Long Before the Demo: How District Leaders Get to Know Your Brand

By Emily Garner Sumner

One question we hear quite a bit from education companies is, “How do we get more demo requests?”

It’s a good question, especially when your team is working hard to reach decision makers. You’re sending emails, sharing content, attending conferences, hosting webinars, posting on social media, and supporting sales. So why aren’t more district leaders requesting demos?

District leaders rarely move from a single marketing touchpoint to a demo. In most cases, there’s a lot happening before they’re ready to have that conversation.

Think about how many billboards, postcards, radio spots, TV ads, and trucks on the road you’ve seen for a local plumber. Have you called that plumber to learn more about their services? Probably not. But the next time your kitchen sink starts leaking, that plumber is likely going to come to mind and you’ll reach out for their help.

District leaders are no different. A curriculum director hears your company’s name during a conference session. Months later, they read one of your articles, attend a webinar featuring a district leader they respect, or see an ad in a respected publication. When a challenge moves higher on the priority list, they search for solutions and recall your company with a different level of interest, and a different intent.

No single one of those interactions necessarily leads to a demo. Together, however, they can build the familiarity and confidence that make your organization worth researching further when the timing is right.

By the time someone requests a demo, they generally already know quite a bit about your organization. The question for education marketers, then, isn’t simply, “How do we generate more leads?”

A better question is: “Are we giving district leaders the information they need throughout the journey that eventually brings them to us?”

How Do District Leaders Begin Their Research?

District leaders usually begin with a challenge, not a product.

Imagine a curriculum director searching for a new multilingual learner program. They aren’t starting with, “Which curriculum has the most features?” They’re asking practical questions about standards, implementation, professional learning, teacher support, and what has worked in districts like theirs.

• Which programs align with our state’s learning standards?
• Which districts like ours have successfully implemented this solution?
• What outcomes can we expect?
• What kind of professional learning is included?
• How long does implementation typically take?
• What support will teachers receive after launch?

A technology leader approaches the research differently, comparing integrations, reviewing security and data privacy information, and looking at how other districts have implemented a platform. A superintendent takes a broader view: Will this help us achieve the goals in our strategic plan?

Those questions have something important in common. District leaders are trying to determine whether an approach will work in the context of their schools, not simply which product has the longest list of features.

And that context looks different from one district to another. A fast-growing suburban district opening new schools has different priorities than a rural district working to recruit teachers or a district focused on improving attendance or early literacy.

Decision makers are gathering information from more than one place. They search Google, visit company websites, read customer stories, attend webinars or conference sessions, ask colleagues about their experiences, and increasingly use AI-powered search as another way to explore possible approaches.

Peer perspectives carry particular weight in K–12. EdWeek Market Brief research found that district and school leaders frequently seek other administrators’ opinions when considering products and services. That’s why webinars featuring district leaders, detailed customer success stories, and implementation stories matter. Educators want to hear what other educators have experienced, not just what a company says about its product.

Listen to the Questions District Leaders Are Already Asking

You don’t have to guess what content district leaders need. Your conversations with customers and prospects can point you toward the content district leaders need most:

• What comes up during discovery calls?
• What concerns surface as leaders evaluate your solution?
• What questions arise during implementation?
• What do customers wish they had known before getting started?

Those questions can become articles, webinars, FAQs, guides, and customer stories. If leaders repeatedly ask for information they couldn’t find during their research, make it easier to find.

Give District Leaders Something Useful at Every Stage

Early in their research, district leaders aren’t necessarily looking for a product. They’re trying to understand a challenge, see how other districts are approaching it, and exploring their solutions.

This is where product-agnostic, top-of-funnel content earns its place. Instead of immediately asking for a demo, give leaders information that helps them do their jobs or think differently about an issue they’re already navigating.

If your company supports early literacy, create a guide to questions districts should consider when evaluating intervention strategies. If you work in cybersecurity, host a webinar about preparing district teams for emerging threats. If you serve CTE programs, share research or practical guidance for building stronger career pathways.

As district leaders move further into their research, their questions get more specific about your product. They want to understand how the solution works, what implementation looks like, what support their teams will receive, and how districts like theirs are using it.

This is where more product-focused, mid-funnel content becomes useful. A webinar lets leaders hear directly from a peer about implementation, lessons learned, and results. An implementation guide shows what adopting the solution requires from their staff. A strong customer story shows how another district successfully addressed a similar challenge using your solution.

Customer stories are especially powerful when the district, rather than the product, is the hero. Make sure your stories give answers to these concerns: What challenge was the district trying to solve? Why did its leaders choose that approach? What happened during implementation? What did they learn? And what changed for students, teachers, administrators, or the broader school community?

Those are the details that help another district leader think, “This sounds like us. I can see how this could work here, too.”

Don’t Rely on One Channel to Do All the Work

It’s tempting to evaluate each marketing activity on its own. Did our email generate leads? How many people attended the webinar? Did the conference result in demo requests?

Those numbers matter, but they don’t tell the whole story. District leaders encounter your company across multiple channels, and those interactions work together over time.

Email, social media, search, webinars, conferences, customer stories, and your website all play a role. The goal isn’t to be everywhere. It’s to show up consistently in the places district leaders already turn for information with something worth their time.

What This Means for Education Marketers

By the time a district leader requests a demo, they’ve already done a lot of work. They’ve explored the challenge, considered different approaches, listened to peers, and started determining which organizations understand what their district needs.

Ultimately, they’re trying to answer a few important questions:

• Will this work in a district like ours?
• Can our educators implement it successfully?
• Will it solve the challenge we’re trying to address?
• What have other districts experienced?

Your marketing has an important role in helping them find those answers. Not by pushing for a demo at every opportunity, but by providing useful, relevant information throughout their research.

When you do that well, the demo isn’t the beginning of the relationship. It’s the next step in a conversation that started long before.

About Emily

Emily loves to work with education businesses to help them connect with educators through targeted, content-driven marketing campaigns. Lucky for her, she gets to do that every day as CEO of Spyre Marketing. Emily holds a Masters of Library and Information Science and in her free time loves to knit, eat doughnuts, and ride her bike up big mountains, though rarely all at the same time.