Episode 5
Q2 in Education Marketing: What’s Coming, What’s Changing, and What You Need to Do Now
Q2 is here—and it’s a whirlwind. In this timely episode, Elana Leoni, CEO of Leoni Consulting Group, and Senior Social Media Manager Hillary Trussell break down everything education marketers need to know right now: from federal budget cuts and district layoffs to the impact of AI, shifting conversations in education’s key phrases, and tightening sales cycles. They also dig into key Q2 events like ASU+GSV, NSBA, and ISTE, plus can’t-miss opportunities like Teacher Appreciation Month and graduation season. Whether you're planning campaigns or prepping your booth, this is your go-to guide for staying relevant, building trust, and getting results.
Read the rest of the show notes here.
Transcript
Hey everyone, welcome to this really fun episode where we get to talk about all of the madness, all of the beautiful chaos that Q2 and the world of education brings us. I'm Ilana Leone, I'm the founder and CEO of Leoni Consulting Group. I am joined by my colleague, Hilary Trussell. She is the senior social media manager here and has been working alongside me for over three years now. So welcome, Hilary.
Hillary (:Thank you. I am feeling a little excited and a lot overwhelmed by all of the changes happening right now in Q2. And I'm excited to dive in though, but I'm sure a lot of people share those feelings.
Elana Leoni (:Yes, and this is why we wanted to do this, right? So we want to make sure that we have time to talk to you about how do we get ahead when sometimes we feel like we're just reacting all of the time and how do we prioritize as much as possible what matters most, right? So that's what we hope to talk about today. We're going to talk about events in Q2. We're going to talk about
all of the moving and shaking happening in education without trying to get too political, but it does affect budget. It does affect buyer behavior as well and conferences. So all of the things we will be talking about. Let's get into it. All right. So I feel like we cannot start this conversation without talking about the all of the things that have happened in the last couple of days. So to start,
Hillary (:Good.
Elana Leoni (:the Department of Education is being leveled in half. And there is evidence to show that they will continue these cuts and that the Secretary of Education, her role has been stated to stop and really kind of end the Department of Education as a whole. We will learn more because she has now been invited to one of the key conferences in Q2, ASU GSV.
in San Diego in early April. So she's gonna be doing a fireside chat and we hope to learn more about her plans. We bring this up because this affects funding, federal funding that the Department of Education holds is anywhere depending on your state and how it trickles down, four to 14 % of funding. It affects people that are coming from low socioeconomic backgrounds, students, disabilities.
any Title I funding, all of those things. So we're just gonna see how that plays out. But what it does in the market right now is it creates a little bit of uncertainty. And buyers are really looking at, okay, I'm not sure if I'll have this budget in the future. Just hot off the press, I saw from Georgetown University, Edudemic, that there's a lot of layoffs happening in schools as a result of this uncertainty of funding.
And when I talk with my network, they actually brought up a good point is that schools may be using this uncertainty to actually cut costs and cut people down to just kind of maybe either conservatively weather a storm that they think or they just wanted an excuse. So there's a lot of movement and shaking in terms of layoff of school staff.
And, you know, we'll maybe put that link around too, just so people can see what's happening across the nation for laying off actual teachers. There is a lot of moving and shaking in the Department of Education and the funding it represents. And so I think that's mostly like the bring the popcorn stuff. There's so much out of our control, but what we want to focus on is how does this affect all of you that are trying to sell to schools and districts?
Elana Leoni (:and or making sure that teachers are using your products consistently and that we're getting the results to continue renewals and really fuel your revenue pipeline. Hillary, do you want to add anything? It's a bit of a chaos show, but.
Hillary (:feel like you did a great job of covering all of that on a high level because like we talked about before, we jumped on. This is something we could probably spend half the day discussing. But I think, again, you did a great job covering it. I think there's a lot more to come, a lot more we will learn as we go. And I think that an important thing is we all have to keep moving forward, right? And keep our eye on
our purpose and our mission and what we're all here, all the great work we're here to do.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and maybe just to add on to that is that when you have uncertainty and you're in the middle right now, so when we think about Q2, schools are really looking...
consistently and hard on what are all the, what we call the tech stack, informally, what are all the products we use within education, and it also includes professional services, right? But what are all of the vendors and the services I use and that will help me reach my goals for my next academic year? And for those of you that are new to K-12 education is that these sales cycles are.
quite long already. So we're thinking like 18 months plus, this does vary depending on what you specifically sell in education, by the way. So this on a general level, this is a very long sale cycle, right? But when you add a layer of risk averseness, and then potential on the horizon of tightening budgets, they're really looking in this what we call the consideration phase for companies that can say yes,
There's clear ROI here. And yes, I've read recently around some posts on LinkedIn of people saying, gosh, know, the decision makers do not prioritize ROI because a lot of purchases are made because there's door openers and it makes sense and, you know, they're filling holes and all these things. Yes, right, because no one's going to lose their job if the ROI, you know, isn't quite there for a tech product, right? But at the end of the day,
you need to have a product that moves the needle in some way and proves it affects student learning outcomes. That's a little harder now because education research has been cut as well from the latest administration. But there are lots of small ways for you to start building that efficacy messaging as much as possible. Qualitative things you can do, testimonials you can do, you can look at usage rates.
Elana Leoni (:student engagement rates. And then there are also great people in the field that will look at your existing research, and maybe it's a little old, and have it recertified. And anytime you go to conferences, like you should be doing that now to prep for ISTE, for example, too. So I want to be able to say, yes, this uncertainty creates a longer timeline potentially. People might be a little bit more hesitant right now to sign contracts. But it's
Really, you need to focus on how do I get in front of the buyer consistently in a value-driven way and really focus on what's going to help them, what's going to get them to stop their scroll, to pick up that phone and say, yes, I need help with this. And there's not one person in the administration in terms of education that's going to say, no, I don't want to improve my learning outcomes. Especially what we found is we're going to see that trickle down of messaging with
the NAEP scores that came out. So that's N-A-E-P. It's really, I don't see that happening in the next four years, given the cut in education research, but it looked at literacy scores and math scores. And it showed that there was a decline. There's all, mean, I'm oversimplifying it, because there's lots and lots of nuances, and we can add some links to our show notes around that too. But people are going to be focusing on how does your product help these situations as much as possible.
I'm gonna kick it over to Hillary because she's head nodding.
Hillary (:I definitely think that is key, especially, we always talk about this. I think it's especially true in times of uncertainty is you have to make sure that you're able to tell the story of how your product solves real problems, especially in a shifting landscape. And like Elana mentioned, also finding opportunities in places to tell that story and showcase your product and align it to challenges.
and problems. So I think it's a good time for us to shift into talking about key events and conferences happening in Q2. It's a big conference season in the education world. And it's a great place to have these conversations, get your product out there, connect with decision makers and all of that. So Elana, I know you'll be hitting the road a little bit. You want to jump into some of these key conferences?
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, sure. And I think the thing I would wrap up in the moving and shaking in education, there's so much we could say here, like Hillary said, is that we cannot talk about Q2 without not talking about AI and its influence everywhere. So Matt Tower over at Whiteboard Advisors and the Ed Sheet just came out with a number and did some analysis and said, I think it was like 62 or 64 % of all of the early EdTech funding.
were funded with companies that had some mention of AI. So we're going to see that effect. If you're on the school side, you're going to see a lot more vendors integrating AI or new players coming into the market that are pure AI solutions too. So I wanted to bring that up because we're going to start seeing trickling around that too. We're also going to see more murders and acquisitions throughout the rest of the year. There's some rumbling around Cambium being in that.
Cambium Learning.
I don't want to talk about the censoring of languages. I just want you to know that in Q2 that brands are all going to be looking at what can we say state by state and what's not okay, what's going to get us not qualified as a vendor. Y'all need to have those discussions internally to figure out what your positioning is on that, but it is happening. It's all around the DEI, the equity driven. There's lists growing and growing. So you do when you're thinking about being
and looking at how can I plan ahead for Q2, you gotta think about these external factors as well. Okay, so now let's get to events. Gosh, so much going on. So we have ASU GSV coming up. That is already proving to be quite the bring the popcorn event with the new Secretary of Education coming. This is an event for investors, higher education, workforce development, NK-12.
Elana Leoni (:It's an interesting mix of people revealing innovations, talking really in depth about trends. I'm just going to be there and listen as much as possible and try to bring back the insights. It is a great networking event. It is a great way to learn. Before ASU GSV happens, they started the AI show. I think it was called the Air Show last year. Maybe it's called the AI show this year.
Whatever it's called, it's free and my take on it last year was one of the most valuable conferences I've been to because I'm able to just really learn. There's great panels. People are talking quite critically, with critical thinking involved of not just talking about AI because of it. It's like we're asking the right questions, right? So I love that show. I'm gonna be at that show as well. After ASU GSV.
There's a bit of a lull because we're still in the school year in education, so it's hard to reach those decision makers because they really are trying to purchase, do the things to close out this academic year, do hiring, do layoffs, doing all the things they've got to do. So there's a bit of a lull and the bigger conferences restart up. well, we have NSBA too for the school board association, kind of at the same time too. Depending on state school boards actually,
manage and control budgets, some of them don't, right? But every school board has an influence on a school budget. They are very important stakeholders in the education ecosystem. That is April 4th to April 6th, NSBA, B as in boy. And then lastly, one of my favorite conferences, I feel like I've grown up in education at this conference is ISTE.
It's ISTE. So ISTE has now merged with ASCD. For right now, they're calling themselves ASCD plus ISTE. It is the annual conference. It happens June 29th to July 2nd. And it's all about ed tech. It is the biggest ed tech show in the nation. And I am always excited to go meet old and new friends, mingle, look at the bustling expo hall.
Elana Leoni (:So those are the bigger snapshot of the conference season in Q2.
Hillary (:I would like to jump in and say, if you are not attending, there are still many opportunities to learn from these conferences and also utilize the buzz on social media around these conferences. So I feel like I learn a lot. People are excited when they're at conferences, so they tend to be on social media more. They tend to be talking about whatever the topics are that are buzzing at the conferences on social media. And so I'm always looking for those conferences.
conversations by looking at the conference hashtags and also just scrolling, know, as you GSB had some big announcements yesterday and I couldn't get on social media without seeing a post about ASU GSB. And so even though I'm not going, I feel very aware of what's happening there. And as a brand, you can do that same thing and you should and find ways to connect. And so we I want to give a quick plug about our tech planner.
It has all of these dates in it, different ways that you can attach yourself and promote your product, whether going to the conference, whether you're not, key events that we're going to talk about in a bit that are coming up in Q2. And our planner is actually not available right now, Elana, right? Do I understand that?
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, no. it's something we do free every single year. And I believe it's like our fifth or sixth year doing it. People love it. What we find is that it's good now to take it down because eventually we're going to be updating it with all of the new events and dates. So it's currently not available. But if you do, for those of you listening on the live stream, if you comment, we will go ahead and send it to you as well. And anyone listening on the podcast, please reach out to us and we can send it to you as well.
too, can reach out to us at hello at Leonie Consulting Group or just tag us out on LinkedIn or X too.
Hillary (:And I live and breathe by our planner when it comes to planning social media for our clients. So it's truly something that our team uses. And I think that you will get a lot of benefit out of utilizing as well.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, when it comes to like, sorry to interrupt, Hillary, but when it comes to conferences for social media too, we have a free social media conference checklist that we'll put in the show notes as well. Really think about if you're going to be spending money and investing in a conference and you are not game on on social media, you are completely missing the mark and you're just wasting your money, right? So your attendees at all of the conferences, you know, less so on the superintendent side.
but it's still something that they look at, right? But how do I make sure that I'm telling the story that I'm at the conference, right? Before, during, and after. And if for those of you that are on LinkedIn, I wanna see a before post, hey, meet us here, booth set up, whatever, during post, and an after post. So I just listened to a podcast that I really loved with Richard Vander, gosh, I forget his name, Richard Vander, Vander Bloom.
And he is, for me, the person that has helped me professionally develop so much on LinkedIn. And he said, which I think we all say too, Hillary, we just don't say it as well, is that he says content is everywhere. So you need to really look at all of the things, and that's one example, right? So if I'm going to a conference, it's not just a, all right, I'm at a conference, it's what am I gonna say before?
during and after? And how am going to engage people in a really value driven way? It's not like, hey, thanks, we had such a great time. But here are my insights. I hope this can help you.
Hillary (:feel like you've framed this really well in a conversation yesterday, Elana, and it has stuck with me since you said it. You made the comment that if you're going to a conference, that is a privilege that not everyone has. And so it's your duty to come back and share with your team, but also on social media, on your personal LinkedIn, on your company's LinkedIn, some of those key learnings and takeaways so that others can benefit from that as well. And so I just thought that was a
really good way of thinking about that and it's a little bit of a mindset shift of okay this is why I should be sharing this information so that others can learn too. So I really loved that.
Elana Leoni (:Thank you. Sometimes I say okay things. So maybe, Hillary, you want to get into maybe some other stuff that's happening in Q2 event wise?
Hillary (:Yes, so Q2, I feel like right now we all feel a little heavy going into Q2 because of the uncertainty and the changes, But we can't talk about Q2 without talking about some of the really exciting things and celebratory moments that happen in Q2. We have Teacher Appreciation Month in May, and I want to spend a little time on that because there are so many things that we can do as a brand in education to show teachers.
our love and appreciation. And I think more than ever, they need that this year and right now. And so it's important to think about that as you're planning your content and your marketing strategy for Q2. What are the things that you're gonna do to show your support and appreciation and gratitude for educators? Elana, I know you have the mic.
Elana Leoni (:It is my favorite month. mean, I would say one, it's my birthday month, but two, we need to consistently uplift and appreciate teachers as much as possible. They have one of the most challenging jobs in the nation. And this is your opportunity as a vendor to really show up.
and do fun things, do giveaways, do a everyday challenge of something cool that they can do and give them something. Show support in authentic way from your team. Do testimonials, like talk to, have your CEO come on video and talk about, you know, why they matter so much and why you're in education to support them. Open that dialogue with them. Let them feel seen, heard, appreciated. There's so many ways to do that too. So.
there's a teacher appreciation week, is usually that second week of May, and then there's teacher appreciation day. I have a pro tip is that get ahead of the month if you can. So in your April newsletter, like I want you to get out before the other brands and start talking about, hey, we appreciate you. Here's some good things we can do. We wanna talk and hear from you. Start that a little earlier because every brand
should and does do some type of teacher appreciation thing.
Hillary (:Absolutely. And all of these dates are in that planner. So if you want to reach out, comment. We'll get a copy of our planner to you and it'll help you think ahead and plan ahead for some of these dates. Another one, another fun time to celebrate is graduation. Depending on the region in the United States, graduations happen at different times. Some of them in May, some of them in June. I think there's even some in July in some areas. But again, I love graduation. I used to work in higher ed.
And so we always talked about graduation as that moment when it all comes together. And it's a good reminder that this is why all of us do what we do is to see students walk across the stage. That's kind of the finish line that gets them to the next phase in their life, whether it's going from high school graduation into.
the next step there or even higher education and moving into their career. And so that's a fun time too, to just mention graduates, reminding everyone that, hey, this is why we do what we do. We're so proud of the graduates and to see the success. And so that's another fun one as well. And at the end of Q2, that'll come up.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, and for Teacher Appreciation Month, just going back to that, that is the most amazing time to appreciate and recognize teachers. It is not the only time you should do it in the year. So really, you should find ways to consistently reach out, elevate, appreciate, surprise and delight educators. So that's my PSA around teacher appreciation that I wanted to say a little bit.
Hillary (:Yeah, think that's a point too, going back to that. I oftentimes, when planning out social media, leading up to teacher appreciation, I start requesting a lot of things from clients on, can you get a team member to talk about a teacher that made a big impact in their lives or talk about what they appreciate most about teachers? And so I start collecting quotes and videos and all of these things that of course were
posting and sharing and creating content around in May for teacher appreciation, but then we keep using it all year long because you will see time and time again, that's going to be some of your best performing content because it teachers to feel seen and appreciated and they're always going to love that, which means they're probably going to engage with it even if it's a like or a comment or sharing that piece of content with a fellow teacher.
That's something to think about too, is you're not just creating all of this content for May, it's evergreen. You can use it all year.
Elana Leoni (:Really good point. Other things that are happening in Q2, we've got testing, fun. So testing kind of ramps up standardized state, all of the things happen. And before testing and after testing, there's, well, mostly after testing is, gosh, we're all exhausted from it. I'm a little bit less inspired. And sometimes you need to find, you know, plug and play inspiration, engagement type of things for students and teachers.
So really read the room of how educators are feeling if you are talking directly to educators in your social media, in your email communications as well. It affects everybody in the ecosystem, the testing. So is student engagement easy plug and play things, wins, all of that, maybe just in moments of inspiration and hope. I'm like, you got this. We're almost at the finish line. Sometimes we...
We lovingly do countdowns and we ask people around like, many days do you have left? It doesn't mean that educators don't love their job. It's something that they've worked hard all year to and they like to celebrate that too.
We've got a whole lot of tips. I think maybe we end this with like a round robin of like all the cool tips and we hope this is really helpful for you. This is why we do this. We have a blog post that you can also read. We've got our planners. We give a bunch of free stuff. So let us know that you like this so we can continue doing this for you. All right. So if you're not doing email,
You should think strategically about email. Email is your number one way to convert people. I think the latest research says every $1 you invest in email, you get over $40, so $42 back. It's silly. You should be doing email, but do email in a value-driven way, right? So what do I mean by that? It means I am coming as a thought partner and not a spray and pray vendor of like, do this, download this, demo this, right? So really look with that shift.
Elana Leoni (:The biggest shift and when we think about positioning and storytelling, you will be looking at is, am I positioning myself as the hero? Am I the one, the savior coming in and blah, blah? No, you are the guide. They are the hero. They're the ones conquering. They're the Odysseus and the Iliad of really trying to figure out what their journey is. So email, email, email as much as possible. It is not dead. It is very over-performing, especially in our industry.
LinkedIn, obviously, this is gonna be live on LinkedIn. It is becoming bigger and bigger a platform to reach district and admin leaders. It just is. And in addition, your ecosystem as a whole, right? How do we get brand awareness and all the beautiful recruiting and employee retention benefits? I love, love LinkedIn. And then we're seeing a shift this year, more brands investing in conferences into in-person relationship building, right?
but do not not follow up in a timely way and don't follow up in a spray and pray way and make sure your social media is on point throughout it all and make sure your booth, if you're boothing, is very value driven. You've got people talking about how to use the product. You have people talking about the topics as well. So that's a lot of stuff for me, Hillary. You wanna add on?
Hillary (:All right, I'll talk on to that that we've always talked about this human centered marketing always wins. And we've especially talked about it around organic social and that remains true. But I think that's a good lens to look through in all aspects of marketing, especially now people more than ever are looking for not just vendors, but trusted partners. And the way you can build trust is through having that human
human-centered approach, whether that's showcasing your team and getting them out there, making those connections, or even doing that online through video, showcased in testimonials, how teachers are utilizing your product, how school leaders, district leaders are utilizing your product and why they love it. All of that is so, so important. think especially more than ever, now that we're seeing more AI enter the room.
people are looking for that human feel and that human approach. And so the more relatable and transparent you can be, the stronger your impact will be.
Elana Leoni (:Yes, and as you were talking, I'm like, how do we even begin to wrap up everything we said? Right? So there is a lot going on in Q2. I hope that this was helpful for you. I will say that it's very easy to do some doom scrolling right now. Please don't, please stay in the moment. Please focus on what you can do to show up every single day to position your product in.
and make sure you're telling the story of the real impact it delivers, right? So please do that. Do not actually hesitate. This is go time. Q2 is go time for consideration and selling and really figuring out, you know, how are your buyers gonna use products and position them for the next academic school year, right? So you cannot like put the pedal off the metal here. There's key conferences that you need to...
really think about whether you're attending or not and how it will affect the industry. You gotta show up for Teacher Appreciation Month. It's my favorite month. There's just so much going on in Q2, so I hope this was helpful. Hillary, thank you for joining and your tips around how you, when you were working on social media and really looking at a higher lens for marketing are so, so valuable. You're like, this is what I do and here's how you can do it and recycle it. Very, very helpful. Appreciate you.
Any closing words on your part?
Hillary (:No, thanks so much for having me. This is always a fun adventure when we hop on and do these together.
Elana Leoni (:Yeah, all right. Well, thanks everybody for joining. can, if you're not following us on podcasts, please do. We're at All Things Marketing and Education. Follow us on LinkedIn where we go.
