Landing Pages, Leads, and RFPs: A Practical Guide for EdTech Growth

Elana Leoni (: 00:01

Welcome, Alison. I'm so excited to talk to you, to learn from you, and just selfishly pick your brain because you are another person that has similar work in this crazy yet challenging slash lovable place we call education and ed tech. So I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome.

Allison Maudlin (: 00:21

Thank you, thank you. I am so excited to be here. You have interviewed some of my favorite people in Ed Tech and happy to be invited.

Elana Leoni (: 00:29

Yeah, I mean, like, I feel the number one thing I want to do with the show is make sure that we're providing value consistently with a lot of different diverse viewpoints, right? So you're going to be talking today around marketing in the trenches, but also from a fractional role. And then you've been inside in-house for a while, and we'll get it all to those nooks and crannies. But I love that we can talk about all the ecosystem that affects marketing to community sales, like we cannot do this alone.

So today I know we're gonna be talking about your realm of marketing and luckily enough that's my realm too. So I hope we'll be having a good conversation here. But why don't we get into it because I kind of alluded to your role now on a fractional level. So you've led marketing and education in ed tech for a very long time. Kind of similar to my career which is really cool to see parallel humans, right? So 15 plus years.

but now you're on the other side, you're working fractionally. You may want to just introduce what the heck does that mean, but I'd love to just know, because when you work fractionally, and I do that as well, and within my agency, the name of the game is like, how do I do as much as possible in as little as time as possible and show that impact, right? So the ROI driven, and I'd love to just get into that, but maybe let's start up just like...

What is fractional and maybe what the bigger differences in education between fractional and in-house?

Allison Maudlin (: 02:03

Absolutely. The word fractional is thrown around. Some people call it a consultant, but I see fractional as someone that is coming in to lead your, in my case, marketing function and really be a part of the team without being an employee. There's lots of benefits to that.

Right? You kind of come in with a different perspective. You aren't coming in to solve all the world's problems and you you don't attend the staff meetings and you're not in the HR piece. You're really focused on the scope of work that you're there for. And it's been a really interesting transition having been the head of marketing for multiple companies for years and years and years and always having

vendors that supported and now being that person, I've learned a lot about the relationship between a consultant or a fractional and an in-house. And that's been an eye-opening experience that I didn't expect.

I've been in education since: 2010

I guess that's just part of how it goes. so when the opportunity came to go the fractional route and have the ability to help a variety of companies that maybe have never had a

Allison Maudlin (: 03:48

marketing team before. That's my favorite because that's all green space. Or they need, you know, their head of marketing is going on maternity leave and they just need someone to come in and keep the train on the tracks. Or they have a specific project that their marketing team can't handle. And so they need to bring someone for this really narrow focus. Those are just three examples of the way that fractional works in.

any industry probably, but since I'm mostly education and ed tech, that's where I'm seeing the big need. It allows leadership to bring in help without all the structure that a full time kind of employee implies and requires. And then I also find when you are there, they're like, you're here. I also have all these other needs. So that's helpful for both the

organization and the fractional to be able to help as priorities change.

Elana Leoni (: 04:46

Yeah. And for those of you listening, that maybe you don't have a marketing team and you're a solopreneur or maybe you just let your marketing team go because times are tough, runways are tough. And let's be honest, sometimes marketing gets chopped first. And I have all sorts of thoughts about that, but that is a different podcast. But maybe you have that or maybe you have a bigger team and you're looking to shake things up or maybe you want some experts to inject in. I think I talk to a lot of ed techs they don't even realize that this is a thing.

So thank you for explaining it. The name of the game in Fractional is a little hard. So I'd love for you to walk through like when you start, and I know it differs by the type of company and the size of company in education, but you got a limited amount of hours on a Fractional. You're not full time. You're jumping in to establish and show ROI as much as possible, but that dichotomy of you have as little a time. It's limited.

So how do you begin? Because I think that that exercise will be helpful for all of our audience on our spectrum of whether they're running things as a, you know, just a founder or they're ahead of marketing and they need to shake things up or maybe they're a coordinator and they've been asked to step up too.

Allison Maudlin (: 06:02

Absolutely. It really depends on why you're there. And, you know, being fractional is not that much different than being a head of marketing and that you want to show impact quickly. Show me a head of marketing job that allows you a nice onboarding where you get three months to really engage. You don't get that. You get three days and jump in. And that's the same.

with Fractional, you are there to make an impact quickly. So I call the Listen and Learn Tour, right? But it starts with understanding the scope and the early conversations that you have with leadership who's bringing you in. The CEO has a need and they're articulating that need, but I think a good Fractional can read between the lines and translate those needs. I'll give you an example. A CEO I talked to said,

you know, this area of marketing is my number one priority and I have zero time for it. So what does that tell me? That tells me that there's a challenge, there's probably some high visibility on something that needs to be fixed, and that there's probably a lot of roadblocks that are in the way. Okay, so when you understand that you, you,

You proceed in a different way. It is, what do I need to know? Who do I need to talk to? What are your current systems? What is the foundation? And understanding deeply and quickly, what am I walking into? It is that kind of listen and learn tour that helps you quickly put the puzzle together. I think about it like,

a big spiral of pieces moving all around and you're grabbing different pieces from the air and putting together this puzzle that makes sense and as a fractional you can quickly identify what are the priorities. And then most importantly, translate what you're learning back to the leadership so that they can understand what you're seeing, how you're prioritizing it, and how it's aligned to the goals and their specific needs.

Elana Leoni (: 08:22

Yes, and I don't feel like that piece at the end feels like fluff. You're like, of course, why do you need to tell the story? You're doing it. But if you don't tell the story and you don't translate it and you don't specifically create that dotted line to the organization or goals, they don't understand what you're doing, why you're doing it, and the goals associated with it. And a lot of marketing is really complex and nuanced. So if we're talking social media or building a community or building up your PR comms, those are very different and you can't expect leadership to have

that fundamental knowledge. So a lot of what I do too is like, okay, let's educate a little bit of educating, but also storytelling. And I love that you ended with that as like, let's triage. And I think what you said is nuance, I wanna build on it is that you started with what the leadership wanted and what did they want? And usually I think as a fractional, we go there, but we also ask critical questions say, is this the right move?

But sometimes you gotta say, okay, let's do this. Let me show you a little bit of ROI, but let me show you some other ways that you might not know too. So I love kind of, it's a little compromise storytelling, right?

Allison Maudlin (: 09:29

Absolutely, you're peeling an onion. You notice an onion, but you don't know what's gonna happen once you start peeling it back. so having the roadmap and the ability to say, I ran into something and this is going to net you of more ROI. This should be a bigger priority. This is gonna change how things are done internally in a positive way. That's what the leadership wants from you. And you may be there to do a role. I think of...

marketing as everything. So when I get my hands, I often am going into customer success and I'm going into product and I'm seeing ways to make a positive impact that others may not see as marketing. But when you're fractional, it's your job to elevate ways to improve. That's point blank. That's the job.

Elana Leoni (: 10:19

So given there's so much to do and so little time, and I know it varies based on the niche of the audience, and that's funny because I read one of your posts and you're like, is it niche or is it niche? I don't know, but whatever. Given the specific area of your audience and your stakeholders and everything like all of that changes, but what have you found that are some go-to ways that you've jumped in and you're like, well, this is obvious, you need to fix this because this works.

Allison Maudlin (: 10:31

I saw that coming.

Allison Maudlin (: 10:48

You know, my mantra, fail to plan, plan to fail. And so the way that I make the biggest impact is by looking at the systems. How are projects managed?

often I'll find that there's issues because there's lack of organization, there's lack of communication, there's lack of adherence to deadlines, and so setting up quickly either adjusting or setting up a new system so that all departments are aware of what's happening when it comes to

marketing activities. They feel like they are part of the process. They know what's expected of them and what will be coming in the future. think that setting that really important kind of operational structure is, it has always been the way that I've found the fastest impact and the fastest improvement because when you do that, it highlights issues and it highlights priorities.

I'll ask every department, you know, what are your top five things that you're working on? What are the projects that you want me to focus on? And by putting those into a project plan, it helps everybody understand what I'm gonna be working on.

what the priorities are, and then they can say, no, you know what, this is on your priority list, but that doesn't make any sense. Why is that there? It bridges communication across departments and it elevates information for the leadership to understand what people are working on and maybe what their preconceived notions are about what the priorities actually are.

Elana Leoni (: 12:28

Yeah, I think that that's good. Get everyone on the same page, really understand where their inclinations are. But knowing that a lot of times there's a knowledge gap too. So you being this kind of like detective and then coming up with a plan and communicating that plan. And because you talk to them, they feel on board. It's a little bit of co-design. I love it.

Allison Maudlin (: 12:50

Absolutely, and also being sensitive to your coming into an organization as established. People have their ways and you're not there to turn over their apple cart. You're there to make the apples shinier, right? And so it's saying, hey, I see what you're doing. This priority project is really important. How can I help? Or here's how I can help. Does that work with your timeline, with your project, with your priorities?

Elana Leoni (: 13:16

What do do when an organization doesn't know at all? Like you go on a listening tour and they're just like, I don't know, all I know is I need leads. I need leads now. I got a three month runway. I had a six month runway. help. And like, where do you start given the marketing mix isn't just full of quick wins? Like how do you begin that education and that plan to get them all on the same page, knowing houses on fire, kind of, right? So how does marketing really partner with sales?

partner with customer success to get them to where they want to go. But then you're also managing expectations. You're like, hey, listen, we're kind of starting from nothing. Let's start somewhere.

Allison Maudlin (: 13:56

It's really big question because that at the heart is what every organization needs, leads. Whether they're nonprofit, whether they're for profit, it comes to help us keep the lights on, help us advance our mission. And for many organizations, they are in that spot where they haven't had a marketing team, but they have salespeople and they have some leads coming in, but they're not really sure where they're coming from. And so what I do immediately is what do you have?

What leads are coming in? Or what emails have come in? Or what is in your system, right? What can we harness? What's the low-hanging fruit? So for the past three months, what has been all inbound communication?

And what you'll find are there's often a little pocket of leads somewhere that nobody's managing this inbox, right? Or let's look at closed loss deals from the past two years. Let's use that closed loss list as a warmed up pot of gold for your salespeople to start to engage with so that they're not just sitting around drilling their thumbs.

You know, what is coming up? What is the season that you're in? Is it July? Is it January? Because the time of coming in makes a really big difference. Education is a really interesting world because of the seasonality. Some products are, if you're not in that school by August, you're not going to be in there for the whole year. And some products are like tutoring is a good example. They could start whenever. So the sales season doesn't end.

So it's, if it's July and you're coming in and then they're like, my goodness, let's get some leads going. Okay. What's the product? Is the product aligned to the seasonality of the buying cycle? It does? Great. What, how can we get your salespeople in front of decision makers right now? What events are happening? Can we do a webinar series? Like what are the things that can action on? And then let's get those on the rails and then let's go backwards and develop a whole plan. But you don't have

Allison Maudlin (: 16:00

You can start now.

Elana Leoni (: 16:02

Yeah, and the two pronged approach it felt like is what's the low hanging fruit? What's the quick wins that we see that you're just not seeing but we can capitalize on? And we can go into that because I think there's a lot of goodies around where typically you see that low hanging fruit and you talked a little bit about that. But then the other part was seasonality.

You can't talk about education without understanding where the buyer is in their journey and then how it aligns to your top of top, you know, your type of topic, type of organization and what you're doing in your product, right? So those two things are really critical. Let's jump back into the low-hanging fruit because I feel like there's like just this week alone, I have talked to EdTech and I'm like, but you know that you're driving traffic to a website that doesn't convert like.

It's a broken funnel, right? So like things like that, for me that's low hanging fruit. If you're spending so much time and money in paid ads and all of these things and you're driving them to websites and landing pages on your websites that don't convert, start there. And for those of you who are like, what does she mean with convert? I just want them to fill out a form. I want them to book a demo. I want them to download a lead magnet. I want them to sign up to her newsletter. I want something that you have an opportunity to then.

on the back end with email, start talking to them, building that relationship in a value-driven way, which hopefully will lead to eventually a demo, a referral, whatever. But why don't we start there, like the low-hanging, because you had a good one around, don't treat your clothes lost as a clothes lost. These are warm. So any other things that you're like, these are some things that people typically overlook?

Allison Maudlin (: 17:45

Yeah. I laughed when you said the website because it's kind of like a joke in marketing that a new leader comes in and the first thing they do within two days is they're messing up the website. Right? They're going in, they're changing things and there's different schools of thought if you should do that, but you're spot on. You come into a new org and you look at their lead form, their contact us form, their demo form, and it's 75 rows long.

Okay, well best practice says that no more than three to five questions to get someone to complete a form.

Okay, so what are those three to five questions? Like there's so much that goes into the back end of a form and what information you need to pass it to your sales team. So starting there with low hanging fruit, what is the form? Is it converting? Can we do some A, B testing on different kinds of forms to see if we're getting higher conversion rates? And then where is this form going? So often I come into organizations and the form is going to an inbox and nobody manages. Or they have beautiful workflows that were set up by seven

marketing ops people ago and nobody actually knows this workflow is happening. So looking at those pieces and there are things that don't take too much time. You can make quick improvements on the operations of lead flow and then surprise surprise leads are actually coming in you didn't know about just by making sure that the right people get the

the information that comes through your site or your social channels? Are you doing social media? Are you screaming into the void and just posting things but not engaging? Well you might have people who have made comments or you might have DMs that you didn't answer. So go into your other channels and look to see how people are engaging. I mean there's so much in this big wide world of the internet that you need to be looking at.

Allison Maudlin (: 19:42

and finding those kind of diamonds in the rough that can be used on the short term. It also depends on the organization. If there's an existing marketing team, if there's an existing sales team, there could be activities that are happening that nobody knows about. So asking every salesperson, what events do you have coming up? What events do you hope to go to? Talking to your partners.

If you have other partner, other ed tech partnerships that, you know, either you do co-branded activities, what are some activities that you can partner with them on immediately that they're already doing? There's lots of ways to kind of look at what's already happening and kind of scoot yourself into that while you build a larger plan.

Elana Leoni (: 20:29

Yeah, and I feel like as fractional and also if you're a new leader coming into an organization is what have we already committed to for the year and how can we really make that as the best possible approach and entryway into the market to capture the brand awareness but eventually.

move them down so we can have their email. We can eventually do the things we want to that makes our business hum too. But like, I call it piggybacking. It's like, let's just, okay, you've already said these things. Let's jump on it and make it better and make it fully executable. And that's such a smart way. And eventually, then we'll have the data and be able to look at it afterwards and say, it work? But you've already made some decisions. Let's make sure that you have success, right?

Allison Maudlin (: 21:12

I have a funny story for that. I was employee number three at a product years and years ago. And my first day, I come in and I said, okay, what are we doing? What are the events? What are the email campaigns? And they go, right. We bought a booth at the charter school conference. It's in two days. I said, awesome, okay, so where's our booth? Where's our swag? And they said, they kind of looked around and they said, we don't have anything.

So you have a booth in an expo hall in two days and you have literally nothing, not a banner, not a tablecloth, not a brochure. What do we do? Right? And that's a reality is somebody made a great decision. Yes, that's absolutely expo at a conference, but there wasn't anyone to hand it off to, or they didn't realize what they signed up for. And so having somebody come in and say, okay.

Not ideal, but I got this. That makes all the difference.

Elana Leoni (: 22:13

Yeah, and you know, for people that listen to me in the show, I bring on people and it's all about slicing and dicing and making the most of a lot of things. So let's roll up our sleeves. If we're at a conference, that's a great way to get user generated content. That's a great way to get cool video. That's a great way to talk to your users and do product innovation and research. Like there's so many things that can come out of it. If you're speaking at a conference, you can now with AI transcribe that, turn it into great content and video clips, all the things. So think about what you're doing.

And think about how you can slice and dice it and make the most for your email campaigns, for your social media, for your paid, for all of your marketing channels. It's also a great PR and comm story too. But I love it. It's like that's actually quite normal. It's like we started, we built these things. with the turnover in marketing and education in particular, sometimes decisions have been made that you need to figure out, we gotta run with this. Let's do it in the best way possible.

Allison Maudlin (: 23:10

Absolutely and marketing is it's hard because you're living in the moment. So you know really do care what's happening this week but I'm also planning for next year. I'm putting in proposals for conferences for 2027 right. So it's like you're planning and also you're planning for things to change and so having that ability to be flexible is really important because things always change.

Elana Leoni (: 23:35

Yeah, and then for those of you that are like, they were talking about the landing pages, you know, let's get some, like, let's do a quick deep dive into some resources, but landing pages wise, you mentioned A-B tests. Sometimes that can be, we're like, whoa, I don't have time for that, but know that there's external resources out there. There's ClickFunnel, there's LeadPages, there's Optimize.ly. These are all really easy ways that you can do, you can add what we call subdomains and then people don't even know they're going to a new website and you can test.

button colors and like headings and all the things. But if that is too much, I want you to jump into what Allison was saying and saying, is my form stopping people from filling out? You said three to five fields, right? Make sure you've got a field that says, how did you hear about us? Because marketers like worst nightmare, we still have like, I don't know, call them mark, like in waitressing, we call them wait mares. I don't know what the equivalent is. But like, we don't have a direct like if I'm in social media forever,

Sometimes a lead will come in on the website. It'll come because you've been nurturing them in social media, but you're not asking them where they heard about you. So give your audience an opportunity to have that. How did you hear about us? And then what is your biggest challenge? Get them thinking about it, you know? So then you can anchor your conversations into the results that they care about. you have any other thoughts around that actual page? Because Lord, you know, think about all the marketing mixes that you're doing to drive website traffic.

And even you mentioned that slightly old school because we can also look at social media and other places for inboxes. But any other things that come up? I know.

Allison Maudlin (: 25:10

I have so many thoughts about pages. Just to stay on the thread about forms, there's some really great tools now that do dynamic forms. So to explain what that is, you have your main form and you fill it out. I'm visiting a site for the first time and I fill out my form and yay, my information's.

sent over and everybody's happy and then two weeks later I go to that same site and I'm clicking on something else and a different form pops up with different questions. That's dynamic forms. So you already know me because you have a cookie on me and you know my information has been captured through that cookie so you can now

ask me other questions to help augment the CRM, the customer relationship management system, to build a more robust profile on me. So it's a marketer's dream, it's a salesperson's dream, and it allows you to gather more information. So if your tool, you use HubSpot or whatever you use, has dynamic forms, consider that. It's a great way to...

get you the information that you really want in those really long forums but without overwhelming your busy admin who did not want to answer your 75 questions. The other part about landing pages is it's really easy to make landing pages and it's really easy to segment those landing pages by your audience. So if you are a product that sells across the country to different states consider making a landing page for each state.

that's really great for SEO and it makes the audience feel like they understand what you do and how you do it in their state. Every state's special snowflake and they have their own needs, they have their own standards, they have their own funding and so being able to communicate how your product can support them makes all the difference and it really isn't that hard with the...

Allison Maudlin (: 27:04

all the different kinds of website tools that we have now. Personalization is kind of easy on these website tools and it goes a far way. So use the tools that we have that you already pay for to ensure that your audience is seeing themselves in your product.

Elana Leoni (: 27:25

Yeah, the state thing is like a ding ding ding for those of you rewind replay what you just said, because not only is that personalization of like, I see you, you can also link to testimonials of people in the state that they look up to the whole thing, right. But it's amazing for SEO. And we need to get more clear around if I'm looking for vendors in Texas, blah, blah, you can

Tell that people do search for that, right? And landing page, like not even just a contact us page, but you should have a pillar page for Texas. And in SEO terms, pillar pages are really robust, takes on a topic, on a resource, on anything that that state you think cares about the most. And the job is to really link it out to all of your sub-pillar pages. So other things, so keeping them on site, deepening that relationship.

So I love that you talked about the state and you're right, it's so easy to do, we just don't do it. We kind of one and done our contact us pages and landing pages.

Allison Maudlin (: 28:26

Yep, and with AI it's getting easier and easier.

Elana Leoni (: 28:29

Yeah, all right. So I think we can talk about landing pages forever. For those of you listening, I hope that you got a little bit of tactical and think about one or two things that you can implement right away. The last thing I will say that if you do not have your Google Analytics synced up in there, don't even think about doing your landing page. I want you to have custom events that track your conversion. And that's really, really important.

So, and then think about that journey of the people that do not fill out that form and vice versa. So there's a lot we can think about there, but that is super low hanging fruit and will increase your conversion rate. So we're thinking about, I don't know, quote unquote, quick wins, right? In education, you know, let's convert the people that have taken the time to find you and almost or already filled out the form, right?

Allison Maudlin (: 29:14

And Google Analytics can tell you what are your top 10 states. You don't have to do all 50 states, but what are the top 10 states you're already getting traffic from and prioritize those.

Elana Leoni (: 29:24

Yes, and I love that we're talking about states because the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is RFPs. RFPs and marketing and RFPs are kind of like, is it sales? Is it marketing? I think it's a little bit of both. It's a rectangle and a square, right? You can't, I think you can't really be successful without bringing other people to the table. And I think in the world of education and it goes for other industries as well, but sometimes when a state issues an RFP, I love those

those thought provoking posts on LinkedIn where people say, well, you're already too late to the game because there's already people that have established that relationship prior to issuing the RFP that had the leg up. So why don't you mean, can you just Talk to me a little bit about what is an RFP? How does it fit in the world of education? And How do you use it with the marketing context? I know those are really big questions.

Allison Maudlin (: 30:14

Oh, I mean, I'm really glad that you are asking this question. RFPs are near and dear to my heart. You know, I, even though I've been in marketing, I have run the RFP function at most of my companies. And That to to me should signal to others that at the heart of it, RFPs are a marketing tool. They're a sales tool, of course, but they are marketing, right? Think about it. It's

a strategy, how are going to get customers through RFPs? It's a tactic. We are going to submit RFPs and it's a channel. It's procurement as a channel. It is marketing because it's everything. It's branding. It's the name of your company. It's your logo. It's the way that you design it. It's the messaging, the product differentiation. It's pricing. It's storytelling. RFPs are a really big, complicated marketing asset.

have loved when an RFP manager or team is under marketing or under me because it connects what the marketing team uses and the messaging and all the assets to what the RFP team is using. And when they're siloed, you that just gets a little harder.

I've also worked at companies where the RFP team is their own department and that's great because you know, they're complicated and they need a lot of resourcing. But it's important to have a really close relationship across marketing and the RFP team. There's just so much. This could be a whole podcast in itself. When we say RFP, just brass tacks, request for proposal. You also might hear request for information, RFI.

So an RFI could be a school district or a state, usually not a school themselves, but sometimes just wants to know what's out there. They have a need and they want to know what are the products that meet this need. So that's usually an RFI. They don't actually intend to award, they just kind of want to know. And maybe later they'll go and put out an RFP.

Allison Maudlin (: 32:20

It can also be a pre-approval list. I've seen a lot of that in the past few years where a school district wants to know what are all the vendors that meet our requirements and we're just going to put a list out and all the schools can just pick. So that's a great tool for...

organizations, companies to get on the list, right? Sometimes the list is you cannot purchase if company is not on a list and sometimes the list is a suggestion but it's not hard to get on these lists as long as you meet the general requirements. But the creme de la creme, let's try that again, the creme de la creme of

are fees, the request for proposal is one that goes to award, right? You will get a contract out of it. So a district has a need, they have a pot of money, and they put out a request for proposal that has requirements outlined for that product.

Sometimes these requirements are developed like a recipe. They want a little bit of that, they want a little bit of this, they want a little bit of this one, all the product that they may know about. And sometimes it is because a company sent them a, what I call, you know, proactive proposal that is like, hey, here's our product and here's all the requirements to use our product in the school.

school district, state will just take that list of requirements and put it into an RFP. That's your pre-baked, right? They are pulling from something that they know already exists and there may be other companies that can also meet those requirements. So it's just a really complicated world and it's hard for companies to decide what RFPs to respond to because you don't know if it was pre-baked. Sometimes you look and you know enough about your competitors to say, that's something

Allison Maudlin (: 34:11

that they have. So this is probably pre-baked to them. Or sometimes it's like, this is really broad and maybe they'll be open to having a new product come in. Is there an incumbent? Is there already a company that's in there providing this and this is a renewal, right? There's just, there's so much to this. So I think RFPs are one of the most important strategies for ed tech companies.

and one that needs to be kind of well thought out and well resourced. There's a of new AI tools that are coming onto the market to help identify opportunities for RFPs and potentially identify ways to make RFP development easier. But really RFP management is a human function because it's just really nuanced in our space. If you're selling a widget, if you're selling a pen,

That's easy. If you're selling a curriculum, that's not so easy.

Allison Maudlin (: 35:15

Can't hear you.

Allison Maudlin (: 35:21

you

Elana Leoni (: 35:23

I know we could do a deeper dive into the subject of RFPs. It is huge. And I even learned some things around, when you called it pre-baked means that they already have decided upon a vendor. Is that correct? Yeah.

Allison Maudlin (: 35:35

Right, or they were influenced. Somebody's been in there bringing them cookies for a year and giving them information about what product requirements they can meet. It depends on the product line. There's a lot of competitors for a lot of different products and having a vendor help a school district define their RFPs gives them the leg up.

Elana Leoni (: 36:01

Yeah, I love that. And really, it's, you you've got the RFIs, you've got the RFP, but then you've got top of the funnel marketing and nurturing relationships. And hopefully, when they're thinking about doing an RFI or an RFP, or maybe sometimes a lot of sales don't go through that process too, but you want to be top of mind sometimes within the vendor ecosystem. Go, gosh, of course they should bid.

Or maybe I should reach out to them on their sales page and really figure that out. So it's like we can't talk about marketing and also specifically bottom of the funnel marketing without talking about RFPs and how they're significantly different state by state because they all have different budgets. So is there any kind of last thoughts on somebody who's trying to either navigate RFPs or they've been in it but maybe they don't have a good conversion rate that you'd like to give them a lasting tip on?

Allison Maudlin (: 36:53

I have so many tips. It is hard to do what I'm about to tell you to do. Do not apply to everything. RFPs are really labor intensive. You know, a small RFP can take 20 to 40 hours. A big one can take hundreds. And so be ruthless in your response because

It is important that you use RFPs as a strategic move, applying to an RFP for a district you've never talked to.

is a gamble and is likely not to pay off. If it's a pre-approval list, absolutely, like that's a different thing. But if it's an award contract generating RFP, think carefully. If you don't meet a lot of the requirements, a lot of them, a lot of the RFPs will give you a scorecard and say, here are the things we're looking for and we're going to grade you on the points. If you don't meet a lot of the requirements, think critically about if that's the right move for you, because it could hurt your brand to say, I'm going to send it anyway, even though we know we're going to

a 50 out of 100. And those scores are RFPs, they're public. So under the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, any company or school district can ask for your proposal and that information is then out into the world. So tread lightly and use them as a strategic tool.

Elana Leoni (: 38:22

Wow, I actually didn't know that last part. So thank you for that. And less is more. And I think in general, less is more personalization wins. And I like to call it sometimes white glove approach of really diving deep into what they care about most. How is it tailored to their specific needs? And do you get them? Or are you just copying and pasting? Because that'll shine through.

Allison Maudlin (: 38:47

Oof, I mean, that's why RFPs are tough, because everybody's, it's not just one template and you're good to go. There are different questions and it's different states and it's different student populations and I mean, there's just a lot that goes into it. I love it. It's like putting together the ultimate puzzle. It's also one of the hardest jobs I've ever done.

Elana Leoni (: 39:08

Well, I know we're not going to say it was sell, solve that overnight, but I love that you approach it is that you love it. For me, I can't stand them. It's like potatoes, potatoes, but let's end our talk with a quick fun lightning round. And we like to do this. There's no right or wrong answer. It's just all about gut. And for those of you listening, I want you to kind of think about this, maybe jot down some notes because I'm going to ask her some questions that you're like, Oh,

That one's a good one. that tool's good, whatever it may be. And then NOAA will have some show notes you can get to. We're gonna put all of our resources in the show notes. So gut reactions only, no right or wrong, no pressure. right, so the easiest marketing quick win is.

Allison Maudlin (: 39:49

Ready.

Allison Maudlin (: 39:57

AI. AI as a tool in the toolbox. I love it for administrative tasks, planning, organizing. It gives me the brain space for that higher level thinking and creativity. I can give it a big chunk of information and say put this in a table. That would have taken me 45 minutes and it's done in a minute.

Elana Leoni (: 39:58

Hmm.

Elana Leoni (: 40:19

You need to stop doing this now.

Allison Maudlin (: 40:22

posting on social media and screaming into the void without engaging the community. I personally love LinkedIn and I post regularly, but I also go back in and comment on other people's posts and engage with people who comment on my post. That's the point. It's social media. It's not just a billboard.

Elana Leoni (: 40:42

Such a jinx moment. I was just about to say that. All right, the biggest myth you've encountered in education.

Allison Maudlin (: 40:51

Well, for marketing and education, is that marketing and education is like marketing in any other industry, because it's absolutely not. The best way I can convey it is, I spent my first 10 years or something in other industries doing B2C, hospitality and casinos and completely different. And that is just such a different approach to...

what I call academic marketing because that's it's just it's higher brow it's more thoughtful and companies and marketers come into the space and think they can kind of use their playbook from other industries and it just doesn't always work.

Elana Leoni (: 41:32

The lesson you had to learn the hard way in marketing and education.

Allison Maudlin (: 41:37

Well, planning is key, but don't put yourself in a hole because everything can change on a dime. I'm a very type A, I'm a very organized, like my list, like to have everything planned out. And then early in my career, perhaps it was a little bit more inflexible. And over time I've realized that, you you can make all the plans you want, but you are not in control. you know, have your plans, but be nimble.

Elana Leoni (: 42:07

What is your favorite marketing channel for lead generation?

Allison Maudlin (: 42:14

So it's association sponsorships for the long game, providing salespeople the opportunities to build relationships within their states really helps. At the end of the day, it's human to human, And then for the short game, I would say networking conferences and events, not just conferences, but those opportunities to actually meet decision makers and have real conversations.

Elana Leoni (: 42:42

If you could put money on any marketing channel to deliver the most ROI in 2026, and I'm putting you in a fortune teller seat here, what would it be? What are you doubling down on in 2026?

Allison Maudlin (: 42:54

Humans. I think we as a society are just really over saturated on digital media. There's just way too much coming at us and we're kind of going to old school. Like we're going back to the, want to talk to humans in real life. I want to make those connections and education is absolutely a human

focused area are here for the students. We are here for the teachers. And so I'm betting on in real life IRL opportunities for salespeople and leadership to meet other leaders and build those relationships. We are on a bumpy road right now and so we need to partner together. We, the school districts and the vendors and everybody in between

and kind of solve some of these problems and we're going to do it better if we do it in person.

Elana Leoni (: 43:50

Yes. All right. Last part of lightning round is The skill EdTech and education marketers will need to master in 2026 or become irrelevant. Ouch.

Allison Maudlin (: 44:04

I hate to be this person. I mean, three months ago, I wasn't this person, but I'm this person now and it's AI. You know, there's A lot of fear mongering happening right now about AI taking our jobs and marketing specifically. And I think a lot around like the creative side of it. And we're not going to get into that political battle. But I really see it as people plus AI. And I'm finding

I'm finding it's really great tool.

And it's gonna be imperative that marketers stay up on what's changing. You know, lots of, I would say all, What 90 % of the tools you use probably have an AI component by now. So learn those. The degree to which you need to become an AI first marketer, you know, that's debatable, but you have to use it in some way or you will be left behind. And there's lots of different flavors.

You have to do you have to realize though that using AI takes time. You have to learn it. You have to incorporate it into your workflow. You have to train it and so build that into your own personal learning journey as a marketer. Realize you're going to have to invest in some time, but you do have to spend that time. You do have to make investment because things as they used to be are are just gone.

Elana Leoni (: 45:34

Somebody said, I went to a social media marketing conference early this year and they were right, but it kind of depressed me. And they said, you're gonna have to do more with less resources for the same amount of money or less. I'm like, And like, you can't do all of those things without really embracing AI, but doing with that critical thinking lens. And then also coupling with what is human that can be not replaceable.

And I loved how you're doubling down, not on AI, but you're saying that that is a skill, you're doubling down on humans too. So thank you. Thank you so much for spending time with me. We bobbed and weaved from fractional to short-term marketing wins to what the heck is an RFP. We even got nerdy with landing pages. So thank you for coming on this journey with me. I appreciate you.

Are there ways that people can get in touch with you? We'll also put it in the show notes for those of you driving and jogging and all the fun things.

Allison Maudlin (: 46:31

Absolutely, I love to make new friends. You can find me on LinkedIn sharing all of my thoughts regularly and I would love to be connected.

Elana Leoni (: 46:40

Awesome, thank you all for listening. We will see you next time on All Things Marketing and Education. If you liked what you heard, please don't hesitate to give us a review. That's how we can share and help uplift the space too. So thank you all, we'll see you next time. Take care.