Education Marketing

We have been doing some research of late to gather the email addresses of nursery schools.

The research is by no means complete but if you want to test out some personal email addresses of nursery schools, the lists are available.

For private nurseries we have

Head of the school: 3716
Deputy Head of the school: 2534

For LA nursery units attached to schools we have

Nursery Unit Heads 1334

The lists are available at 9p each including transmission.

Tony
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Things are not getting easier for local authorities when it comes to data control.

Barnet Council has been fined £70,000 after losing sensitive information on vulnerable young people was lost.
The data included the names, addresses, dates of birth and details of the sexual activities of 15 vulnerable children or young people.

It seems a social worker took the paper records home to work on them out of hours but then the home was burgled and a bag containing the records was stolen.

The ICO says the council failed to take appropriate measures to prevent the loss of personal data held on paper records. The council had an information security policy and some guidance for staff on handling sensitive papers, these failed to explain how the information should be kept secure.

In 2010 data on 9,000 people was stolen in a burglary of an employee’s home. Although the council had given an undertaking to introduce a paper-handling policy, this was not in place at the time of the second loss.

So far schools have not been fined, but my own experience is that school data habits are even slacker, and my own office has actually received data of a very sensitive nature accidentally. When we told them they said they would “look into it” but it took weeks to get the leak stopped.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

The Public Accounts Committee has said the Department for Education (DfE) needs to improve its understanding of poor financial management in schools. The report states that the committee is alarmed at the worrying expenditure of some schools.

There is particular criticism of “very high salaries” being paid to some senior staff in some academies. They also don’t like the “excessive” expense accounts of some governors.

The issue raised is one that we have seen over and over again for at least 15 years – and in what follows I express my own views. (Indeed if you have been reading my comments for a while you might recognise my old hobby horse).

We have seen a combination of government pushing through independence programmes without ensuring that every school that the controls and training to ensure that they not only know how to handle finances in a school but also on how to spot warning signs and problems that do arise.

In the few high-profile cases we have seen of wholesale abuse of school finances or complete collapse of the school’s finances, it has invariably been the case that either the few who raised concern were told they were being “too negative” or that no one was checking at all.

Indeed in some cases governors have signed off woefully inadequate accounts, Ofsted have given the school a good bill of health for its financial systems, and everyone has believed everything is working well.

While the vast majority of schools do the job properly, don’t pay excessive salaries or expenses, and have proper checks and balances, there are a few where modern accounting procedures, checks and balances are simply not set up.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said, “One in four Local authorities have cut their resources devoted to monitoring school spending. Many governing bodies remain too weak with one in four local authorities stating that only a few of their primary schools enjoyed governing bodies with sufficient, appropriate financial expertise.

“And there is a question mark over whether the Education Funding Agency will have the capacity and skilled staff to oversee the growing number of academies.

“We are already seeing instances where the Agency’s systems have proved insufficiently robust to ensure proper value for money of schools’ expenditure.”

Chris Keates, general secretary of NASUWT, “The Secretary of State [Michael Gove] recklessly has swept aside key financial safeguards, including abolishing financial management standards, removing the requirement for schools to secure best value for public money and diminishing the role of local authorities in securing good financial management practices in schools.”

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, argued that academies should be made subject to the same financial reporting framework as maintained schools.

In a statement the government said that it was doing all it could.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Our postal shared mailing to secondary schools on 6 June is the one in which we have the option of a free email mailing using one of our personal email lists of teachers, or printing 5000 leaflets black on white for £25.

The cost of the shared mailing is £388 for one leaflet , £472 for two leaflets.

Then, you can either do a mailing to one of our personal email list selections or you can have us print the material at our special discount price.

Although I know that June seems a long way off can I add that when we look at the delivery dates, they seem quite a bit closer…

Delivery of material to Hamilton House by 30th May 2012
Delivery of art work for printing: 23rd May 2012

And there is the fact that we only have a couple of spaces left in the mailing, so I would suggest an early booking might be advisable. Of course we might slot in an extra mailing later if we do fill this one up – but that’s not 100% guaranteed, so if 6 June is your chosen date (the mailing will arrive in the first week after the half term holiday) then it will be a good idea to book in now.

There is more info on http://www.shared.org.uk/FreeEmail.html

To book in please email Chris@hamilton-house.com If you have any questions please do call 01536 399 000 – but please do note that we do need an email from you, if you want to book in.

Tony Attwood

How long does the average teacher read an email for?

I am going to admit that I am not 100% sure of the answer – but I do know that two key issues influence the teacher when it comes to reading emails…

1. Who it is from
2. The subject line and headline

Who it is from, is a way of saying, “it depends on how interesting the last email was”. Generally emails on subscription lists like this one are read more readily than emails that turn up out of the blue, because the reader knows the source.

And in general, emails from a recognised source which has proven itself in the past are more likely to be given a greater chance than ones that turn up from an unknown source.

As for the subject line and headline – this finding relates to work that was done years ago for postal direct mail. We discovered from comparative testing of sales letters that a change in the headline can have a huge impact on the response rate that the letter got. And comments from readers made it clear that it was the headline that determined whether the letter was read.

Same with the email. The headline is highly influential.

So, because you have subscribed to this news service I can take it you are likely to glance at the opening. But I still have to work hard to get you to read the rest.

It is all part of that continuing story: the level of success in any email advert depends on a variety of factors, of which the product itself is just one.

If you would like to discuss how to make your emails more productive, do call. No charge, no obligation – we will be happy just to talk it all through.

01536 399000
And there is more about our work on www.hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood

We are putting on a postal shared mailing to the 5000 largest primary schools in the UK on 17 May.

The price is just £299 – considerably below our normal price for a single sheet of A4.

That discount is extraordinary enough – but because time is short and we have a couple of spaces we are making an even more amazing offer.

We’ll also do a free personal email to any of our A, B or C lists shown on www.emails.gs

So that is a complete primary school mailing plus a free email using our primary lists.

Material is required by 15th May which means you have very little time to produce it – but if you can, this is probably the lowest price for a shared mailing you are going to see this year, next year, or any year for quite a while.

Please call 01536 399 000 or email Stephen@hamilton-house.com – please don’t click reply to this email, as I may not pick it up quickly enough to help you.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Hamilton House offers three different ways of marketing to schools: on a contract basis, on a job-by-job basis, and via payment by results.

The payment by results approach is one that we only have a limited amount of space for, and is one for which we often get more applications than we can handle.

This is undoubtedly because of its attractiveness. There really is nothing to pay by our clients who use this service – we create the adverts, we distribute them, and we simply take a commission on each sale we achieve.

However we do at the moment have a vacancy in this area and we are, at the moment, looking for one more “payment by results” client.

In this case we are seeking a company with a product or service that can sell to a variety of departments within secondary schools.

To clarify this point – if you offer (for example) a set of books, CDs and the like that relate to music GCSE and A level, these can only sell to heads of music. That, for the moment, is not what we are seeking.

However if you have a product that relates to classroom behaviour, report writing, testing, form time, or anything else that would be purchased by teachers in a variety of departments, we would be interested.

Generally speaking we are looking for products where a purchase is going to be made straight from the advert, so that we can track how many sales are made and thus how much commission is due.

If you have such a product, please do call my colleague Steve Mister on 01536 399 000.

There are more details on our three methods of working with companies (Payment by results, one off promotions, and contract marketing) at http://www.hamilton-house.com/projects.html -or again please call 01536 399 000.

Tony Attwood

It seems there is quite a flurry of activity at the moment in terms of selling generic email lists of schools. Prices are tumbling as everyone seeks to undercut everyone else.

Generic lists, you may recall, are lists of addresses that start “office@” or something like that, and are usually sent out with a note in the subject line saying “For attention of Head of Music” or whatever.

The fact that there is a price war going on with these lists is a sign that the value of the lists is declining – in the sense of value measured by response rates.

But it is still possible to get some good results from generic lists, providing you write to the school in the right way.

One of the main things to remember is that school offices get huge amounts of email coming in (just as in the old days they used to get loads of post) and so they tend to discard it. (That indeed is why personal email lists have replaced these old generic lists). So the opening of a generic email needs to show the administrator that this is a worthy piece of information. (Although oddly, emails that start with an appeal to the administrator to pass the email on tend not to do so well.)

Naturally, Hamilton House supplies generic lists (our list costs £49.95 – call 01536 399 000 if you would like a copy), and we can discuss with you how to get a response out of this type of list.

But do remember – generic lists are fairly low-response mechanisms, and they have a unique set of requirements. Getting the message right can take a bit of time. I’m always willing to chat about messages and what works and what doesn’t. Do get in touch.

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Emails sent to teachers own personal email addresses are far more effective than email that goes to the general school email address.

But personal email addresses are more expensive to use (because of the cost of the research and the fact that each address only gets three emails every two weeks.

However there is a way of using personal email addresses at much lower prices.

The “Stand By” service allows you to book in to the email list of your choice at half price (from 4.5p each for primary teachers, from 5p each for secondary and FE teachers and advisers).

Stand By means that your email will go to the teacher you want at some time in the next five teaching weeks (which means we won’t send it during half term or the summer holidays).

To gain the discount you need to book in your mailing, sending us your copy and your payment for the mailing. We will then send out your mailing in the first available mailing in the following five teaching weeks.

Obviously there is a limited number of places available on each list – and a few lists are already booked very solidly through to the end of this term. But if you wish to check the details of the exact price etc simply call 01536 399 000, and say that you are interested in a stand by mailing.

To see all the list options please click on these links:

· Secondary and FE personal email lists http://www.emails.gs/Secondarynamedlist.html

· Primary personal email lists http://www.emails.gs/Primarynamedlist.html

· LA Adviser lists http://www.emails.gs/LAadvisers.html

· Subscription lists http://www.emails.gs/emailteachersdirect.html (please note special rules apply to the way subscription list emails are written – please call for details)

Tony Attwood

Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.

Chances are you will have seen some adverts of late which offer you the chance to market to schools in the UK and suggest that you can be assured of high response rates.

As I have often commented – I work for a company that does marketing to schools, so my thoughts on what other companies are doing must be taken with the notion that I am biased. I am speaking of my competitors.

But having made that clear I would like to put a point that does seem important to me – and it is one that I find myself often commenting upon with potential customers who call my office.

Reaching schools is different from reaching teachers, and reaching teachers is different from persuading teachers to interact with you, and hopefully buy your product.

To deal with these points in order – reaching schools can be done by sending an email to the school general address (eg office@myschool.sch.gov.uk ) This can work – but quite often does not. Much depends on the message (see below).

The problem is that in getting the email to the office you are not getting it to the teacher who is interested, and you need to do something to encourage the administrator to pass your email on. This is something that we have experimented with extensively, and my colleagues and I are very happy to talk about – do call 01536 399 000. If you are interested in emailing schools in this way we can supply you with the full list on CD or as a file attached to an email, for under £50. Again, do call for more details or see http://www.emails.gs/generic.html

Which leads to the second point: even if you have a list of teachers (rather than schools) which is highly responsive you won’t get a high response unless you get the message right, for the way you write the message affects the response rate as much as the list that you use. This is the same for postal mail as well as for email.

And I suppose this is my issue – a lot of companies have sprung up of late suggesting that they have a high response low cost email list. The fact is however, the response rate depends not only what the list is, but also how your advert is written.

If you would like to have a discussion about your advert without charge and without obligation, send me a copy, and I will call you back. But even if you don’t want my advice, I would urge you to remember: response rates depend on the quality of the list and the way in which the email or postal campaign is written.

Final point: if you are interested in a regular commentary on adverts that go out via the post and email, you can join the Creative Direct news service. It delivers two or three reviews a week. Send an email to CreativeDirect-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and then just reply to the email you get back from the server.

Tony Attwood
Hamilton House Mailings Ltd reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.