Meet Percy Tag!

THE ORACLE OF SCHOOL INSIGHTS

Percy Tag understands all things education. He knows how much a specific school can spend on ICT equipment, how many teachers they have on their pay roll, what their average GCSE grades are, and if they are ranked as ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted!

Percy Tag has the power to make your marketing content incredibly relevant and appealing to each specific teacher and school by altering your email’s content so it directly relates to each recipient.

In short, Percy has the power to generate a super-level of engagement with teachers, beyond what you’ve been able to achieve before!

Okay, so you may have guessed by now that Percy Tag isn’t actually a person. In fact it is the pet name we use in-house when referring to ‘hyper-personalisation tags’.

These are tags keyed into our clients email code, which pulls our school insight data from our database, and inserts the relevant data into the email’s content depending on who the intended recipient is.

WHAT’S NEW WITH SPRINT’S DATABASE?

We’ve spent the past few months collecting school insight data to fortify our Education Database, so we can engage each school and teacher with wondrous marketing like never before. From budget breakdown, exams results, Ofsted ratings, and pupil/staff data, your marketing can now be injected with the data equivalent of rocket fuel!

We can now make your marketing even more personalised, and extraordinarily relevant to each teacher. The following is a guide about the key ways you should consider implementing hyper- personalisation into your next marketing campaign.

1. Subjects

STICK TO A TEACHER’S SPECIALISM

By referencing a subject or job role of a teacher in your marketing your open rates could increase by 19.7% above an average open rate. So whilst your competitors are drilling out generic content, your marketing will appear measured and considerate to each individual recipient. Think about it; if you were a Maths Teacher which email would you open?

Subject Line 1: Teacher CPD Courses Subject Line 2: Maths Teacher CPD Courses

The second one right? Immediately you can grasp that the courses are focused specifically towards your own specialism, there is an instant connection with the message, and a connection naturally converts to an interested teacher.

2. School Type

PRIMARY, SECONDARY, COLLEGE, UNI...

Following on from subjects, another simple yet powerful ‘Percy Tag’ you need to phase into your content is the school type, or its specific key stage.

All too often I see businesses try and cover the needs of every school type into one generic approach. This is risky! If I was a teacher in an FE College then I’d expect you to make it instantly obvious to me that your content is relevant to me and my FE College.

If you don’t manage this in the opening paragraph of your content then you’re in danger of falling into the trap of being seen as just another non-relevant scatter-gun attempt at marketing to the education sector.

3. Exams

IF IT AFFECTS EXAM RESULTS, SAY SO!

There are just a handful of things in a teacher’s life that can shake them to the core, and one of these is exams. Exam results will have a teacher sweating the night before results day, worrying if they did everything they could to get their pupils the best grades possible.

Making your content not just relevant to a teacher’s subject, but also the specific exam results they are striving for, you will have them gripped!

“When I was a Head of Music, marketing had to be red hot to get my attention. However, an email that could claim to, ‘Boost GCSE Music A Grades by 25%’ would have had me clicking my mouse madly to get it opened and read.” Guy (Co-Founder, Sprint Education)

4. Budget Spend

HOW MUCH CAN THEY AFFORD?

By understanding a school’s income and expenditure per pupil (from grants, ICT, staff, premises, energy etc), you can angle your marketing towards relevant products/services which fall within a school’s certain budget limits, and will therefore be more relevant to them.

Although financial data is tricky to actually personalise into a sentence, it can be used effectively for segmenting a target audience, and choosing the correct product/service to promote to them.

5. Pupil Premium

The rise of Pupil Premium over the past few years has been a phenomenon for many sellers to schools. If you offer something that can benefit a pupil’s learning, and help close the attainment gap, then schools have a chunk of budget they must spend. Just like the budget data available, our Pupil Premium data gives us the opportunity to hone in on the schools with a particular percentage of pupils receiving Pupil Premium.

6. Ofsted

RELEVANCE + DESIRE = SALES

Ofsted can strike the fear of God into even the most adept of teacher. It’s this feeling of dread which means any marketing which can demonstrate a positive effective on a school’s Ofsted performance will be taken very seriously.

However, as schools have different Ofsted ratings it’s important to personalise your content relating it to each school’s Ofsted performance. This will help it stand out from your competitors marketing where they are focusing on a more generic Ofsted theme.

Imagine how powerful it would be if you sold training courses, and your email’s opening paragraph was tweaked from... Our course will improve your school’s Ofsted rating.

To... Our course will take Tewkesbury School’s Ofsted rating from ‘Good’ to ‘Outstanding’!

Most schools are looking to improve their Ofsted rating, but in this example, if the perception of your training course will take Tewkesbury School from a ‘Good’ rating to an ‘Outstanding’ you are not only illustrating that your course is super-relevant to their ‘Good’ status, but importantly will teach them how to take that ranking to a level they may have only dreamed of achieving. Relevance + Desire = Sales

*“Clearly define the benefits of your product or service so a school can grasp why they need it. For example, will it improve safety, enhance their OfSTED grade, increase pupils learning, reduce costs, or boost GCSE A-C grades by 50%...?”*John (Head of Content, Sprint Education)

7. Pupils & Workforce

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE, PEOPLE!

Understanding the people within a school can be the key to making that instant connection with your target audience. Anything from gender of pupils, size of workforce, absenteeism rate, percentage of pupils on free school meals and so on.

By understanding the people and the metrics behind them you can channel the right message to the right audience. For example, if you wanted to target schools in less affluent areas of the UK then you could segment those schools with a higher than average free school meals percentage per pupil.

Invoke the Spirit of Percy Tag

You need to become Percy Tag, draw in his data powers, and use them to enrich your content. It will help you trounce the competition and build healthier relationships in no time! The level of personalisation that you should go to will depend mainly on the accessibility you have to a rich pool of data. This data needs to drive all aspects of your marketing – from content, subject lines, target audience, and even the products and prices you are promoting.

There are two ways Sprint Education can help you access and use this data to your advantage.

1. Digital Strategy - We can manage, design, and broadcast a digital strategy on your behalf using our data as the foundation to the campaign.
2. Campus – Use our education marketing and sales software. This powerful software gives you access to our database of school financial, exams, Ofsted, pupils and workforce data so you can segment your marketing lists.

WHAT NEXT?

Get in touch and ask me about what we can do for you. My number is 01684 297374 or email info@sprint-education.co.uk. That way we can talk specifically about your business and see how we can boost your sales to schools quickly and effectively.

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

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