This is another great post, Graham. As a teacher, I can resonate with number two. I discovered ThinkCERCA through their generous giveaways of curricular materials that were highly relevant for my classroom.

From working with early-stage EdTech startups, I’ve noticed two other “marketing moves” with a high impact and low cost: incentivizing referrals from users and engaging with communities as a person (not a company).

One thing differentiating EdTech marketing from other SaaS / B2B marketing is a higher percentage of buyers (teachers, admins) have strong emotional ties to their profession. When they find a product that helps them serve students, they are excited to share it. This is increasingly true as educators develop personal brands on places like Twitter. When you combine that natural inclination to share with referral incentives like free merchandise, increased product access, or even digital badges, it can be a powerful marketing move.

Second, I’ve noticed a benefit when companies choose a community manager or founder to be the face of the company for all digital communications. Instead of anonymous branded emails, social media posts, or support comms, the company consistently includes the face and name of one person. This not only builds trust and credibility amongst sometimes skeptical educator-users, but if this public-facing team member is actually the one doing all the interactions, it can strengthen the community of users surrounding a product. See Formative (www.goformative.com) for a great example of this.