Major Awarding Body Rakes up £5.2m in Revenue

Our client is one of five recognised examining bodies within the UK, offering a range of academic qualifications such as GCSEs and A-Levels. They are a registered charity, employing more than 1k people nationally across four offices.

We have a strong and successful working partnership with our client, having supported them in more than 110 different marketing campaigns since November 2010.

WHAT THEY NEEDED

In 2010, new governmental directives meant that exam boards within England and Wales were required to overhaul their courses and examinations in a particular subject area. This happens once every four years and many teachers see it as a good opportunity to change providers. Our client wanted to find out how many of their current stakeholders would stay with them through the implementation of their new course. They also wanted to determine whether any prospective schools would be willing to switch to teach their syllabus.

The client had previously relied on direct mail, email and face-to-face meetings to carry out their inquiries, but found them costly in terms of time and resources. They had never engaged with their stakeholders through a telephone campaign before. They were sceptical about the success of speaking to teachers directly, as their teaching commitments often meant they were difficult to contact during the school day. In addition, the client had concerns about outsourcing the campaign, as they wanted it to be delivered in line with their existing brand and ethos.

At the time of the 2010 reforms, there was a lot of uncertainty in the education sector, which we helped our client navigate. The sector has since stabilised, so more recent campaigns have focused on cleansing data and maintaining good relationships with schools.

WHAT WE DID

As well as data cleansing, appointment setting and centre engagement, we also carried out various market research and event promotion campaigns with our client.

Our efforts were employed in more than 14 subject teams, including core subjects like Maths, English, Science, Modern Languages, Geography and History. In addition, we supported teams contending with new revenue streams and service areas, such as Continuing Professional Development (CPD) teams and vocational qualification teams.

Marketing Research & Testing

• We engaged with customer or prospect centres to conduct qualitative and quantitative research on qualifications, which fed into ongoing product developments.
• Our event promotions encouraged people to attend key market testing events.
• We worked with other stakeholders to involve them in qualification development.

Promotion of New Qualifications or Services

• We provided our client with current data in new or target areas that they were previously deficient in.
• Our team promoted new services through appointment setting and lead generation ventures. They also raised awareness of new services or qualifications through event promotion.

Centre Acquisition

• Using data cleansing and building techniques, we updated contact details for prospective centres, facilitating direct marketing.
• Event promotion and appointment setting procedures were used to educate prospects on our client’s qualifications.
• We utilised Commit to Teach (CTT) and centre engagement to understand the level of interest in teaching with our client. This allowed the internal team to focus on “warmer” centres.

Centre Retention & Customer Care

• Our team carried out data cleansing and building to update contact details for customer centres, which facilitated direct marketing.
• Customer care campaigns helped to engage anyone with issues or areas of dissatisfaction. They also helped direct stakeholders to resources, support, and events to help with the delivery of qualifications.
• We used CTT or Sign Up to Teach (SUTT) campaigns to engage with individuals and advance schools along stages of the adoption ladder.

WHAT WE ACHIEVED

Across more recent CTT campaigns, we helped our client turn their £45k campaign investment into £5.2m worth of revenue.

Here are just a few other examples of successful campaigns we have carried out for our client:

Cleanse Campaigns

• During a 70-day campaign we cleansed 11k records, updating names and emails across multiple subjects. And a recent 60-day campaign resulted in 12k cleansed records.

Market Research Campaigns

• Blueberry carried out detailed research for joiners and leavers across all three areas – A-Level, GCSE and IGCSE. We provided in-depth reports in each of the areas, including a range of qualitative and quantitative feedback in the final report.

Event Campaigns

• With an extremely short turnaround time, Blueberry successfully registered 645 people to various events. Before our involvement, a mere 20 people were registered for the events.

Blueberry has extensive experience supporting professionals in the education and business sectors. Discover how our talented team can help your business thrive. Visit https://blueberryms.co.uk , email: info@blueberryms.co.uk or call: 0113 4877013