If you sell anything for a school premises then it’s fair to say you’re in a very competitive sector. Over the past few years alone, Sprint Education has had over 2,500 companies from this sector sign up to our newsletters to learn more about selling to schools.

Luckily for you, schools spend about £3.1 billion a year on their premises, so there is plenty of money to go around. However, how much of this you win will depend on how well you understand your sector and the clever techniques you utilise within your marketing strategy.

That is what this blog is all about; helping companies that offer school premises services to delve into the belly of the beast of marketing to schools.

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, CEOs, and Site Managers, 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, and we can contact them for you.

Insight #2: How much they spend

£3.1 billion is a lot of cash in anyone’s book. But from this huge amount of budget schools spend on their premises, how much does each individual school spend per year?

State Schools in England = £109,244 average annual spend Academies in England = £231,500 average annual spend Independent Schools in England = £262,000 average annual spend Understanding this means you know the average limit available to each establishment and therefore can select your price points to suit.

Insight #3: Budget holders vs. influencers

For you to impress both a budget holder and a key influencer, you will need to understand what grabs each group’s attention and personalise your marketing to achieve this.

While Heads and Bursars might be looking for a face to face meeting and a competitive price, influencers such as the Deputy Head and Premises Manager will be focused on the finished article of what your service/product will deliver to the school’s premises.

By using the big data we hold in the Education Database and a technique known as dynamic content we can deliver your marketing with relevant content to each purchasing group within your target market.

Insight #4: Get your timing right

There are key months each year which are the optimum time

to sell to schools within the premises sector. These are...

January/February: State schools must spend the remainder of their budgets before April so are looking to use it up.

May/June: New school budgets are released and larger purchases planned. A key time to secure summer projects.

September/October: The time for Academies and Independent Schools to receive and begin spending their new budgets.

Insight #5: Teachers love a video!

Teachers love a video. Do you know that simply using the word ‘video’ in your email subject increases open rates by 13%? And we’ve seen click-through rates improve by a staggering 96% when including a hyperlinked screengrab of a video in the email!

Utilising video can be particularly effective for buildings and premises suppliers, as you can take teachers on a virtual tour through their new (or improved) facilities.

Teachers will find a short and snappy video a lot more helpful and engaging than 3 paragraphs of text!

If you’re providing schools with a product or service, then video is a great way to showcase your people and start building relationships with teachers.

Insight #6: Education-specific landing pages

For many premises providers, the education sector is simply a lucrative side-line; a huge potential market waiting to be tapped into.

While that can be true for some, the companies that really 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: It’s about being a real person

INSIGHT: You are the greatest marketing asset your company has. Therefore you need to be at the forefront of your campaign.

A well written email or a cracking email design will generate interest for your product or service, but in order for your campaign to have longevity, you need to be able to build a personal relationship with teachers.

Make sure your email has the human touch by making it clear that it’s coming from you. Set your email’s ‘from name’ as you, from your company; use ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ or the name of your charity to build a personal connection; and, if it’s practical, include your own work contact details instead of a generic ‘info@...’ email address so teachers know exactly who they can turn to for more information.

The relationship you strike up in your correspondence with teachers is what will make your campaign triumphant. Oh, and a smiley photo of you with a hand-written signature in your email sign off will never do any harm.

Insight #8: Face-to-face meetings work

Offering to visit schools for a face to face meeting is not something that many premises providers are willing to do. And that’s great news for everyone else for two reasons.

Firstly, those that are willing to meet teachers personally see their response rates sky-rocket; and secondly, when dealing with products or services of high capital value, the face-to-face meeting is by far the most successful way of converting leads into sales.

Insight #9: Nurture your leads

We find that the vast majority of sales our clients make are made between the 5th and 12th contact; in fact around 82%!

This is especially true for companies operating in the premises sector, where levels of expenditure are typically very high. A relatively low percentage of your total sales will be made on the 1st or 2nd contact so you’ll need to keep drip feeding information to teachers in order to move them gradually down the sales funnel.

We can help you realise the 82% of sales that most companies miss out on, by providing you with the direct contact details of teachers that express an interest in your emails, allowing you to build up your own prospect database to follow up in-house.

Insight #10: Become a thought leader

The premises landscape in schools is a potentially lucrative but highly competitive market with many new technologies 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.

Most premises purchases 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!

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.

Tags
Education Marketing How to Sell to Schools How to Sell to Teachers Marketing to Schools Marketing to Teachers Selling to Schools Selling to Teachers

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