It's an incredible feeling when one of our marketing to schools strategies absolutely smashes it for a client. It's even better when that client happens to be a real nice guy with tonnes of passion for what they do.

Umar Hameed is one of those nice guys and I was absolutely thrilled when I sat down with him to catch up on how our emails to teachers had absolutely smashed it out of the proverbial park for him.

This is what Umar told me...

The Background

“I started Athletes in Schools in 2012 when I was straight out of University. It started out as just a little project as I had an interest in athletics myself and I recognised there was a gap in the market.

For the first two years it was just me on my own. I managed to recruit around 150 athletes on a freelance basis, all of whom had represented Great Britain at an international level. I now have a team of four working in the office; two full-time and two part-time

The Challenge

Before I contacted Sprint Education we worked with another education marketing agency who supplied us with a database of school email addresses. The data was okay but all the emails were generic and we got a lot of bounce backs.

I then got in touch with Sprint Education as I loved the way their website looked and the quality of their own marketing; I knew that I wanted to work with these guys. However, after our initial contact, I actually didn’t decide to go ahead with anything until 12 months later. I was hesitant because it all sounded too good to be true really, I was conscious that I didn’t want to make any big mistakes at this early stage of the business and Sprint Education were priced a bit higher than some of their competitors.

The Solution: Lead Creation Plan

What finally convinced me to go ahead with something was a conversation I had with Ben, where he explained the best way to take any risk out of my campaign was to do a 3 phase email strategy which would be written and designed by their team.

“The 3 phase plan that they created for me was really well structured and each campaign complimented the last beautifully.”

I’m so glad that I listened to Ben’s advice! Although the 3 phase strategy was a bigger investment than a one-off email, I think it’s been so much more successful than it would have otherwise been. I have a background in marketing but I wouldn’t have thought of taking the approach that Sprint Education did; the 3 phase plan that they created for me was really well structured and each campaign complimented the last beautifully.

Even Sprint Education’s advice on the timing of my emails was really beneficial. I assumed that my 3 emails would go out over a 3 month period, however Ben explained that they needed to all go out within a 3-4 week period so that they built momentum. I’m so glad I listened to him!

The Results

“When I came into the office on Monday morning I had over 400 responses sitting in my inbox – and 95% of them were really positive!”

I was shocked to be honest. In my head I was thinking that I needed to make 10 sales in order to break even; then I could think it was worth it. I got 5 or 6 sales from the first email and I thought that was a really positive start. But then the second email went out on a Friday and when I came into the office on Monday morning I had over 400 responses sitting in my inbox – and 95% of them were really positive. I thought, ‘Gosh, what am I going to do now?’.

“I would have been ecstatic with 20 bookings but I’ve already had over 90 bookings!”

My advice to anyone that was considering working with Sprint Education, but is worried about the cost, would be just to trust the experts. I wish I had known what I know now 3 years ago. I’d have saved myself so much time and effort! Due to the success of the campaigns I have set myself the target of turning over £200,000 this year which would be a huge increase on £125,000 last year. Needless to say I’ll be running some more campaigns with Sprint Education very soon.”

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Email Teachers Emailing Schools How to Sell to Schools Marketing to Schools

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