There may be peak times of the year for exams and careers fairs, but there are always assessments to revise for, students in need of tutoring, and attainment gaps to close on a daily basis. There’s no rest for businesses like you – but that means there’s a goldmine of sales opportunities available to you 24/7!

Having designed and completed hundreds of career, exams, and tutoring campaigns to the education sector, we know what will work for you.

That is what this report is all about, helping you to delve into the belly of the beast of marketing to schools, so you can make a huge difference to the number of schools and teachers benefitting from your top-notch services.

Insight #1: Quantities of decision-makers

You lucky devils! When it comes to a target audience, you guys are pretty spoilt for choice. Not only will you want to target the more obvious decision makers like the Head Teachers, Careers Advisors, and Exam Coordinators, but you’ve also got a whole host of other teacher types that will have an interest in you depending on your own specific service.

There are over 450,000 teachers within UK educational establishments, of which we have over 400,000 named teachers across 31,000 establishments within our Education Database. The vast majority of these will be involved one way or another with careers, exams, and tutoring, and we can contact them for you.

Insight #2: The 8 Gatsby Benchmarks

Introduced as part of the government careers strategy in December 2017, the Gatsby Benchmarks provide schools with a framework for good career guidance to provide students with the best possible careers education, advice, information, and guidance.

The benchmarks aren’t statutory, but every school and academy is expected to meet them. By following the guidance, schools can be confident they’ll fulfil their legal duties.

The framework lays out incredible detail for schools to follow, but in short, the eight benchmarks say schools should:

1. Have an embedded programme of career education.
2. Provide access to quality information from the career and labour market.
3. Address the needs of each student.
4. Link curriculum learning to careers.
5. Set up encounters with employers.
6. Provide first-hand experiences of the workplace.
7. Inform pupils about FE and HE opportunities.
8. Use qualified career professionals to provide personal guidance interviews.

If your product or service can meet any (or all!) of the Gatsby Benchmarks, make sure that comes across in your marketing. Educate your audience how what you do will help the school not only “tick off” these responsibilities, but provide quality careers guidance to every pupil, every year of their secondary school life.

Insight #3: The National Tutoring Scheme

Announced in 2020 as a response to the pandemic, the government’s new £350 million tutoring scheme aims to tackle the effects of school closures on the most disadvantaged school pupils.

The scheme will initially target those eligible for pupil premium, then those in key exam years, providing high-quality tuition to state-maintained primary and secondary schools. The government will focusing the majority of the funding on English, maths, and science tutoring.

Tutoring is currently a major talking point in schools, so make sure you get yourself in on the conversation!

Insight #4: The future of exams

Although the pandemic left the education landscape faced with uncertainty, one thing was almost certain - there will most likely be changes to the way exams are currently run.

With the swift swap to online learning and assessments, certain exams may be run at least partially online, particularly for SEND or excluded pupils, or those with long-term illnesses.

With the effects of the pandemic on the attainment gap likely to be felt for years to come, grade boundaries, questions, and topics could even be up for debate. Greater exam support may be allowed, and teacher-assessed grades could still contribute to the final outcome.

Exams, tutoring, and revision providers will need to stay hot on what’s going on, and be first in line to help schools when official confirmations are made.

Insight #5: Time your campaign to perfection

The school calendar is chock-a-block with mock exams, work experience weeks, and enterprise days. There’s always something going on! So, if your product or service can support any of their careers, exams, or tutoring responsibilities, you’re onto a winner.

Use the power of direct emails to get teachers interested in your product or service, and encourage them to request demos or meetings close enough to the event that they’re already thinking about it, but with enough time for them to complete the purchase and get the most out of your offering.

Campus users will also benefit from our Education Insights Calendar to plan their marketing from one place.

We’ve collated all of the events relevant to schools and education businesses in the UK into one super calendar, with 12 separate categories of events. As you become more familiar with each category and the cycle of the (highly predictable) school year, you’ll learn how to drop the kind of targetted communications into teachers’ inboxes that will have them wondering if someone overheard their thoughts.

Insight #6: Education-specific landing pages

For some providers, particularly careers and tutoring businesses, the education sector may not be your sole focus. Your product or service may have different versions for other businesses and industries, or simply have different focuses for parents/carers, students, and school types.

There’s obviously nothing wrong with that. However, the companies that strike gold are those that can show they are experts in the education sector.

There is no better way of showing this than by creating an education-specific landing page on your website, showcasing the range of services that you have provided to existing school clients. Ensuring teachers click from an education-focused email to a matching landing page will ensure the smoothest journey possible. There’ll be no confusion, teachers can read the information relevant to them in as few clicks as possible, and you’ll reassure them that you know your stuff when it comes to their industry.

Insight #7: Nurture your leads

Your business might utilise a data-capture form on your website, asking teachers and schools to leave their details in return for a free whitepaper, a demo booking, or simply registering their interest in your product. That’s great, but are you capturing the details of those teachers that express an interest but don’t quite get round to purchasing?

At Sprint, we can capture the details of every teacher who shows an interest in your email by either downloading an image or clicking on a link within your email. We call this a Database of Qualified Leads.

Campus users also have the ability to set up their own custom forms to embed onto their landing page. Every time a teacher fills in the form, their details are automatically sent straight into the sales funnel in your account. You can set up an automatic lead generation method that collects data for you 24/7!

This information is going to be invaluable to you; not only allowing you to extend your current campaign, but also giving you the data that will enable you to fire subsequent campaigns to success.

Insight #8: Invite teachers to try before they buy

65% of teachers are visual learners, meaning they would much rather see how your product works than be told.

It’s also much more likely that they will buy your product or service if you give them the chance to experience it first-hand. Why don’t you ask them to request a demo?

You’re likely to get a really good response which will mean that you get an influx of interested teachers into your sales funnel.

Try to use this opportunity to capture some basic information about these teachers and their needs. Not only will it allow you to make the demo super-useful to each teacher, but it will also give you some really useful ‘persona data’ for your future marketing!

Insight #9: Become a thought leader

The careers, exams, and tutoring landscape in UK schools is always changing. It’s a potentially lucrative but highly competitive market with many new businesses vying for attention. The companies that will really see their stock soar will be those that take the time to position themselves as thought leaders.

Some products and services require high involvement purchases on behalf of the teacher; decisions are not made impulsively and often only after a great deal of research. Send them an industry whitepaper to provide them with some real value and demonstrate your expertise before you start selling to them.

By doing so, you’ll take a huge leap in front of your competitors. In our edu-business survey, only 15.1% of companies had integrated free eBooks, whitepapers, and reports into their 2020 marketing strategy. Yet, in our accompanying teacher survey, 61.6% of schools wanted businesses to share free resources to better support and serve schools.

Don your creative caps, put together an insightful, high-quality free whitepaper, and await your stream of fresh-hot leads who now see you as one of the top dogs in your industry!

Insight #10: Face-to-face meetings work

Many careers, exams, and tutoring providers are not willing to offer a face-to-face meeting as part of their marketing strategy; and that’s great news for the rest of you!

Not only is the meeting invitation the best way of generating a high number of leads, but the meeting itself offers you the best possible conversion rate.

Your people are your company’s greatest marketing asset. No matter how good your product or service is, it’s the relationships that they are able to build that will encourage interested teachers to take that final step and the best way to start forming those relationships is to meet in person.

What next?

Get in touch and ask us about what we can do for you!

Our number is 01684 297374, or you can email info@sprint-education.co.uk.

That way, we can talk specifically about your offer and see how we can boost your marketing effort to schools quickly and effectively.

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Education Marketing How to Sell to Schools How to Sell to Teachers Marketing to Education Marketing to Schools Marketing to Teachers

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