Education Marketing

It is only two weeks since the idea of shared emails to secondary school teachers was launched but already two of our shared email dates have sold out, and a third has just one space left.

So we are now starting a new round of dates.

Here’s the basics…

A shared email costs £99 plus VAT for sending to schools, inclusion on the Procurement web site and inclusion in UK Education News.

On the shared email the teacher sees a list of five topic areas relevant to the subject.   These topics are chosen by the companies listed, and we only allow one entry per topic.  So for example, with the shared emailing bookings we have taken recently we have topics such as

In the email each of the five companies gets its full details, web site, email address etc, plus a 30 word statement about what it does.  The companies also get a listing on UK Education News and on the School Procurement site.   There’s a sample on our web site – details below.

At the moment we still have spaces in History, Maths, SENCO, ICT, English.  If there is a further subject you would like us to cover with a shared email please do let me know.

History – signed confirmation of booking and copy required by 3rd November; distribution commences during the week starting 8th November

Maths – signed confirmation of booking and copy required by 10th November; distribution commences during the week starting 15th November

SENCO – signed confirmation of booking and copy required by 24th  November; distribution commences during the week starting 29th November

ICT – signed confirmation of booking and copy required by 29th November; distribution commences during the week starting 2nd December

English - signed confirmation of booking and copy required by 1 December; distribution commences during the week starting 6th December

All the details are on http://www.emails.gs/Email10000.html

You can see the format at http://www.emails.gs/sample_shared.html where we have made up a sample of what the SENCO email will look like.

If you would like to book in please do call 01536 399 000 or email Sales@hamilton-house.com and we’ll send you across a contract.

On 3 November we are running the “free email campaign with a postal shared mailing” to secondary schools.

All the companies involved in the postal shared mailing to secondary schools on that day will also receive a free email campaign using our personal, preference or generic email lists.

We are almost at the deadline for receiving material for the postal side of this mailing, but I have had a request from a client for a late delivery of material – and since I have given an extension to one company, it can be extended to all.

So, the absolute, total, end-of-the-line, cannot-go-further deadline for delivery for the material for the postal shared mailing is noon on 28th October.  The material will be posted on 3 November.   The free email part of the campaign will be arranged separately, so there’s no deadline worries about that bit.

Full details of the free email offer are on http://www.shared.org.uk/FreeEmail.html

Meanwhile, as always, for all the current news on schools, teaching and learning, the rolling news service continues on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk

Tony Attwood

One of the questions that callers regularly ask when enquiring about email lists is “how often do you update the list?”

That’s a bit of an odd one, because whereas it is probably possible to get away with updating a postal list of schools once a term, email lists need to be updated constantly.

HHM is currently updating around 5,000 school email addresses a month – and that’s about the level one needs to be working at to keep the lists clean while ensuring that LA’s and the Grids are not blocking addresses.

Of course our research work is probably higher than other firms since we have several different types of email lists of schools available.  These are…

Generic lists – the ones that start admin@ info@.  These are the ones most likely to block bulk senders and so need regular attention to ensure that your emails are getting through.

Subscription lists – these are the top range lists – the one’s made up of people who ask to be on the list, because they like the information they get.   People on subscription lists can leave at any moment, so it is necessary to ensure that they get information that they want.  We do get many subscribers to us commenting on articles and asking for specific information – and it is this interactivity that makes the lists so responsive when advertising is included.

Shared emails – these are now being introduced for the first time; up to five companies’ details and links to web sites on one email that goes to teachers via the various different lists that we have.  Details are on http://www.emails.gs/Email10000.html

Personal lists – like the subscription lists these go to teacher’s own specific addresses, rather than through the school office via admin@.   The only difference is that people have not asked to be on a personal list – we find them by phoning the schools.

Preference lists – these do go to the school office, but have the teacher’s name on the subject line, rather than just “attention Head of Maths” or whatever.

There’s details of all our email lists on www.emails.gs (and all of next week emails are being despatched at half price). We are also offering a free email to the list of your choice when you do a shared mailing.  Details of that on http://www.shared.org.uk/FreeEmail.html

If anything is not clear, please do call 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

Schools in England are to get a real-terms increase in funding, as a result of the funding review.  The funding until next April has already been fixed of course, and the government has made it clear that unspent money will be clawed back from schools where, on occasion in the past, schools have been given the benefit of the doubt over money held back.

But leaving that single issue aside, the schools budget will rise from £35bn to £39bn for the next four years while universities in England will face a 40% cut to their teaching budgets and colleges a 25% cut.

Educational Maintenance Allowances – paid to encourage 16-to-18 year-olds to stay in education – are being scrapped.

The teaching budget for England’s universities will fall from £7.1bn to £4.2bn per year, and the cuts will fall largely on the humanities because the government had already promised to protect science, technology and maths.

Other Department for Education cuts include areas such as youth services, early years, teenage pregnancy services and drugs awareness services allowing the DfE to save 3% in real terms by 2014-15.  As expected the abolition of the Building Schools for the Future programme has been confirmed, although officials at the Department are saying the government will rebuild or refurbish over 600 schools from the BSF and Academies programme.

The Sure Start scheme, which provides centres and services to families of young children, will continue and will be protected “in cash terms”.

Funds given to councils for schools will continue to be ring-fenced and this “relative protection” will be passed on to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The Chancellor also announced there would be “personalised budgets” for “special educational needs” although details were not given.  He also announced a big increase in apprenticeships – a rise of 50% on previous government’s target, creating 75,000 new apprenticeships a year by the end of the review period, he said.

The cuts to further education include the axing of the “Train to Gain” programme, under which at least a million employees have received training to develop their workplace skills.

Adult learners aged over 25 who have never passed a GCSE or equivalent will no longer be able to study for these qualifications free of charge, and students aged 24 and over studying for A-level equivalents will also have to pay fees.

Hope you found that helpful.

All the news on schooling in the UK is carried 24 hours a day on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk

Tony Attwood

Recently I have been exploring with some of our clients the idea of a shared email campaign one which has the benefits of using our list of personal and preference email addresses, without the cost normally associated with that.

Because of the interest, we’ve decided to go ahead with shared emails to the following secondary school lists:

History, maths, ICT, English and SENCO

In each case we will use our various email lists to get the message out a couple of times to all the secondary schools in the UK – and each entry costs just £99.

The emails will go out in November in a set format.    All the details are on http://www.emails.gs/Email10000.html

We are restricting the number of entries in each case, and there is a benefit of booking early, in that you get higher up the list.  You can see the format at http://www.emails.gs/sample_shared.html where we have made up a sample of what the SENCO email will look like.

If you would like to book in please do call 01536 399 000 or email Sales@hamilton-house.com and we’ll send you across a contract.

HHM has decided, as an experiment, that for the shared postal mailings to secondary schools on Nov 3 and Nov 24 every customer in the mailings on those days can also have a free email campaign as well to the teachers of their choice.

For many users this will mean a free email campaign which if bought on its own would cost around £360.

What we are going to do is offer each customer the best email service we can give, free of charge.  In most cases this will be a personal or preference email campaign to the relevant secondary head of department.

So, to be clear, if you are doing a shared to the Head of Sport for example, we will try and offer you a free email campaign to the 2300 heads of Sport in secondary schools for whom we have got the personal email address.

The full list of personal email lists that we have is given on

Whatever the outcome the cost of the email will be zero to you – you just pay the cost of the shared mailing.

The cost of doing a shared postal mailing to the 5100 secondary school addresses is £375 (around 7.3p per school) or £472 for two items (under 15g in total).  The printed material is needed one week before the mailing date.   There’s more on postal shared mailing prices at

http://www.shared.org.uk/shared%20prices.pdf

If you want to know any more, or if you want to book in, please do call 01536 399 000

Tony Attwood