5 Steps to Developing EdTech Customers

Introduction

Let’s assume that you have a technology teaching tool that helps teachers teach better and students learn faster. The following are steps that educational technology (edtech) startups can take to develop edtech customers and users.

Step 1: Understand the ecosystem that you’re in.

Understand how the money flows in the education ecosystem in your city, state and/or country. As an example, in the state of California, the K-12 schools get their money from the state’s general purpose revenues and spends most of it on instruction / teacher’s salaries. You can review the infographics below or read more about it here.

Step 2: Understand the customer and user personas.

Teacher Demographics:

Location: United States

Age Range: 21–37 years old

Income: $30,000 to 100,000

Qualification: Teacher advocate, customer, and user

Certificate: Teaching

Employer: Schools

College/University Graduate of: UC Davis

Personality:

Curious, passionate, energetic, kind, nurturing

Needs:

• Need to adopt Next Generation Science Standards
• Technology teaching tool to help student learning effectiveness
• Professional credits

Motivations:

Need to adopt Next Generation Science Standards

Scenarios:

Teacher enjoys seeing lightbulbs go off in student’s mind.

Features:

Student concept status and progress tool.

Background:

Typically tech savvy. Currently thinking about using technology teaching tools. Teaches Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math or another science class. She/he is likely to be 25–37 years old with a Masters in Education. She/he likely comes from a family of teachers. She/he likely enjoys playing video games. She/he is likely to be open minded about new and innovative teaching methods. She/he likely has a budget of approximately $9,000 per student (56,000,000,000 budget / 6,000,000 students = $9,333 per student, click here for the source). A teacher in the Pleasanton Unified School District makes about $60,000 per year, click here for the source. It takes about 6 students to pay for the teacher’s salary of 60,000. The typical student-teacher ratio for California is about 24 students. She/he cares about adopting the Next Generation Science Standards. Let’s assume that your product can help.

Student Demographics

Location: United States

Age Range: K-12, 4- 19 years old

Income: $0-$10,000

Qualification: Student advocate, user, and customer

Employer: part-time job at Starbucks

1st Choice College/University: Stanford

Personality:

Curious, passionate, enthusiastic, questioning, easygoing, short-attention span, fast-learner

Needs:

• To pass science classes
• Supplement studies
• Clarification of concepts
• Low cost informative educational events
• Looking for a mentor
• Networking with future employers

Motivations:

Find engaging ways to learn science

Scenarios:

Search for authoritative tools and resources to learn Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Math and other sciences.

Features:

Dashboard where students can see their individual progress in the 3 dimensions of the Next Generation of Scientific Standards. And the real world careers that uses these scientific concepts.

Background:

Student is very tech savvy, but gets very impatient if he/she can’t find the information he/she wants or the system is slow. He/she is currently thinking about lining up internships for the summer or summer school. He uses a Mac at home and a Windows computer at college. For him, a game oriented teaching tool sounds awesome because it’s something he’s familiar with and can connect with.

The student persona is likely to be a curious, easy going, short-attention span, fast-learning student who is tech savvy, and loves video games.

Step 3: Map all the buyers journey.

Jonathan Jantsch, created a seven-point model called Marketing Hourglass that can serve as a checklist for campaigns, process and touchpoint that will lead to a great buyer experience. It mimics how humans behave and emphasizes that people need to know, like, and trust you before they give you a try. Give them a taste of what it’s like to be your customer before they buy.

Know: Who are you and what do you do? Why do you do it?

Need compelling messaging and positioning content. As an example, “We are on a mission to make teaching effective and learning fun. We partner with teachers and students to design courses that help them adopt the Next Generation Science Standard.”

Like: Do I like your website, blog, newsletter, demo, tutorial ?

Need compelling website visuals and content. Blog should be adding value. Newsletter should be useful. Demo should be relevant. Tutorial should be useful.

Trust: What do others say about you?

Need advocate, user, and customer testimonials in written, audio, video, and presentation formats. As an example, “A Physics teacher at Acalanes High School in Walnut Creek has this to say about our edtech solution”.

Try: How can I try it out? Webinar, demo, evaluation, free trial.

Need webinar, demo, free trial and evaluation content. As an example, “Here’s a sample demo for a Physics class. If you decide to partner with us, we’ll customize it for your classroom.”

Buy: What can you do to help me meet my needs? Customer success rep, on boarding help, finance/delivery flexibility

Need content that explains everything that customers get and what kind of experience they can expect. As an example, “We offer responsive, reliable and personalized attention through a customer success representative. His or her focus is to help you be successful in using our solution.”

Repeat: How can you make me feel like I’m a part of something great? Events, member spotlights.

Need content on how to become an active member of the community. As an example, “We have an active community who is passionate about improving education. We offer them a platform to share their stories and knowledge and let their peers learn from them.”

Refer: What are the results? If good results, I will refer you to my peers at Peer2peer events, partner introductions, etc.

Need successful use cases and case studies content. As an example, “100% of Pleasanton Unified School District adopted Next Generation Science Standards because of our teaching and learning platform.”

Potential touch points for teachers:

1. Becomes aware of Educational Tech platform from another teacher or one of his/her students.
2. Visits the ed tech website and blog.
3. Signs up for the newsletter.
4. Gets the newsletter and signs up for the demo.
5. Attends the demo with his/her students and gets questions answered.
6. Signs up for free evaluation for 10 days.
7. Decides to buy the ed tech solution because of personalized help from a customer success rep.
8. Gets good results and recommends solution to his/her peers.

Step 4: Build a community

Now that you have all the touch points mapped out to content that will deliver a great experience, it’s time to build a community. A community consists of advocates, users and customers. Building a community requires you and your team to contact people and start talking to them. Talk to everyone that you come into contact with. Below is an example of a conversation that you might have.

You: Hello, I’m Jane Doe.

Other person: I’m John Doe.

You: Do you live in the neighborhood?

Other person. Yes.

You: Me too. I live on the corner of ___ and ____.

Other person: I live near __ and ____.

You: I think we might be neighbors. Do you want to carpool to the gym sometimes?

Other person: Sure.

You: What’s your number?

Other person: It’s ___.

Let’s say that the two of you are carpooling to the gym.

You: What do you do?

Other person: I’m a science teacher at ____ .

You: I happen to be working on a teaching tool for science teachers. It’s to help students pass the new test.

Other person: Oh what is it?

You: I can show it to you. Are you available this coming Saturday for 15–30 minutes?

Other person: Okay. How about 2pm.

At the demo, you show them the demo while collecting information.

You: What do you think of the prototype?

Other person: It’s great but what do students think about it?

You: Students love it because they feel engaged with the learning process. Do you want to see what your students think about it?

Other person: Yes. Can you show them the demo?

You: I’ll show them the student module and get their feedback. When should we make this happen?

Other person: In the next 2 weeks.

You: Great. I’ll send you a meeting request and we can go from there.

Step 5: Launch a Kickstarter campaign.

Now that you have a live community to provide feedback about your ed tech product, it’s time to share it with the Kickstarter online community.

You will need to hire a good filmmaker. I recommend Nick Testa Productions in San Francisco. He specializes in telling stories for the Kickstarter community and most of his clients, such as the Foobler project, have met or exceeded their fundraising goals. He charges between $900 to $1,2000 per day for filming.

If you are looking to shoot everything in one day, the logistics of it can be overwhelming. However, it’s doable if you think through every little detail. First, you will need a storyboard. A storyboard is a sketch of how to organize a story and a list of its contents. A storyboard helps you stay organized and focused, and define the parameters of your story within available resources and time. Click here to see a video storyboard template.

Next, you will need to schedule a date and a time for every shot of your story. As an example, you might create a schedule like the one below.

One Day Shoot:

6am-6:30am: Travel to video shoot location

6:30am-7am: Video equipment setup

7am-9am: Shot of you and the sunrise as you tell your story

9am-9:30am: Video equipment setup

9:30am-10am: Shot of the school, a teacher and her students before they are introduced to your ed tech solution

10am-12pm: Shot of you presenting your ed tech solution in detail, the teacher and students using your ed tech solution

12pm-1pm: Lunch

1pm-4pm: Shot of teacher and student interviews about ed tech solution.

4pm-6pm: Shot of your team members and their stories.

Conclusion

Every product/ solution/ service will be different in how it develops customers. The key is to think through everything and once you do that it becomes easier to scale the process. How would you go about developing your customers?