Partner
The King's School Gloucester | thekingsschool.co.uk
Sector
Education | Independent schools
Challenge
The King's School Gloucester is one of the county's most prestigious independent schools. It is both historic and high-performing, but benefits from an inclusive family feel and special relationship with neighbouring Gloucester Cathedral, that gives the school a unique sense of community and purpose.
King's has had a close relationship with SoGlos for many years, taking advantage of our large, engaged and affluent family audience to ensure the school remains top of the list for parents considering an independent school for their children, year after year.
Solution
The King's School Gloucester's campaign encompasses two key elements – keeping King's top of mind for families in Gloucestershire throughout the year; and driving footfall to key events – so we used a combination of evergreen, brand-building content designed to inspire; and targeted content and display advertising encouraging readers to take action and attend an event.
Positioning King's as a school that truly has families at its heart, we created three family-focused hot lists to provide inspiration for parents on things to do with their little ones all-year-round, including a hot list of the best school holiday camps to be shared multiple times throughout the year during half terms and holidays.
Building on King's reputation as one of the county's leading schools, we secured a spot in the annual guide Gloucestershire independent schools guide for parents looking to learn more about their options, which we supported with an enhanced business profile. We also included an interview with The King's School Gloucester's head of Junior School to further reinforce King's as one of the very best choices for families considering an independent school in the county.
To drive footfall to key events, we published a newsy advertorial story when the highly-anticipated dates of the Chorister Voice Trials were announced; we created enhanced event previews for each of the school's open events throughout the year, including a dedicated enhanced event preview for its Sixth Form event which utilised imagery of its spectacular £2 million Sixth Form Centre; and ran two weeks of display advertising in our hugely in-demand Family and Business sections, as well as in our Lifestyle and Business newsletters, in the month leading up to each open event, driving readers to book their place.
Results
The King's School Gloucester's campaign with SoGlos achieved consistently strong reach and engagement across all content marketing, with standout performance on social media for the best toddler-friendly days out hot list – which reached more than 50,000 people with an exceptional 10 per cent engagement rate.
Partnering with SoGlos on inspirational hot lists like these helped to keep King's top of mind with parents of young children, following up with content marketing like the interview with Anne Haas to build King's brand and ethos, then targeted display advertising, the Chorister Voice Trials announcement and enhanced event previews for open events to move prospective parents along the sales funnel.
SoGlos's journalists were also able to cover editorial news like The King's School Gloucester being mentioned in The Good Schools Guide for the first time in its 484-year history, helping to further reinforce King's position as one of the county's leading independent schools – with the news reaching 7,797 of SoGlos's social followers with a six per cent engagement rate.
Display advertising: 407,224
Content marketing: 19,795
Social media support: 167,337
TOTAL AUDIENCE REACH: 610,007
Testimonial
'The King's School have been working with SoGlos for several years now, increasing our marketing activity with them year-on-year. The combination of display advertising, content and, of course, the hugely successful Lifestyle Awards, has proved very effective in promoting the school across the Gloucestershire community. From the clear communication and target setting to ROI driven results reporting, marketing with SoGlos is quick, efficient and effective.'
Fran Boughton, Marketing Manager - The King's School Gloucester | thekingsschool.co.uk
For more information about partnering with SoGlos to promote your business, visit Partner with SoGlos, call 01242 210330 or email partnerships@sopublishing.com. You can also download the SoGlos MediaKit.
