For Hunter Sunrise, Chief Marketing Officer at SchoolStatus & Smore, a website isn’t just a place for information — it’s the engine of demand generation. His approach centers on making the digital experience personal, intuitive, and instantly relevant to each buyer.
“Your website should do more than explain what you do — it should generate pipeline,” Hunter says. “Make it easy. Make it personal. Build it around the buyer’s next step, not your org chart.” This philosophy has shaped how SchoolStatus connects with its buyers online, helping visitors immediately find what matters most to them.
Hunter’s strategy combines thoughtful design with clear pathways for engagement. His focus is on building a website that works for every type of buyer — from superintendents to school leaders, educators, and families — through content that resonates with each audience.
Hunter highlights three key components behind this approach:
A One-Click Web Experience
Hunter’s priority is simplicity. SchoolStatus built a navigation framework that lets buyers find relevant content with a single click. Using a Solution menu with sub-menus for each buyer type, visitors can move directly to what matters to them. “No one should have to guess where to click,” Hunter notes. “Every page, every link — it’s about getting people closer to solving their problem, fast.”
This streamlined experience ensures that every buyer — whether they’re focused on attendance, engagement, or growth — has a clear path to value.
Targeted Buyer Role Pages
The second layer of personalization lies in addressing the needs of different buyer roles. Hunter emphasizes pages that speak directly to specific audiences: “Each audience comes with their own priorities,” he says. “We built pages that speak directly to them — whether you’re a superintendent or a school counselor, you should see yourself in the story.”
By creating these role-specific pathways, SchoolStatus ensures that content feels personal. Each visitor sees solutions aligned with their unique responsibilities and challenges.
Aligned and Sortable Content
Finally, Hunter’s digital engagement strategy revolves around content alignment. Resources like Case Studies, Guides, Webinars, eBooks, and Reports are tagged and easily sortable by value proposition. “We tag everything by what matters to the buyer,” Hunter explains. “It takes two clicks to get from ‘I have this problem’ to a case study or webinar that shows how we solve it.” This makes discovery effortless — visitors can instantly access materials that connect to their needs.
Hunter sums it up simply: “When someone lands on our site, they should feel like, ‘Yep, this is for me,’” he says. “We want to surface the right problems and show we actually solve them — with speed and clarity.”
In conclusion, Hunter’s leadership at SchoolStatus & Smore demonstrates how personalization transforms a website from a static asset into an active growth engine. By combining a one-click web experience, role-based targeting, and aligned content, he’s created a digital presence that not only informs — it connects.