Understanding the Signals

What message does your school signal for families?  Does having a child at your school convey the message that this family is either politically or socially liberal or conservative?  Does it signal Ivy League collegiate aspirations?  Or maybe that they are a new money family?  Independent school marketers often miss an essential ingredient in purchasing decisions: that features and benefits pale in comparison to the importance of signaling in explaining why some families opt in and others opt out.

SIgnaling theory holds that the subtext matters as much as the explicit message, especially when it comes to selling luxury products.  In fact, as Geoffrey Miller points out in Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior, signals sent by a decision to buy, say, a BMW (wealth, luxury coolness, style) or a Toyota Prius (environmental sensitivity and techno-coolness) probably account for most of the premium price commanded by both automobiles, as opposed to mere features and benefits.  

The point isn't whether products signal--they do and that is beyond your control--rather, the issue is whether your school signals something congruent with its mission and product.  BMW and Prius buyers are not one and the same group; nor are Montessori parents and those at Benedictine schools.