SchneiderB Media Inc.

SchneiderB Media helps schools get more inquiries. We accomplish that goal through our SEO consulting, Inbound Marketing consulting, Fractional Digital Marketing program, and our SchoolMakretingCRM school marketing software.

Founder and CEO

MarCom Society

The MarCom Society is a community created expressly for marketing and communications professionals as schools.

Founder

ChalkBooks

Advisor

ByDesign

Advisory Board Member

Teachers College, Columbia University

Guest Lecturer, Marketing Class

Sewickley Academy

Oversight for all external functions of the school including admission, alumni, development, marketing, and communications.

Director of Advancement

Director of Admission & Financial Aid

Assistant Boys' Varsity Lacrosse Coach

edsocialmedia

Contributing Blogger for edSocialMedia which explores the role of social media in education.

Contributor

AISAP: The Association of Independent School Admission Professionals

Board of Directors, Secretary

Hootsuite

- Advocate on behalf of the Hootsuite brand
- Amplify Hootsuite messages to their existing networks
- Provide feedback on the Hootsuite dashboard and regional insight
- Create a stronger presence for Hootsuite regionally through participation in events and online advocacy

Hootsuite Ambassador (Volunteer)

Western Reserve Academy

Director of Enrollment and Financial Aid

Head Boys Basketball Coach

Assistant Varsity Boys' Lacrosse Coach

Dean of Students

Director of Technology

Web Publishing

Faculty Member

Founder and CEO @ SchneiderB Media Inc. | K12 Digital Marketing Consultant

👋 Hi, I'm Brendan. 

A decade ago, I was immersed in traditional K12 school marketing, following the conventional playbook that everyone else used. After years of expensive advertising campaigns and diminishing returns, I discovered something transformative: inbound marketing—a methodology that would revolutionize how schools attract and enroll new families.

That revelation led me to pioneer a new approach to education marketing, helping schools move beyond outdated tactics to build sustainable enrollment systems.

In 2025, I captured these insights in my new book "School Marketing The Right Way," which became an instant Amazon bestseller in Education Marketing. The book reveals the system I've used to help schools transform their enrollment outcomes.

Today, I share what I've learned through:
→ My weekly newsletter read by 5,000+ education leaders
→ Speaking engagements at major education conferences
→ Consulting with K12 schools ready to use the Internet to drive inquiries
→ Training workshops and community through the MarCom Society
→ My Marketing automation software, School MarketingCRM

My mission is simple: help tuition-charging schools earn more inquiries and empower marketing, communication, and enrollment professionals with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive in the digital age.

Want to transform your school's marketing approach? 

→ Get my book: https://amzn.to/4hH0syP
→ Subscribe to my newsletter: https://schneiderb.com/subscribe-school-marketing-insider
→ Book a consultation: https://www.schneiderb.com/booking

The future of education marketing isn't about selling—it's about creating genuine connections through inbound strategies that showcase your school's true value and transform casual inquiries into lifelong community members.

Twitter: https://x.com/schneiderb
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/schneiderb.com

Brendan Schneider

One of the biggest mistakes I see schools make? Using "marketing" and "communications" interchangeably.

It sounds like semantics, but this confusion creates real problems.

I've watched schools hire "Directors of Marketing" who spend 90% of their time on internal newsletters. I've seen "Communications Officers" get frustrated because they're measured on enrollment metrics they can't influence.

The result? Scattered efforts, unclear accountability, and underwhelming results on both fronts.

Here's the clarity that changed everything for me:
Marketing = Recruiting (attracting new families) 
Communications = Retaining (engaging current families)

Both are critical. Both require different skills, strategies, and measures of success. And both deserve dedicated focus and resources.

When schools understand this distinction, they can finally build the right team, set the right goals, and stop wondering why their "marketing person" isn't moving the enrollment needle.

What's your take? Does this distinction resonate with your experience?

#SchoolMarketing #EducationMarketing #SchoolLeadership #EnrollmentMarketing #MarketingStrategy

28 years inside K-12 schools taught me what actually fills seats. Now I help tuition-charging schools get more inquiries through SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, and marketing automation. Book a call to see if we’re a fit.

My wife and I visited our son this past weekend at Denison University to watch him perform in Macbeth.

In the theater building, I read this quote from Adam Weinberg, the president of Denison.

"I know of no society that remained open, free, and just without strength in the arts and humanities."

It's more true today than it was in 2019.

Thank you, President Weinberg.

A parent sits down on the couch after dinner. Instead of typing "private school Atlanta" into Google, they ask their phone a question.

"What is the best private school near me?"

And just like that, Google gives them an answer. Not a list of ten blue links. An answer.

This is what's happening right now. And most schools aren't ready for it.

The shift from Search Engine Optimization to Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) is real. Parents are asking full questions. AI tools like Google AI Overview, Bing Copilot, and ChatGPT are delivering direct answers before a parent ever clicks a website.

Here's what that means for your school:

If your content isn't structured to be the answer, you're invisible.

Not buried on page two. Invisible.

I put together a carousel that breaks down what AEO is, why it matters now, and five strategies your school can start using today.

The schools that figure this out early won't just rank higher. They'll be the ones families find first, trust first, and choose first.

What's your school doing to prepare for this shift? I'd genuinely like to know.

#SchoolMarketing #IndependentSchools #AEO #SEO #DigitalMarketing #EnrollmentManagement #SchoolMarketingTheRightWay

Answer Engine Optimization: The Future of School Marketing

Helping private & independent schools align message, mission, and community.

🎙️ Cutting the marketing budget to save money is usually the most expensive decision a school can make.

Why? Because when you pull back on your marketing initiatives (for any reason), you don't stay even ... you fall behind. And buying your way back into the market costs a lot more than staying present ever would have.

I recently joined Peter Baron on the MoonshotOS podcast to talk about the data schools actually need to advocate for their budgets (specifically Customer Acquisition Cost) and why your Marketing Director needs a seat at the leadership table.

If you’ve ever struggled to justify your marketing spend, this one's for you. ⤵️

Open article: Why Cutting Marketing Is the Most Expensive Decision a School Can Make by moonshotos.com

Why Cutting Marketing Is the Most Expensive Decision a School Can Make

More than half of independent school marketers rate their burnout between 7 and 10 out of 10.

That's not a wellness problem. That's a leadership problem.

The 2026 MarCom Society Salary Survey surveyed 358 professionals. Here's what the data shows:

• 53.2% rate burnout frequency between 7 and 10
• 61.7% report evening and weekend work sometimes or often
• 18% work more than 50 hours per week
• \~27% may leave their role within 1-3 years

The median salary sits at $85,000-$89,000. That's a reasonable number on paper.

But salary doesn't fix a role that bleeds into evenings, weekends, and every major school event on the calendar.

When burnout is this widespread, it's not a personal resilience issue. It's a structural one. It means the role has expanded faster than the resources, headcount, or boundaries around it.

And the retention signal is the part school leaders should pay closest attention to. Losing an experienced marketing director isn't just an HR inconvenience. It's months of lost momentum, institutional knowledge walking out the door, and a costly rehire.

The fix isn't a wellness stipend or a mental health app.

It's an honest look at what you're actually asking one person to carry.

Download Survey: https://lnkd.in/eaFu8Kdz

358 independent school marketing professionals shared their salary data this year.

That's the most we've ever had in four years of running the MarCom Society Salary Survey.

Here's what stood out.

The median salary rose to $85,000-$89,000, up from $80,000-$84,000 in 2025. About 35% of respondents now earn $100,000 or more.

But this year, we asked questions we've never asked before. And the answers were hard to ignore.

Over half of respondents rated their burnout at 7 or higher on a 10-point scale. Nearly 60% say their school has no clear career advancement path for marketing professionals. And about 27% indicated they may leave their current role within the next one to three years.

One respondent wrote that they had just taken off the school mascot costume. If that tells you anything about the gap between title and actual daily responsibilities.

This report is 67 pages of real data from the people doing this work every day. Salary breakdowns. Reporting structures. Team sizes. Budget ranges. Remote work. Professional development funding. Job satisfaction. Burnout. Career outlook.

Whether you're a marketing director preparing for your next salary conversation, a Head of School trying to understand what your communications team is experiencing, or someone trying to figure out your next career move, this report was built for you.

Download the full 2026 MarCom Society Salary Survey. Link in the comments.

Thank you to every professional who participated. Your willingness to share openly is what makes this possible. And it's what makes our profession stronger.

If this data is useful to you, share it with someone who needs to see it.

Nobody warns you about the crash.

You spend months in survival mode. Inquiry season. Open houses. Application deadlines. Decision day. Running on coffee, adrenaline, and sheer will.

And then it stops.

The phone gets quieter. The inbox slows down. The urgency that defined your life for the last four months just lifts.

You should feel relieved. And you do, for about a day.

Then something strange happens. You feel flat. Tired in a way that sleep doesn't fix. A little lost. Like you've been sprinting toward a finish line for so long that you forgot what it feels like to just walk.

I've felt this. More than once.

For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me. Everyone around me seemed fine. And there I was, dragging myself through the day, wondering why I couldn't shake it off.

That crash is real. It happens to a lot of us in this work.

The 2025 MarCom Society Salary Survey found that a significant number of school marketing and communications professionals reported struggles with burnout and mental health. These are not people who don't care. These are people who care deeply, give everything they have, and have very little left over when the season finally ends.

If that's you right now, hear this.

You are not weak. You just ran a very long race, probably without enough support, and your mind and body are asking for something you haven't given them in months.

The work will be there when you're ready. Make sure you are there too.

If you are a school marketing or communications professional, I'd love to know: how do you recover after enrollment season ends? Share in the comments below.

HALDA

Leveraging the principles of CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), HALDA will help you generate up to 5x more enrollment inquiries from your website. Identify stealth visitors and engage them in the moment of interest to increase conversions.

Co-Founder & CEO

SHIFT Health, Inc

SHIFT is working to improve the patient payment experience with increased transparency and clarity regarding their financial obligations. In turn, this benefits providers who, through our systems, can now increase collections and patient satisfaction all while eliminating costs and streamlining processes.

CoFounder - Advisor

Chegg Inc.

Chegg Enrollment Services is the world’s largest web based platform connecting high school and current college students with educational opportunities. 

Chegg connects with nearly 80% of all high school students, 75% of all college bound seniors researching colleges online, and 50% of all current college students in America. Globally, Chegg connects with hundreds of thousands of international students in over 160 countries who are looking to attend an American college or university. Admissions and Marketing departments trust Chegg Enrollment Services to help them recruit students and build their brand. 

Chegg Enrollment Services is truly the most effective solution to help students find the school of their dreams and for schools to find their ideal students.

My role at Chegg is managing university partnerships in the western states to deliver best in industry service which includes helping colleges and universities with:
• Brand building domestically and internationally
• Recruitment and Enrollment of undergraduate, transfer, graduate, pre-college, visiting, study abroad, and international students
• and much more

VP, Enrollment Strategy

ZINCH

My role is collaborating with prospective/current global partners to develop high value, maximum ROI solutions for the schools specific recruitment needs and initiatives.

Founding Team

Wells Fargo Bank

Responsibilities included:

*Maintaining high levels of deposits within the bank for high value clients
*Managed several hundred million dollars in deposits
*Enhance relationships with high value clients
*Increase loan acquisition and deposits among high value clients

Private Banker

Managed multiple high level retail branches in the Greater Salt Lake area.  Managed a staff of over 20 individuals to consistently exceed sales goals on a monthly and quarterly basis.

Branch Manager

I love building tech and I have a passion for solving big problems; Huge supporter of the underdog; Ambassador for change. Relationship builder. Skier, family man, father.

Lance Hydrick

For the past 8 months, our team at Halda has been quietly building something for higher education.

Today we are ready to unveil it.

A new way to design enrollment email campaigns that lets you:

-Simulate results before you ever press send
-Send directly through Slate
-Save weeks of time by eliminating the need to build complex drip campaigns
-Deliver true individualization at scale

One of our pilot partners, a VP for Enrollment Management, said it best:

“When enrollment marketing learned how to segment messages and personalize content, our practices changed. That is history now. This tool has opened a door to efficiently accessing hyper-personalized messages that are reflective of our mission and identity to always place the student first. This is where I expected us to be 5 years from now, and I am thrilled that we are here today instead.”

We are unveiling it in an upcoming webinar and showing exactly how it works.

Join us for the launch:

Open article: Halda Live: The New Model for Enrollment Email by halda.wistia.com

Halda Live: The New Model for Enrollment Email

Huge credit to our Product and Engineering teams! Bringing to market something that’s never existed before is no small accomplishment. I’ve never been more excited about where we’re headed.

Merge fields aren’t personalization. And when a student gets an email that wasn’t written just for them, they know.

The latest upgrade to our AI Campaign Agent helps enrollment teams fix that by simulating how real students are likely to respond before an email is sent. Each message is shaped around what matters to every student, so relevance goes up without adding work for your team.

It’s available for Slate users today, with more CRM integrations coming later in 2026.

Send fewer emails and make each one count.

Learn more about what we built, why we built it, and how it works:
 https://lnkd.in/g3Tzqqtu

#HigherEdMarketing #EmailMarketing #MarketingAI #EnrollmentMarketing

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The Battle

Brendan Schneider

Lance Hydrick

Followers

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Performance ScoreBrendan Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreLance Hydrick's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Brendan Schneider

Lance Hydrick

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Brendan Schneider's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreLance Hydrick's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreBrendan Schneider's LinkedIn Performance