Delivering “one of the highest performing PGCE campaigns ever” for Manchester Metropolitan University
Nicky Humfress, Faculty Marketing Officer, Manchester Met
Manchester Metropolitan University (Manchester Met) is a modern and forward-thinking university.
An institution for developing leaders of tomorrow, they needed help to raise awareness of their postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) courses.
Manchester Met required a full creative marketing campaign for its PGCE courses and needed a specialist agency to both devise the strategy, creative concept and make recommendations on the media mix for September 2023 entry. A creative concept with both primary and secondary messaging that works across several channels such as offline and digital. Furthermore, they wanted this content to remain fresh and sustainable across different formats.
Flash forward to today, Manchester Met won Silver for ‘Best Postgraduate Campaign’ at the 2024 HEIST awards. The judges said, “This was a well-executed campaign from start to finish. We love the clear brand identity used consistently throughout, the strong strapline and the great outcomes that were delivered.“
Manchester Met needed to meet the following objectives to ensure their PGCE campaign was a success. These included:
As part of the campaign strategy, we had to delve deep and tackle some of the negative stereotypes around teaching. Think long hours, stress and challenging workloads. Simply training for the job is hard work in itself.
That’s why we set on the campaign messaging, “Your Journey. Their Future”.
Barriers around entering teaching related to the challenging nature of both training and teaching itself, so we wanted to put the emphasis on the journey and growth PGCE students experience. Similarly, in focus groups the current students praised the support given and said it wasn’t highlighted enough in previous marketing messaging.
The ‘Your Journey, Their Future ‘message allowed us to illustrate that being a teacher isn’t like any other job and you’re committing yourself to a lifelong purpose of delivering education to the minds of tomorrow. We wanted to make people feel that it isn’t about the destination but the process of self-discovery.
Another part of the rationale behind this concept is the application cycle: the need to attract people who are at a pre-PGCE ‘choice’ stage, so they become engaged and inspired about the immediate journey they are about to embark on. The application cycle also included choices based on place, programme and support – key features in the next step of the journey. This is where the expertise at MP&Co shone through by crafting a process which was easy to follow for prospective students and entice them to pursue their PGCE course at Manchester Met.
The creative concept required filming and photography support to provide new, refreshing content for this campaign. This was designed to showcase Manchester Met as THE place to study for a career in teaching.
Our film and photography partners. Studio91 Media delivered:
We needed to create visuals so appealing that potential prospects would be queuing to become a student at Manchester Met and the execution included a combination of video and photography filmed with current PGCE students and those on placement, putting their skills into practice in local schools.
The visual content was used across the website, print and email communications as well as organic social and paid assets to help boost awareness of the PGCE and engagement with campaign materials.
As part of our campaign, we developed the copy for the PGCE web pages. We worked closely with the Manchester Met team to ensure that the information was clear and concise, and that it clearly outlined the steps for applying to the course. We also wanted to create copy that was engaging and would make Manchester Met stand out from the competition.
Alongside the web copy, we created an interactive online brochure using the Readz platform. Using Readz enabled Manchester Met to create a fun, yet informative online experience for prospective students, reducing their environmental impact by eliminating print and improving the customer journey. The brochure was designed to ensure prospects can find all the information they may need when thinking about teaching as a career, including the benefits, the different routes into teaching, studying a PGCE with Manchester Met and the application process.
The creation of this brochure was to make the prospects’ application as pain-free as possible as well as inspiring them to take the step into the world of education.
The email marketing and automation phase acted as a crucial part of driving awareness and nurturing prospective students through their journey to application. We needed to engage potential prospects and signpost them toy relevant information to support their interest in studying with Manchester Met, informing them of the process, upcoming events and supporting content.
We achieved a 14% increase in open rate compared to their previous campaigns and a 26% increase when comparing to all automations, helping to drive greater awareness Paid ads strategy and .
As part of the creative execution of the campaign concept, we considered application across paid and organic social. We collaborated with the team at Manchester Met to create a range of assets used across different social channels to ensure the consistency of creative was met.
We harnessed the creative concept we meticulously developed and translated it into a diverse array of marketing assets that truly encapsulated our brand’s essence. encompassed crafting engaging organic social media posts that resonated with our target audience, as well as generating compelling creative for paid media campaigns to boost online presence. Email campaigns were carefully curated to deliver personalised and impactful messages, while the website received a fresh and captivating facelift. Banners and other visual elements were artfully designed. In this comprehensive approach, we not only maintained consistency but also ensured that the Manchester Met brand was able to reach its full potential across various marketing channels, amplifying the message and impact.
The Manchester Met team saw tangible results with the PGCE campaigns and had their best results to date. Delivering results is our responsibility but a collaborative working relationship with our clients is what really makes our hearts sing.
That’s why we were delighted with this testimonial from Faculty Marketing Officer, Nicky Humfress:
I worked with the team at MP&Co to deliver a new campaign promoting our PGCE courses for 2023 entry developing a creative concept, videos, email workflows and web content with the team.
The campaign so far has been one of the most successful we have run in recent years, having increased engagement with digital advertising and the number of leads generated across the course of the campaign.
It’s been a pleasure working with the team and the campaign achieved great results.
Nicky Humfress, Faculty Marketing Officer, Manchester Metropolitan University
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