Wisbech
Grammar School

A case study

Wisbech Grammar is one of the oldest academically selective HMC day schools in the country. Historically they have used a single prospectus, An Introduction to WGS, which has been handed to parents together with the annual school magazine, Riverline. Alongside its website, these have been the main reference points for all prospective families.

When Unify met Wisbech Grammar School at AMCIS they were presented with the following questions:

  • How can you present families with information that is specifically relevant to them?
  • How can you keep literature continually up to date?
  • How can you reduce brochure costs?
  • How can you reduce their environmental impact?

Over the past year the Unify team has worked closely with Sandra Taylor, Head of Marketing and Admissions at Wisbech, to address these issues and here is Sandra’s story.

 

No One Size Fits All

When I joined the Marketing and Admissions team there was a simple prospectus which covered the very top-line information about the School, including Scholarships and Bursaries. Although the school website provided a good source of additional information, we found that many families still liked to have a brochure in their hands with the opportunity to flick through pages at their leisure and share it with other family members, including grandparents who might be helping with fees.

My aim was to look at the efficiency of the department and see how we could offer a more up-to-date, personalised service, whilst reducing print costs and wasted stock. Furthermore I recognised the need to provide parents with a range of options for accessing information so was looking for a 360-degree approach to our marketing.

What we did

  • Unify
  • Design Concepts
  • Print
  • Production
  • Photoshoot
  • Drone Footage

Breaking the Cycle of Generic Content

I’d heard of printing on-demand before and personalising front covers, but I hadn’t heard of anything like the Unify system. Being able to personalise and target the content to prospective families and pupils based on their age and interests was something we hadn’t come across before.

Despite the initial work in gathering the text and photographs, the prospect of being able to personalise content, print on demand and email personalised PDF brochures to pupils and their families certainly outweighed the time it took to gather the required information.

Although we started small by changing the design of the Introduction to Wisbech Grammar School brochure, we now have the ability to personalise the front and back covers as well as customise the content based on the pupil and their interests. For example, if the applicant is looking for an academic scholarship, they would not be presented with an image of a violinist.

So we can now send a fully personalised brochure to each enquiring family. Being able to email and print as many or as little as we require is a complete transformation for my team. This ease of customisation has been a game-changer for Wisbech.

 

Improved Engagement

Taking our Sixth Form Open Evening as an example, we emailed personalised brochures to each family two days ahead of the Open Evening.

Typically families would not email to say “thanks for the brochure” but within 24 hours we received a number of messages thanking us as well as prompting questions which was fantastic and exactly what we wanted. Such dialogue would not have been there when posting out generic brochures.

Before we started our personalised approach we would not have had such immediate feedback and since our relationship with Unify, this has certainly improved our touchpoints with parents and heightened dialogue.

One email that particularly stood out was from a prospective parent whose child was coming into the school quite late in the year. She mentioned that seeing her daughter’s name on the brochure made her very emotional at the thought of her daughter possibly attending our School!

 

 

One email that particularly stood out was from a prospective parent whose child was coming into the school quite late in the year. She mentioned that seeing her daughter’s name on the brochure made her very emotional at the thought of her daughter possibly attending our School!

The Savings

It initially doesn’t look like there is a saving, but in the long term the savings speak for themselves; less print, less wastage and cheaper updates. That’s because every time we want to update the brochure with new relevant information, we simply hand this to Unify and they alter the content. So it is about changing your mind-set from a full brochure to individual pages of content that can be updated anytime.

Before Unify our approach was generic but now we have set up the system it is so simple to email and post tailored content; this makes us stand out against other Schools.

Increased interest

Our personalised, emailed PDFs have prompted dialogue and questions which the school has never seen before.

So simple and straightforward

Once set up, the process of customisation is incredibly intuitive.

No more wasted of stock

The eternal issue of being overstocked and out of date has been eliminated.

A Win Win

Being more marketing orientated has actually saved us money.

What would you say to someone who is thinking of working with Unify?

Personally, I think the hardest part is making the decision to say we’re going to do this. Before Unify our approach was generic but now we have set up the system it is so simple to email and post tailored content; this makes us stand out against other Schools. In the end, even though it took some time to put everything together, the time we are saving and responses we are seeing has made everything completely worth it.

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