EdGate and Education Market Experts, two industry-leading EdTech service companies provide their unfiltered insight
As the leading education standards and alignment service provider, the team at EdGate is exposed to a steady stream of unique content across many subjects and grade levels, let alone millions of standards and rubrics that the content is checked against. Throw in state initiatives, district requirements, and constantly changing state politics to wade through. “The great thing about working at EdGate is the fact that we are approached with new opportunities each day. Whether it’s a new state course review mandate, a state CTE standards overhaul, or a newly adopted subject, we are always kept on our toes,” said Gina Faulk, General Manager of EdGate.
Similarly, Education Market Experts (EME), is a long time advisory firm for an array of Pre-K-12 education companies, providing the research, product development, sales, and marketing tools needed to help their clients succeed.
“We work with a variety of clients across content areas, all at different stages of growth,” says Suzanne Lee, VP of Marketing and Communications. “Whether we’re working with early-stage start-ups hoping to break into the education market, or to established companies branching out beyond their existing spheres, our goal is to help our clients succeed beyond their expectations.”
No matter the subject or size of the project object, it’s all about product preparation. Both EdGate and EME help education providers ready their products to be launched into the market, with the end goal of client sales and student success.
As an example, EdGate and EME teamed up to help an established literacy company who was looking to branch out from their existing consumer business into the K-12 market. At the suggestion of EME, the literacy company contracted with EdGate to review and align their reading programs to the 50 U.S. states plus the Common Core standards. The client was also given access to EdGate’s ExACT reporting system in order to run state-specific reports showing how their content aligns to each state with real-time alignments updates as the state standards change. Within ExACT, the client can also generate gap reports. The gap feature is crucial in order to discover standards that the company’s content does not align to in order to create content to fill the gaps in each state.
Concurrently, EME walked the company through a go-to-market plan to help leadership understand what their full market potential could be. This included sizing and scoping their offering against specific regional and national markets, as well as assessing specific sales and marketing channels to help maximize their revenue potential. EME created an actionable go-to-market plan that informed the company on market penetration expectations and helped guide and prioritize investments as well as sales and marketing decisions.
So what advice would EdGate and Education Market Experts give to emerging and early-stage companies in order to reach their sales goals?
EME: Understand the sales cycles and timing in education, as well as how/where your product will fit in the instructional day. Schools and districts are at different budgeting, consideration, piloting, and purchasing cycles throughout the year. It’s important to understand what stage they’re at in each particular season so you can tailor your outreach appropriately. Keep in mind, the size and scope of your product or service (as well as the overall cost) can shorten or lengthen the amount of time it takes to go through the entire purchasing process.
EdGate: Have those alignment reports shored up. States and districts require that education content is aligned to their state or local standards. Make your sales, marketing, and proposal specialist’s life easier by having alignment reports ready to go. Further, align your content to all state standards from the get-go so that you are not working on a piecemeal, state-by-state basis when an opportunity opens up in a different state. So many companies scramble to complete alignments under very tight time constraints. Enable your sales team.
EME: Further enable your sales team by setting goals that take into account the myriad factors that influence purchasing decisions made at the school and district level. This includes everything from local, state, federal, and initiative-based funding; test scores; administrative tenure; school- or district-specific initiatives; demographics; state legislation/initiatives; competitive saturation; and more. Don’t just set arbitrary sales goals and forecasts that aren’t based in any reality.
EdGate: Mind the gaps! It’s useful to determine your content to standards gaps for each state. For instance, you might have 100% content to standards coverage in Texas, but only 80% in Virginia. Determine early on where your content creation team needs to focus on writing in order to sell to a specific state.
EME: Be realistic about your product offering and the competition. We hear time and again from new and expanding companies that they have, “a completely unique product...there’s nothing else like it in the marketplace.” But a quick search will always reveal that there are competitors in the marketplace. And in the education space, it’s very difficult to supplant an existing product or offering, so those competitors are there for the long haul. It takes time and strategic relationship-building to successfully scale into the education space.
EdGate: The world of standards is not static. Remember that standards update every year. States are adding SEL standards. Climate curriculum is being added to the student’s school day. States are opting for new ways for students to learn math and reading. Ensure that your standards alignments are updated on an ongoing basis.
EME and EdGate: The education industry is incredibly unique, with each school and district having its own priorities, people, and processes. It is crucial to fully understand the specific needs and intricacies of your target audience, and consistently stay informed about curriculum, funding, and legislative developments in key states and regions. By combining this understanding with a high-quality product that meets state standards, and implementing a strong sales and marketing strategy, you will be well positioned for success in the education sector.