The Promotion Company has been working with Wilberforce Sixth Form College for a number of years, supporting their marketing activity by supplying promotional merchandise aimed at school students, making a decision about their next steps after secondary school.
The target audience for Wilberforce is prospective students – Y11 and to some extent Y10 students in Hull and the surrounding area. The College also needs to raise awareness of its brand, types of courses and success stories amongst parents, careers advisers and other influencers.
Hazel Scott is the Marketing and Student Recruitment Manager at Wilberforce Sixth Form College. She says:
“Our message and USP is that we focus on career pathways. If a student has an idea of the career they are aiming for, we can create a study package from our range of courses to enable them to achieve that, whether it is straight after college, or via university. Connected to this is the work done by our Employer Engagement team with local and regional businesses – we want our reputation to open up work experience and career paths for our students, so it has been important to value them as stakeholders.”
“Finding suitable promotional products is usually a joint effort. Sometimes I’ll pick up the phone and ask for something straight-forward like t-shirts in a specific colour, printed with our logo on. Other times it can be “Joe, I’m thinking about a product that meets these criteria, or looks a bit like that, or comes in at a certain price” and our account manager, Joe Oldroyd will come back with a range of recommendations for us to consider.”
“These products help us to engage with our audience in many ways. We rebranded this year – everything from the building, the prospectus, the banner and flyers, etc. The products we have commissioned from TPC have been an additional layer to reinforce the new look and feel of the College’s brand. For example, the t-shirts we received for our Student Ambassadors – these give a relaxed yet corporate look, and the Ambassadors feel part of the Wilberforce workforce on those occasions.”
“Visitors and parents see our ‘brand’ in action as the students conduct tours and answer questions, and prospective students looking around the college and for interviews, see that this is something they could aim for. “
“We definitely use promotional products for brand awareness but our next order with TPC is to help reinforce our values and to deliver a strong message about recycling, which we promoted at Humber Street Sesh (again with t-shirts from TPC!). The team is sourcing pens made from recycled bottles with our new logo on and we will use these to promote the college, act as an aide memoire and, roll out our green credentials which link to our edible campus fruit and vegetable garden, our solar panels, woodland area etc. We want our target audience to buy into not just our academic excellence, but the fact that we want to look after the planet too.”
“The service from TPC has been nothing short of excellent. The price is competitive, the response is quick, and using a local company means that Joe can pop across and see us whenever we need anything. Totally professional, and they’re able to meet really short deadlines which I can only apologise for! We feel valued as a customer, and appreciate the friendly and non-pushy approach.”