Education Marketing

20 years ago, many companies that sold into schools made PR a significant part of their promotional work. But over the years the rise of digital media, has resulted in many firms finding that PR simply is no longer worthwhile.

And that is true – where one follows the old approach of sending out press releases to educational magazines and the national media.

This is not to say that sending out press releases doesn’t work. I personally got huge exposure on BBC Breakfast TV, Radio 4, Radio 5, the World Service, and a series of local radio programmes on the subject of dyscalculia a while back. But it is now considerably harder to get such coverage than it used to be.

So what is to be done?

Some approaches do still work. For example if you are selling fairly expensive items and you sell one to a school in (say) Dorset for the first time, it is worth trying to set up an arrangement in which the local paper will interview members of the school to talk about this purchase.

The school gets positive coverage in the local paper, and you get your product mentioned. This can be followed up by a mail shot to the schools in the area, and the combination of PR and direct mail can work well.

Another approach involves developing a newsletter aimed at teachers in a specific subject area. So if you sell maths products you write a weekly news email about maths education. Sometimes you talk about your product or service, but other times you write about different topics that have nothing to do with you but will be of interest to maths teachers.

Other on line media is worth considering too. To give my company’s services a plug for the moment, you certainly ought to have your press release included on UK Education News (www.ukeducationnews.co.uk) and if there is a suitable edition, you should get a review in Education Management News (please call for more details). You have to pay, but the results can be well worthwhile.

Next you should see your blog as a part of your PR work – and you should also ensure that you gather in other people’s news (to feed your own news machine) by using Google Alerts.

Hamilton House runs its own PR service (www.voom.org.uk) which covers these and many other aspects of PR work, and we also include PR within our Velocity programme for some of our clients (www.velocity.ac)

If you would like to talk any of this through, please do get in touch on 01536 399 000.

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

If you can’t sell on benefits, then what do you sell on?

One of the big problems that a lot of companies in the education sector have is that of differentiating their advert from everyone else.

The old adage that one should sell on benefits rather than features is as true today as it has ever been. However it is vital to offer benefits that other firms don’t offer. And this can be a problem.

There are however several alternatives.

One approach is to write an interesting question by way of a headline. For example, if you sell computers to schools that are at the more expensive end of the market, you might say,

What is the most effective way of reducing school computer costs?

A headline like that will draw the reader in, because all of us want to reduce costs. Then in the email or sales letter, or indeed on your blog, you can state that buying a cheap computer is often a false economy because programs are developing all the time, and you are likely to find that even though the machine will not break down, it might slow down dramatically as you upgrade your software. Especially with the changes to the curriculum that the secretary of state has just announced.

Or I might write in a headline

What is the simplest way of doubling the number of responses you will get from your direct marketing?

Again such headlines draw people in and get them interested in your advert and what you have to offer.

Writing such adverts does take a bit of time, and quite a bit of experience (which is why people often come to us for help), but it is worth getting right because they certainly can work.

We undertake this type of copy writing as individual projects, but we can also do them as part of the Velocity work – which is especially helpful where a series of letters and/or emails and/or blogs are required.

There is more on copywriting at www.copy.ac – just click on “How much difference” on the left side. Velocity is on www.velocity.ac Or you can call us on 01536 399 000.

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

Which is the best way to market to schools: – by paying the marketing company according to the results that they get, or by paying them a monthly fee?

Hamilton House does run a “payment by results” service for companies that want to market to schools. We also invite companies to undertake mailings and pay as they go, and there is the Velocity service, in which companies get all their marketing to schools for a monthly fee.

So what’s the benefit of each?

Payment by results does mean that you pay a commission on each sale we achieve for you. But it only works where you can readily identify which sales come from our advertising.

The problem with PbR is that quite often it does take several attempts to get the advertising absolutely right and get good results. But with PbR we take your advertising, run it, and then if it doesn’t work, that’s it. Since with many adverts, the issue is the way the advert is written, rather than the product or service itself, this can mean that there’s no chance to find out how to make the sales work. It is very much a case of get it right first time, or else nothing.

One off mailings can suffer from a similar problem. We certainly do recommend that trial runs are organised first, and we do offer everyone the chance to submit their proposed or past ads to us so that we can make suggestions for changes, based on what we know about how to write adverts.

But of course, if you know your advert works, and you just want to hit the market once, then the one-off approach can work.

Finally there is the contract approach. The great benefit of this is that as we see the results of the advertising come in we work intently on campaign to change the advert, change the headline, change the landing page, or anything else, in order to maximise results.

There is also the benefit that email marketing done through the Velocity programme is priced at about one third of the cost of one-off mailings, so even if you didn’t want any of our advice, if you are planning regular emailing, the Velocity programme offers it at a huge saving.

There is more information on at

Payment by Results – www.educationmarketing.org.uk/PaymentByResults.html

Email marketing – www.emails.gs

Velocity – www.velocity.ac

Postal direct marketing – www.educationmarketing.org.uk/directmail.html

Or call 01536 399 000

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

This term is a key time for buying for schools as it is the term in which money held by LA schools has to be used up – or it will be reclaimed by the Local Authority. And so we are putting on a rather special offer.

Schools are spending throughout the term, but there will be an extra boost to buying small to medium size items from half term onwards.

Therefore we have a service in which we are offering a free personal email with the shared postal campaign to secondary schools that will arrive immediately after half term.

If you book into the postal shared mailing to secondary schools on 15th February (which will arrive in schools on 20 February) you can have a free personal email campaign either before, during or after half term, to boost your mailing.

The cost is under 8p per teacher if you send a leaflet to one teacher per school, and under 5p per teacher if you send to two teachers per school.

The total cost for reaching the 5000 secondary schools is £388 for one item and £472 for two items as long as the weight of the item (or items if two are sent) are under 15g. After this there’s a small weight charge.

Delivery is by 8 February – although it is worth booking in as soon as possible since most of our mailings with the free email have filled up rather quickly.

A list of our email lists, from which you can choose one to email is shown on www.emails.gs

Details of shared mailings are given on www.shared.org.uk – but please do call 01536 399 000 if you have any queries.

Tony Attwood

With email marketing to schools there are three big issues to remember.

The first is that the list you use will greatly influence your response rate. If you use a generic list (one that goes to the school administrator with a request to pass on to a particular teacher by title) you will generally get a response rate that is considerably lower than if you use a personal list containing the individual email addresses of teachers.

Second, if you are sending out your list yourself with your own software, or using a site that allows you to upload a list and then send out your message, you will need to stay in touch with local authorities and individual schools that block you. This is quite a time consuming job, but it is essential, for without constant liaison with LAs over blockages you can find that you are reaching an ever declining number of schools, even though the software says you are sending out many more.

Certainly if you do want a CD containing the generic addresses of most schools, we have that available for under £50. Do call.

Third, whatever list you use, the way you write your copy and design your email hugely affects your response rate. In fact the way you write is estimated to have 10 times the effect that the actual product has!

This is why one advert might get 10 times the response rate of another using the same list, for the same product. And it is why we always offer to help with the writing of emails.

You can see all our school email address lists on www.emails.gs but remember you can cut these prices by more than half, and have Hamilton House write the email adverts for you, if you use our Velocity service through which you just pay a monthly fee, rather than paying for each individual email campaign.

There are details of Velocity on www.velocity.ac

If you want to have a chat about your email, just send a copy to Chris@hamilton-house.com and one of us will take a look and call you back to talk about it.

Tony Attwood

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

We are currently running an experiment in which we are asking teachers which products or services they are on the look-out for.

It is a totally free service to teachers – and when they write in and tell us “I’m looking for software to help me teach x” or “we need a company that can help the governors take over health and safety control from the LA” or whatever, we then forward the enquiry details to suppliers.

The suppliers that we forward the details to are those listed on the School Procurement Site in the relevant section – so if your company is already listed, you will be part of this experiment, and may well get some leads free of charge.

If you are not listed, you can be listed for a year for just £25, plus VAT.

To check if you are on the site go to www.top5.org.uk and then find the subject category on the left that applies to you. If you are not listed and want to be, call 01536 399 000 or email Chris@hamilton-house.com with your listing as per the format you’ll see on the site. If you want to go above the basic listing have a look at http://www.top5.org.uk/Suppliers.html which shows you all the options.

This site is one of those that makes excellent “background marketing” – keeping your product or service in teachers’ mind throughout the year. If you would like to know about all our background marketing services just reply to this email and I will send you a full send of notes.

Tony Attwood

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

Emails are the central form of communication within and between staff in colleges and universities.

As a result there’s no doubt that in selling products and services to FE and HE if one can utilise the personal email addresses of heads of department then there is a good chance of success.

We’re now working on a campaign to research the email addresses of heads of department in colleges and universities – and if you are interested in such a list, you can influence which lists we research next.

Researching a complete list of personal email addresses for one subject normally takes about a week – so if you wanted to email (for example) the top person in maths departments in colleges and/or universities, we could get that list sorted and ready to roll while you are working on the copy.

The cost per email is 14p, and to be clear, these are emails that go to the personal email address of the head of department within the college or university.

If you are interested, just call 01536 399 000 and we’ll make sure your required list goes to the top of our schedule, so that it is ready for when you want to mail.

As always, you are only charged for the exact number of emails sent out.

Tony Attwood

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

How was it that while many firms found the schools market so flat last year, others found the market incredibly buoyant?

Through much of 2011 my colleagues and I at Hamilton House found that we were talking to and dealing with some companies selling to schools that reported they were doing quite well.  Many others however reported that they were doing poorly.

In fact by December we were looking at a situation in which some companies were reporting record returns on their direct advertising, while others were reporting the opposite. 

So what happened?  Why did it happen? And what can we do about it?

We undertook some research to find out how it could be that some firms seemed to be doing well, while others were doing poorly.  

The first and most obvious factor we found was that those firms that pulled out of advertising to schools totally, or which engaged in sporadic very low level activity, did very poorly.

But some stayed in some kept up a continuous background of low-level advertising and this was surprisingly successful.  Those who added to this with regular more high profile adverts did better still even though schools were supposedly not spending money?  (The issue of how schools are spending is something I shall be dealing with in the regular Education Marketing news service we run.  Details of how to follow this are at the end).

But I want to conclude this note with the issue of “low level background advertising”.

In essence this is made up of a set of low cost approaches to advertising which ensures that your name and your product or service stays in the consciousness of teachers all the time.  These approaches don’t bring in vast numbers of sales on their own (although they certainly do get some) but they do bring a rise in awareness of who you are, so that when you do a more penetrative campaign you start from an awareness of who and what you are.

The seven approaches that fall under the umbrella of “background advertising” to schools are

1: E Shared – approximately 10,000 emails for a cost of £99.00. Details of the service are given on http://www.emails.gs/Email10000.html

2: The Product Finder and The School Procurement Site.   The Product Finder service is a free service to teachers who are invited to let us know what they are particularly looking for.    We pass the requests on to companies listed on the School Procurement Site at www.top5.org.uk  You can be listed in the area of your choice for just £25 per year and be part of the new Product Finder service without any extra payment.   Call 01536 399 000.

3: Generic email     You can buy a CD of generic email lists of all mainstream schools for under £50   Details are on http://www.blog.educationmarketing.org.uk/2011/06/20/all-school-email-addresses-for-under-50-00/     An alternative approach involves having Hamilton House send out your emails (which avoids the problem of you having to get your sending service whitelisted.  Details of how this work, and the guarantee that you will get with this approach is at http://www.emails.gs/generic.html

4: Payment by Results    In payment by results marketing Hamilton House will send out your advertisements for free, and will then charge a commission on each sale.  There is more at www.educationmarketing.org.uk/PaymentByResults.html

5: Blogs – just about the most cost effective way of marketing a company that there is.  The cost for buying a web address, installing the program and setting up the whole program can be as low as £75 There is more information on http://www.hamilton-house.com/blogs

6: Shared postal mailings usually work out at around 8p per school, including printing, and can be as low as 5p per teacher if you choose to mail two teachers per school at the same time.   On occasion as a bonus offer, participants in the shared mailings are also offered a free email campaign of their choice either before or after the shared postal mailing.  Details of which mailings this applies to are given on our web site at www.shared.org.uk – or you can phone 01536 399 000 for details.

7: UK Education News is a continuous news stream that lists all the latest school related stories from around the UK.  To see how it works take a look at www.ukeducationnews.co.uk   The stories get about 30,000 hits a month.  The cost of placing a story is £25 – please call 01536 399 000.

As for which one to use, the ideal is to run as many of them as possible – although some products s are better suited to certain approach than others.  Do call us to talk through the options.

You can follow our regular education marketing news by sending an email to education-marketing-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and replying to the return email, or by going to www.blog.educationmarketing.org.uk

Promoting your company to teachers always has one big problem, no matter how you do it.  You have to convince the teacher to have an interest in what you are saying

But supposing you could write to teachers who had already said that they were specifically, at that moment, interested in your product or service.

This is what we are going to try and achieve in 2012: getting teachers to come to our clients with requests for information.

First off, we are writing to teachers asking them if there are particular products or services they are lookin

Then we gather up the replies, and forward them to companies that we know are involved in the relevant area of work – and in effect putting teacher in touch with supplier.

The mechanism we are using for the link is the School Procurement Site – www.top5.org.uk   Only the companies listed on that site will have their details sent on to teachers who request information.  

In the trials we have done we’ve had varying success with the programme – and we’re not yet at the stage of being able to say that it will bring in x or y amount of sales.   So we are running the service with no charge to companies beyond the nominal £25 it costs to have a listing on www.top5.org.uk

If you want to be part of the programme, just go to the School Procurement Site link above, and then having seen what it is all about, go to http://www.top5.org.uk/Suppliers.html to see how to be listed.

The basic listing as noted above is £25 for a year, and this will include  the first rounds of our contacting teachers to ask what products or services they are specifically looking for, and forwarding on any relevant results.

But apart from being within that service you will of course be on the site for a year and so will benefit from teachers looking through the site for details of suppliers.   Do remember that although only a minority of teachers will send us an email saying “I am looking for x or y” many more will go onto www.top5.org.uk and search on their subject area – and our emails will be promoting this.

Hope you find this new idea interesting.  If you want to talk about it I am in the office 21/22 December – but after that, the office is closed for Xmas/New Year.

Tony

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