truly different. Simply keeping up with competitors or offering marginal improvements won’t attract more families or set your school apart.

Again, true differentiation happens when your strengths directly address family needs (relevant) and do so in ways competitors can’t easily match (distinct). That’s the differentiation sweet spot.

This step includes two distinction toolkits that will assist schools in completing step two of EAB’s three-step framework to create a dynamic value proposition.

1. Conducting a Competitive Analysis

This toolkit includes resources to conduct a competitive analysis and to assess the distinctiveness of your school offerings based on that analysis. This tool should be used after you create a market-tested customer profile and assess relevancy.

This toolkit begins by guiding schools to identify their top competitors and collect comparative data on key offerings they identified in step one. Next, it provides resources, examples, and templates to help schools complete a thorough competitive analysis.

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2. Assessing Distinctiveness of School Offerings

This toolkit aims to help schools assess school offerings for distinction against competitor offerings, a key step toward crafting a dynamic value proposition. This tool should be used after you conduct your competitive analysis to assess distinction.

This toolkit starts with a school offering distinctiveness rubric exercise that will allow schools to answer questions about each relevant offering and calculate a distinctiveness score based on the answers. From there, schools will record the relevancy and distinctiveness scores for each offering, plot the offerings on the value differentiator matrix, and determine next steps using the matrix key.

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