Bedford Girls' School

Bedford Girls’ School is one of our longest standing clients. Prominent Media manage the advertising for the independent school, working alongside the internal marketing team to promote the schools’ open days and attract prospective parents within the school’s catchment.

Prominent Media were first approached by Bedford Girls’ School to develop successful new campaigns and take the stresses away of dealing with suppliers and media owners.

We plan the school year campaign – looking at historic preferences and new opportunities to create strategies that deliver the client’s objectives.

That includes a rigorous planning process that sees us continually researching and keeping on top of the latest media trends. Our diverse campaigns have stretched to include the likes of out-of-home and radio advertising alongside other digital and print platforms. We have also arranged and tailored successful, strategically placed door drops.

All work is procured or booked by us. We then manage these with suppliers, compile artwork deadlines and maintain a document to ensure all deadlines are met.

We negotiate all costs and manage advertising budgets to secure the best ROI for the school  – and have obtained various free additional opportunities such as editorial space thanks to our work.

All adverts we secure are proofed by our team before printing.

Once activity has been completed, we provide the school with an end of campaign report to outline activity undertaken, pictures, stats. We can then use this to evaluate what is working and what requires tweaking for the next campaign.

Covid-19

Open days were put on hold at the onset of the pandemic. When it was safe to do so, individual tours and small groups took place.

Prominent Media looked at scaled back plans with these being as flexible as possible. Plans included cancellation deadlines for any media booked and ensuring deadlines were known for any activity yet to be booked.

We also identified any activity that could be moved into future months to allow the school the flexibility to change the plans with the ever-changing pandemic guidance and restrictions.

We continued to monitor trends of how people where using the media and how they were finding products and services and used this to our advantage. Some of these included:

• Radio saw a nearly 40% increase in listenership with those newly working from home adding 45% to listening figures. With people listening more throughout the day, the focus shifted from breakfast and drive time to having a move scattered approach across the key working day, Monday to Friday.
• We increased our attention on digital marketing and focused more on editorial content in titles such as School Notices and Independent School Parent. Alongside this there was a focus on digital display adverts on local websites.
• Out of home became less focused towards those communing on trains, and switched to roadside sites including bus shelters in high traffic areas and around high-end supermarkets.
• Plans pre-Covid were focused toward magazines, but as many magazines stopped being produced or with the likelihood of free pick-up magazines less likely to be on display, we advised to keep only those magazines which were subscription based and delivered straight to people’s houses.

The main focus over the last few years has been to increase admissions at the school through the schools open day events in the spring and autumn. 

Prominent Media continue to provide a strategic and creative campaign plan to target prospective parents.

What the school has to say

Jemma Trobe, Director of Marketing, Admissions and Development, said:

“The team at Prominent always take time to understand our priorities, finding cost effective and innovative opportunities to help us maximise our objectives.

“They are incredibly approachable, proactive and a great sounding board for ideas.”

To find out how we can take your advertising to the next level, speak to one of our team on 01473 276126.