Made up of a team of IT professionals, EAC Network Solutions pride themselves on offering top-class education IT networks. When they first sat down for a chat with our sales team, it was obvious they knew their stuff – but conveying that to schools with limited IT budgets, and teachers often thrown into the IT department with no prior knowledge or experience, was proving challenging.

Moreover, the high-value, infrequently purchased nature of a network meant their stream of leads had started to dry up. How could they keep schools flowing into their teacher funnel if they wouldn’t need a new network solution for a few years?

Our sales team got to work, and mapped out a plan for our largest teacher funnel strategy to date – a strategy that would see EAC gain over 1,000 new leads in six months!

Here’s how they did it…

The Lead Magnet: 5 Proven Strategies for Mastering Online Safety

Having worked with schools since 2005, the EAC team knew schools were teaching in a world of ever-changing online safety challenges, and pride themselves on setting the benchmark for school online safety. Putting their know-how into action and giving away a guide of free, easy strategies was a no-brainer. To co-author the lead magnet, we employed a hand-selected Head Teacher from our network of experts, all of whom currently work in the education industry, and are always on-hand to share their specialist expertise for any client’s lead magnet. We invited this particular Head Teacher to work on EAC’s lead magnet due to his recent experience in taking his school from Ofsted-Inadequate to Outstanding with a heavy use of EdTech and digital learning. Fusing his real-world experience and teaching methods with EAC’s reputation and business insight led to the creation of a powerful lead magnet guaranteed to captivate teachers.

The Email Strategy

With the lead magnet in the bag, it was time to work on the accompanying email strategy. Although we new the guide was an incredible freebie, we had to convince the teachers of the same – enough so that they’d be willing to part with their contact details in exchange. With some award-winning email marketing techniques and our rock-solid sending credibility, we were able to generate some impressive stats. In their initial three-phase strategy promoting the lead magnet, open rates were above 27% (well above the industry’s average of 22%), and their average click-through rate was 12.6% - the industry standard being just 3.3%.

The Landing Page and Campus Form:

The IT educator community was utterly rocked – teachers couldn’t believe they were getting such an incredible, substantial eBook for free! During the coinciding three-phase email strategy to launch the lead magnet, EAC saw 325 downloads of their free guide. In the process, they collected the names, job roles, and school email addresses of each and every one of those downloaders – giving them a fully opted-in list of red-hot leads. Collecting the data via a Campus form, the details were automatically imported into their own education CRM, ready for EAC to follow up with their own email strategies.

N.B. With their Campus account, EAC also had the ability to email the direct addresses of over 350,000 school staff. Delve into Campus and find out how you can do the same.

The Sales Enablement Strategy

As another bonus addition to their teacher funnel strategy, EAC also received a series of three sales enablement emails – three follow-up emails built into their account to send imminently to their leads after the initial strategy. It was here EAC could start to lead the focus away from the asset to setting up calls and meetings with the school to discuss their online safety. Whilst schools may not initially think they need a network upgrade just yet, discussing the ever-changing world of online safety with EAC unearthed gaps in their networks they didn’t know they head – the beginnings of a successful sale!

With some utterly outstanding results, these emails achieved open rates of between 48.2% and 52.5%.

The Website Banner

With the emails sent and the guide no longer a brand-new, hot-off-the-press resource, you’d be forgiven for thinking their stream of leads would have dried up. But that couldn’t be further from the case!

By implementing an evergreen banner on their site, EAC were able to generate more downloads from organic web traffic. In the weeks following their email strategy, over 675 other educators downloaded the lead magnet – topping 1,000 fresh teacher leads pouring into their sales funnel!

The Verdict

With their evergreen lead magnet, landing page, email strategies, and banner combined, EAC have been able to generate 45% more leads than before. This permanent, automated source keeps a consistent stream of interested teachers funnelling straight into their Campus account with zero input from their sales team.

Want to achieve similar results and boost your own list of opt-in education contacts? Arrange a free strategy call with our experts and start multiplying your sales with your own teacher funnel!

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

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