Education marketing is entering another year of tight budgets, longer decision cycles, and higher expectations from districts. The uncertainty is familiar now, but the pressure to make smart, focused choices has not eased. As teams plan for the next school year, the real challenge is not doing more. It is doing fewer things with greater intention.

In this episode, Elana Leoni reflects on recent conversations across the education ecosystem to surface what matters most right now. From how districts are thinking about efficacy and technology use, to where marketers should actually invest limited resources, the episode focuses on signals that can guide smarter decisions in 2026. The goal is not optimism for optimism’s sake, but clarity about where attention, time, and budget are best spent.

See resources and more in the episode show notes: leoniconsultinggroup.com/podcast

Mentioned in this episode:

EdTech Planner 2026

Planning a full year of education marketing takes time, and you need a clear path that helps you stay relevant, consistent, and aligned with the moments that matter. Ready to make 2026 your most intentional (and effective!) year yet in education marketing? What The EdTech Marketer’s 2026 Planner helps you do: Focus on what matters most to your brand and audience Plan campaigns around key education events Use proven strategies tailored to K–12 and higher ed Build a system that fuels visibility, engagement, and leads For six years, thousands of education and EdTech marketers have used this planner to guide their yearly campaigns and stay aligned with the school calendar. Download here: https://www.leoniconsultinggroup.com/edtech-marketers-planner

Hello friends, welcome, welcome, welcome. We have another episode with yours truly. And these episodes are designed to be helpful in the sense of you know what's coming ahead as an education marketer. You know some tips and tricks in your back pocket and hopefully you have some fun inspiration as well. So let's get into it today. We're gonna be talking about FETC.

A little bit of that because I do believe the first conferences of the year are really great signals for what's ahead in our industry. So FETC is probably the second or third biggest ed tech show in the US. It is based in Florida, the Future of Education Technology Conference. Like I said, I look at this conference as a signal for the rest of the year.

And last year was a bit of a blip because we had lots of hopes, we had lots of good signals, but we also had a significant administration shift, which happened right after FETC. So we don't have that this time. We still have a lot of uncertainty, but what we're finding is a lot of uncertainty continuously. People understand and learn how to move through the uncertainty. You you just get, you get used to the crazy, right?

So this year, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We are still seeing lots of constraints in our industry. We are still walking into tighter budgets for next year. We are no longer having extra post-pandemic funds. We also have some uncertainty of where federal funds are going to go. Are some of them just going to be taken away entirely?

I usually follow resources like whiteboard advisors, Rye Consulting is really good for that. And then you can have market intelligence powered by Burbio, Starbridge, Nation Graph, things like that. So you can start understanding when RFPs are coming up and what's really happening at the state level. Go to CEDA, we're gonna have Julia Fallon on our episode for that. So we're seeing tighter budgets. We're seeing continued uncertainty. We're seeing...

continued consolidation of tech stacks. And what does that mean? It means we're still dealing with lots and lots of tech that people accumulated that was free at the time and potentially is still free or freemium from the pandemic, right? But districts are now saying, wow, they need to talk to each other. We can't have so much tech going on and it has to be meaningful and it has to connect to dotted lines to student outcomes and things that we truly care about that we're held accountable for.

So we see that continued consolidation of tech stacks. So none of this is new and you might be saying, Lana, you already said this. I get it, I have. But I want to start with things are not gonna be 100 % rosy. However, I feel like when I started walking away from FETC day after day, I was hopeful. And I don't know, if you know me, I'm...

I just finished talking with many, many brands, many people, and having deep conversations about how to effectively engage and ultimately sell to their target audience. And I felt every single conversation I had was more innovative. It was just really thinking outside of the box.

and how can I invest in those channels more? And maybe just do it as a little like dip your toe in the water to get enough signal that it would work there. Don't go all whole hogging too. But I saw that. I heard people asking me questions around that and that gave me hope.

I see schools pushing back on a lot of things and that also gives me hope because what schools are looking for is does this actually work? If I'm gonna invest money and time and RFPs and pilots and all of these things, I wanna know that my team is actually gonna use it, teachers are gonna use it, students are gonna use it and that it works. So if you don't have efficacy, if you don't at least have.

qualitative things around this product works in this way. There's a lot of like low hanging fruit to do efficacy in your own way. And then sure, you want to ultimately invest in studies to show that this is actually improving learning outcomes. So I will put some of those episodes we've done in the past in the show notes. We have interviewed some very smart people when it comes to that too. And they give you the, you only have one person, here's what you can do.

So a little bit of side note, but I did engage with lots of conversations with districts and they were asking, does this work? And they should be, so good for them. When I go to conferences like FETC, it really reinforces that it's not about reaching 10 million people, it's about reaching the right people and building relationships year after year after year.

And that is incredibly important. And it gives me goosebumps to talk about because our network is so supportive. I have had the luxury now to be in the industry for a couple of decades and people genuinely, once you start forming these relationships, they will come and ask you how you are. They know about your family. It's really important to form these relationships because then we can have these deep, honest conversations of what's truly working and what's not in our industry. And we can collaborate to help each other.

So it's just a reminder to really make sure you make time for those one-on-one deep conversations as much as possible. When you're at conferences, if you're not going to conferences, make sure you've got some Zoom scheduled every once in a while and they're prioritized in your calendar.

One thing I loved is a little bit of a resurgence of learning in small spaces, interactive spaces. And this isn't just about FETC, but I want you to think about how you can bring that into your own space too. So maybe you're inspired about, well, once a week, we can just do office hours as a brand. We can do mini boot camps. We can do five minute lessons that then are

on demand and then we can create playlists out of them. like small bite-sized collaboration. But what I loved about FETC in particular is they had these round tables and I could jump into deeper conversations with up to 10 people. And a lot of them were school leaders. A lot of them were, you know, tech administrators that were trying to figure out how to figure out AI and compliance and cheating and all the things. And they were being very honest and connecting with each other.

That wouldn't happen in a big conference hall. So you can also try to replicate that virtually. But then I also want to say, if you see those opportunities at conferences and you're a vendor, don't hesitate to jump in and be a learner. I always introduce myself and I say, hey, I'm just learning. And it really helps me as a marketer. And I learned so much. Shout out to Eric Kurtz. He talked about AI. And I will put his link to

all of his AI resources in the show notes, because I think as vendors, as marketers, we need to understand the real, real challenges that our schools and districts are facing when it comes to AI. And so he has everything, and how they're rethinking lesson design and lesson planning to empower AI usage rather than spending that time trying to monitor and gotcha for student cheating too. So just a shout out to when you are thinking about depth versus breadth in learning and that...

Think about that. Do you want to put it in your own professional development in terms of virtual? When you're at conferences, try to jump in and be curious and be a learner as much as possible.

I didn't personally get to hear this keynote, but I heard the reverberation of a keynote at FETC. And the woman, I'll put her in the show notes, her name is Alana and her last name, not my name, starts with an A, Alana. She had a keynote that was 100 % student centered. And everyone was just like, yes, this is the way. This is the way that everything should be. Students must be the hero of the story. We can't get

caught in the bells and whistles of policy, privacy, procurement, all these things that we do, features or this and that, but being able to consistently tell that narrative and integrate them in that beautiful way. Her keynote, everyone was applauding it. I saw her reverberations on social. So that was a really great reminder to bring into the rest of the year.

Speaking of students, I ended up stumbling into a session about drones. And it was, the session was completely run by high school students and they were talking about their drone program. And they were, it was a lead up because that night they were gonna be leading and running and producing the drone show. And they do this big lighted drone show and it's like FETC and it had all sorts of fun things lit up. But they talked about,

just what they had to learn and do and their eyes were just lighting up. It was so cool that a lot of them held pilot certifications. They could clearly articulate the skills that they had mastered and all of the career pathways that it's opened up for part-time jobs, for future careers when they get out of high school, how they're gonna be continuing it into college. It was just so cool. So it reminded me of...

Students, we always say it. And for a while, I feel like every ed tech company was saying student centered and students forward, but no one was really doing that. So I love that students showed up in this really cool way. 500 drones in the air, each weighing about two pounds. was just, it was so cool. I'm not gonna not talk about AI because it was everywhere. I did talk a little bit about Eric Kurtz session around.

and trying to figure out how we empower AI usage effectively. AI was continuing to be everywhere. We have the big players that are all in the Expo Hall, which is expected. But it wasn't like, wow, this is brand new. It's more AI adding layers upon the feature set. It's not, wow, now I can do this new thing. We know that there's a lot of things possible with AI. Now it's just layering on things that matter most.

and really thinking critically about how it fits in with our pedagogy.

So I want to, I hope that that was helpful for a little bit of overview of FATC, but also again, it is a signal for the year ahead. Hope, think differently, think outside the box, be as audience centered as possible. So with that, we're going to get into what's ahead in February.

I'm gonna pause.

So looking ahead to February, I know it's early when you think about it from a normal standpoint. We're just starting the year. But from an educator standpoint, February, you see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's about ending the year strong. This is a shorter month. It is a working heads down month. You only have a couple of holidays.

big themes to look out for. And again, I'm giving you these as marketers to try to say, okay, what is the most timely for my audience? So what aligns with my audience? What do they actually care about? And can I create something that aligns to my brand strategically? Does it make sense for us to celebrate this holiday, this holiday, this holiday? So it's really that magic in the middle of trying to figure out what your audience likes, what aligns with their brand strategically, and then what can you physically do in terms of capacity? So

We have Black History Month coming up. We have National Library Lovers Month coming up. We have National Time Management Month, which isn't specific to education, but I love it because who doesn't have time? Educators, they have zero time. I always say they kind of have negative time. So how do we give them tips and tricks around that? And does it make sense to align with your brand? Other February events, we always have the Grammys. We have Valentine's Day. We have the big game. We have...

National News Literacy Week. We have President's Day, which I mainly, sometimes it's a nice way to tease into America 250 when you're trying to teach the 250th anniversary of our nation. So that's kind of fun. February is the beginning of the conference stampede. I'm gonna call it a stampede. I don't know. Storm, tornado, whatever.

for March. March is one of the biggest conference months. So February, we really have the tail end of People are coming back from the biggest ed tech show in the world, in the UK. Then we have AASA for superintendents in Nashville. That is a very popular one and people are are headed to that. I think everybody at FETC was headed to that and prioritizing that show.

We have an independent schools conference, NAIS. We have CATE. We have South by Southwest. We have McColl in Michigan, another big ed tech conference. We have another ed tech conference, Spring Q, which is now powered by Cali. And then we have a science conference, NSTA. There are so many conferences happening in March and a little bit of February too, but they're state specific.

They might even be district specific too. So thinking about your conference strategy, you need to say, do I want to go national? Do I want to go state? Do I want to go district specific? Those are big strategic considerations based on your capacity, based on your audience.

Okay, next session section.

selling $10,000 question.

Okay, this section of our podcast, we usually jump into tips and tricks around social media. Since there wasn't a whole lot going on that frankly didn't depress me, I wanted to shift gears and talk about a question I got a couple of times at FETC that I think you all would really love to hear. And it may hurt your head and that's okay, because hurting your head in a good way is for you to think about it and go, gosh, there isn't one right answer to this question.

there is a right answer when it comes to my audience and my brand. So people came up to me and after I got into some conversations, they said, Alana, if you had $10,000 to spend in marketing right now, where would you spend it? And one $10,000 isn't a lot of money. And I'm not saying that lightly. I know it's a lot of money for startups. It's a lot of money in general. But when we're thinking about investing in media and we think about the acquisition cost,

and the sales size, contract value, sales size in EdTech, it is quite small. So when you have $10,000, is a kind of dip in your toe in the water to say, can I invest in one to maybe four channels and see what's really working? And I love to this question because right now in the beginning of the year, January to really March, April, May, I know June is like the end end.

This is when buying occurs. This is your go time generally. And for those of you that have a slightly different schedule, that's okay too. But for in general, this is where we see the most purchasing happening. So when we're thinking about this one question to say, all right, if we're gonna put the pedal to metal, where would we invest? The honest answer is it depends.

Every single EdTech company, and I've worked with 50 plus now in the nine years we've been working together with education and EdTech companies and in education nonprofits, anyone who's trying to sell to schools and district and K-12 education and also higher education a little bit. But it all depends. There is no universal answer. So you want to look at what am I currently investing in? Do I have signals on what I'm currently investing in is working?

If I had $10,000 to really accelerate what's truly working, should I do that? Is there something missing within what I'm investing in that shows it's working that could accelerate it even more too? For example, if webinars are really working, why don't I spend some extra money making sure that I've got documented?

articles and blogs and short form videos based on those webinars because I know my audience really engages with them and it can attract them on other channels like email and social media and build up your SEO presence. So sometimes I say, well, what are you already doing? Are there signals that we can compliment and kind of put the pedal to the metal a little bit to make it work even more?

It's an example of if you are starting to hear the same thing over and over again, think outside the box, try to see if there's opportunities to engage with that area where your audience is most. Another thing you want to kind of consider is time horizons. Everyone who said the $10,000 question, by the way, they said, I want leads right now, leads, quick leads. And you know, that is the magic which everyone wants, but

when you are looking for short term things, it does cannibalize the opportunity to do longer, broader scale initiatives that are more brand awareness, trust and credibility over time. you can do when you think about $10,000, you can say, gosh, I want to start raising my credibility and trust. I want to build that I want to increase the touches within my lead funnel. So in a way that really

gets them to come to me and build my inbound marketing. That takes time, but that is one way to invest in your $10,000. The other way is this short term leads. I want them now. And usually when people say that, I say, well, where's your audience and what have you tried? Do you have any data? But some of the things I'll think about is paid ads. Does it make sense for you to have some paid acquisition focused ads on LinkedIn with targeting job titles?

It is going to be more expensive, but it can be effective. Again, paid ads only work with a certain type of ed tech business. Sometimes if the cost is really high, it may not work as much. we have to say, again, it depends. But when we're thinking about short term lead acquisition, paid ads is something you want to look at. And that includes social media and search. Another one is webinars. You may already be doing webinars, but if you're

If you're not doing webinars, that's something to consider for short term lead generation. And if you haven't done them, it's going to take a while to build up an audience that will actually attend. So in the beginning, when you're doing webinars, it's going to be more brand awareness. If you're, if you're running them themselves, then you can start building up audience participation. You can also partner with partners that will put it out to their networks and then they will already attend and you don't have to do a lot of promotion. I do recommend those.

I'll put some links into the show notes of some partners I recommend around that. But that can be instant lead generation. if what you're talking about talks directly to your target audience, it should be qualified leads. So the better question is kind of not where I should spend the money. It's which channel can realistically deliver results given what we already have in motion, and then really thinking about my short-term versus long-term horizon.

So you've got some options around the $10,000. I always try to say, how can I compliment really what's doing well already? And then what are some low-hanging fruit? So I had a really good conversation with a brand and we talked about, we have great customers. We're not empowering them to be advocates for the brand. So maybe I put $10,000 into creating a media kit and empowering them to spread the word in not a transactional way, but

thanking them for being such advocates for our program and always reminding them ways to spread the word. So I hope that didn't hurt your head too much and I wasn't wandering all around the place, but you can tell even though I work with edtech brands and education brands all the time, it is so nuanced and so different depending on who you want to talk to and what you're already doing.

Last section.

LinkedIn shout outs and reflections.

They missed one. Chattatubutee missed one.

All right, I love to end these episodes with some shout outs to people that I learned from in the past couple of weeks, specifically on LinkedIn. So these LinkedIn posts really stuck with me and some of them really reverberated some of the themes at FETC as well. But Erin Moat, she talked about safety and privacy in a really passionate way because we're seeing a lot of things with Grok.

the grok fallout. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, go ahead and Google it. But it's, it's kind of disgusting. And when we treat security as an added feature, and we provide spaces that are not secure, and we use it as an add on, that is the wrong way. That is a very dangerous way. Safety and privacy.

especially in education. These are baseline requirements. So I will put the links in the show notes to her real passionate post and just shout out to Erin Moat for writing that. Another post that resonated for me was from Julia Fallon. She gets to talk about education and education policy and EdTech from a state's perspective, given she's the head of CEDA. So

She said something that really resonated and said that it's not really about pulling the plug on technology. It's finally installing the wiring. And I loved that metaphor in the framing of it. From a state's perspective, this is not really an inflection point. States have been doing all of this work for years, especially as it relates to AI and technology. They have been in it. And she

carefully pointed that out and talked about all of the ways that they've been thinking about and moving ahead when it comes to helping empower our schools and districts around integration meaningfully with technology. Lastly, I don't always like to talk about education, especially on LinkedIn. I learn about all things professional, social media.

I learned a lot about LinkedIn, but I also learn about leadership and how to be more productive on LinkedIn. And my good friend, Rebecca Shattucks, she's got a really great podcast I will put in the show notes. I believe it's called like the Millionaire or something or another. Sorry, Rebecca. Host on Time, and Meeting. Shoot, I'm seeing her profile now, but she has really great infographics on her profile and

One that really resonated with me is moment management. And she talks about the five moments that matter most. one of the like, this really resonated with me because I'm so go to go and I know that a lot of you are as well. So it's this infographic that says when and it gives you an example and then what it means and then gives you some things to try as a result.

So for example, when you have days that feel heavy without being hard, she says, it means that you have too many moments that never mentally close. And then she says, why don't you instead pause and name or cross off each task you finish? So mentally crossing things off before you go to another can stop preventing that heavy, that heavy feeling, my gosh.

when you jump straight into the next task all of the time, you sometimes, it means that your attention residue is compromising focus, which means you all have, it's kind of the same as the first one, but you just feel a little scattered because you haven't officially closed it. So she gives you an example of standing up from your desk before starting again. So there's so many great little things that I, when I read her stuff, I try to incorporate.

So I hope this was helpful for you all as we get into this new year. I will see you in about a month when we start thinking about the following months in education. But again, this is go time. So I really hope this was helpful. Show up for your audience. Be as audience centered as possible. Try new things. Think differently. And we will see you next time on All Things Marketing in Education. Take care, everyone.