Closer than you think
The City of Stoke-on-Trent Sixth Form College is the only dedicated sixth form college in Staffordshire (one of 94 in the country), and is a state-of-the-art development that incorporates world-class resources and design features to provide outstanding learning facilities for young people across the city and beyond.
Structured Competitor Analysis
The sixth form’s natural geographic audience had a falling cohort due to a low birth year, meaning that it needed to attract students from further afield.
Plinkfizz were asked to develop a campaign to increase applications for the college’s September intake, and so our team devised a targeted, multi-channel campaign to engage with students, parents and influencers in the identified geographical areas.
To do this, we first conducted a structured competitor analysis of the sixth form provision across the region and identified key strengths and benefits that the College offers students and would make it stand out. Through in-house qualitative and quantitative research, the team identified key geographical areas to recruit students from based on the performance and facilities of their existing sixth form providers.
In-house Training
A blended campaign of PR, paid and organic social media, digital marketing, paid media and paid outdoor was planned.
The College had previously invested heavily in broadcast media, mainly radio. With our guidance, we trained their in-house marketing team and provided them with insight and assets to gain approval from their stakeholders, the Senior Leadership team, to reinvest broadcast advertising budget into more trackable marketing channels that would demonstrate clear return on investment and deliver improved results.
Local and hyperlocal media (print, online and broadcast) were also targeted through media relations and paid advertising. Creative video content was used to engage the audience through Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
We bought and placed all campaign media on behalf of the College, working with local and national providers of advertising space, which included 48 sheet poster sites, bus shelters, advans, social media advertising and regional newspapers in print and online.
The main campaign objective was to attract 1,310 students to enrol in September. Applications between June and September increased by 30% year on year and 1,510 students enrolled, smashing the target.