By Emily Garner Sumner
Multi-channel Education Marketing Strategy & Demand Generation
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?”
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.”
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.
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:
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 EmilyEmily 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.
Frequently Asked Questions
District leaders rarely go from a single marketing touchpoint straight to a demo request. Most encounter a company several times first (a conference mention, an article, a webinar, an ad in a publication they trust). When a challenge moves up their priority list, they reach out to the companies they already know.
Education companies get more demo requests by giving district leaders useful information throughout their research, not by pushing for a demo at every touchpoint. That means product-agnostic content that helps leaders understand a challenge, product-focused content that shows what implementation looks like, and webinars and customer stories where peers share what worked in their districts.
Before requesting a demo, district leaders want answers to four 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?
District leaders start with a challenge, not a product. They gather information from Google, company websites, customer stories, webinars, conference sessions, colleagues’ recommendations and, increasingly, AI-powered search. Each role looks for something different: curriculum directors focus on standards and implementation; technology leaders compare integrations, security and data privacy; and superintendents ask whether a solution supports their strategic plan.
Curriculum directors ask practical questions about standards, outcomes and implementation. A curriculum director evaluating a multilingual learner program, for example, wants to know which programs align with state standards, which similar districts have implemented the solution successfully, what outcomes to expect, what professional learning is included, how long implementation takes and what support teachers will receive after launch.
Customer stories let district leaders hear from their peers, and peer perspectives carry particular weight in K–12. EdWeek Market Brief research from 2022 found that district and school leaders frequently seek other administrators’ opinions when considering products and services. The strongest customer stories make the district, not the vendor, the hero, so other leaders can see “this could work here too.”
Top-of-funnel (TOFU) content is product-agnostic and helps district leaders think through a challenge they already face, like an early literacy company’s guide to evaluating intervention strategies or a cybersecurity company’s webinar on preparing district teams for emerging threats. Mid-funnel (MOFU) content focuses on the product: how it works, what implementation requires and what results similar districts have seen, often through peer webinars, implementation guides and customer stories.
Use several channels, but don’t try to be everywhere. District leaders get to know a company through email, social media, search, webinars, conferences, customer stories and the company’s website, and those touchpoints reinforce each other over time. The goal is to show up consistently where district leaders already look for information, and to judge channels by how they work together rather than by whether each one produced demos on its own.
A strong K–12 customer story makes the district the hero and answers five questions: 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?
Education companies can find content gaps by listening to their own customer and prospect conversations: what comes up on discovery calls, what concerns surface during evaluation, what questions arise during implementation and what customers wish they’d known before starting. Those questions can become articles, webinars, FAQs, guides and customer stories.
