Visibility and Value
The communications and marketing team is responsible for the school’s voice, branding, and marketing materials, including but not limited to the school’s website, social media presence, digital and print advertising, direct email, and public relations efforts, as well as the school’s major publications, such as the EMS Newsletter and Apple Tree Magazine.
In addition, the team manages communitywide EMS outreach, partners with EMS offices to ensure message clarity and delivery, and collaborates across departments to unify and simplify communications, thereby improving the experience of both enrolled and enrolling families.
Strategic Messaging and Campaign Focus
Content Launch: The Redesigned Curriculum Guide
Working in close partnership with faculty across all divisions, we rewrote and launched a fully redesigned, interactive curriculum guide to provide current and prospective families with a clear understanding of each child’s educational journey. Families can now quickly see, within each subject area, how each year’s learning builds on the next, from our 2s program all the way through eighth grade.
- This guide is a “living document” that reflects the school’s strategic vision, providing a clear window into the academic rigor that is fundamental to everything we do.
- The revision highlights exciting enhancements in key curriculum areas: math, science, cutting-edge instruction, and ethical leadership, focusing on cultivating the critical thinking, creativity, and resilience our students need to succeed.
- The guide serves as a critical tool for the school’s ongoing partnership with families, helping us support and challenge every student as they journey toward their infinite potential.
Highlighting Secondary School Placement Success
This past spring, we took focused steps to elevate the celebration of our graduates and explicitly underscore the strength of our secondary school placement program. These initiatives were designed to reinforce the value of an EMS education both within our community and to prospective families.
- We moved the special graduate section from the “Apple Tree Magazine” to a dedicated, celebratory booklet that we mailed directly to the families of graduates.
- We provided celebratory lawn signs for our graduates’ families to proudly display throughout the spring, increasing local visibility of the school’s success in secondary placement.
- We expanded our storytelling through videography, showcasing the effectiveness of the placement process and highlighting the real-world advantages of an EMS education. Our alumni and their families attest that the combination of rigorous academics, leadership development, and character development yields students who distinguish themselves in high school as highly capable, confident, and courteous leaders, ready to take risks and embrace challenges. The video is being featured in targeted email and social media campaigns.
- We created a comprehensive Secondary School Placement webpage that articulates the data-driven placement strategies and personalized support offered through the secondary school placement process, including 1:1 counseling, interview workshops, and the two-year Leadership Lab.
Strategic Alignment and Market Positioning
We partnered with Crane + Peters, the firm guiding our strategic plan, to identify a strategically aligned and authentic marketing territory for the school. While EMS excels in many areas, from innovation to rigorous academics, we jointly identified “Leadership” as the core strength we can authentically “own” in the competitive landscape.
We immediately began implementing this central messaging across all new marketing material, encompassing both print and electronic platforms, to ensure consistency and maximize impact.
Middle School Differentiation
We developed messaging to emphasize the quality and transformative experience of our middle school, Morrow House (grades 5–8), directly addressing common enrollment questions and highlighting our unique advantage over schools that continue through high school: That we empower students to find the best-fit secondary school where they will truly thrive, by pairing academic rigor — including AP-level coursework and the Leadership Lab — with a personalized placement process focused on self-awareness and comprehensive preparation.
This messaging has been implemented through a comprehensive multi-channel campaign, which includes postcards, a new neighbor campaign, print advertisements, and targeted emails.
Digital Campaign Launch: The “Both/And” Value
Our new digital marketing campaign emphasizes our “both/and” philosophy to gain a competitive edge. This strategy specifically appeals to thoughtful families who want both future success and a wholesome childhood for their children. By showcasing our balanced approach to rigorous academics and social-emotional learning, and highlighting the comprehensive nature of our offerings, the campaign effectively positions EMS as providing everything competitors claim, and more.
Visibility and Community Outreach
Outdoor Advertising and Visibility
To strategically counter the perception of being a “hidden gem” and enhance visibility against competitors located on main thoroughfares, the school installed a new, high-impact outdoor banner at the heavily trafficked intersection of East Palisades and Engle Street. This targeted placement serves as a critical, outward-facing signal of the school’s presence, directly addressing the visibility challenge and driving greater top-of-funnel awareness within the local market.
Local Community Connection
We launched a strategic new neighbor outreach program by partnering with Welcome Wagon to ensure consistent engagement with families new to the area. This initiative establishes two critical touch points: new residents immediately receive a booklet featuring the school’s offerings, and this is reinforced two months later with a targeted postcard, effectively fostering goodwill and introducing the EMS mission to the community.
Internal Communications Enhancement
Optimized Internal Communication Schedule
In response to direct parent feedback, we strategically shifted the distribution of the EMS Weekly internal newsletter from weekdays to Sunday. This new schedule maximizes family engagement by recognizing that parents have more dedicated time over the weekend to read and fully absorb critical school communications.
Digital Communications Performance and Reach
Electronic newsletters and magazine emails maintain exceptionally high engagement, with open rates consistently ranging between 59% and 64%. This metric is particularly significant as these comprehensive pieces of outreach are distributed to our extended community, encompassing all enrolled families, faculty, and staff, as well as alumni, past parents, and current and past trustees, distinguishing them from standard weekly communications.
Analysis confirms that community interest is highest in content focused on student success and academic rigor. This is evidenced by the fact that the link to the Secondary School Acceptances List was the highest-performing call-to-action of the year, validating placement success as a key area of focus. Furthermore, a strong interest in academic depth was demonstrated by high click rates on content highlighting high-school-level and Advanced Placement (AP) courses. Meanwhile, high-impact visual assets, such as the magazine GIF and the State of the School hero video, proved most effective at capturing attention and facilitating deeper engagement.
2025–2026 State of the School Reports: Chilton House (age 2–K), Little School (grades 1–4), Morrow House (grades 5–8), Advancement, Auxiliary Programs, Communications and Marketing, Community Life, Enrollment, Facilities and Operations, and Finances.
