ICT Email Campiagn

Background

Recruitment to ICT initial teacher training courses (ITT) is now one of the single greatest recruitment challenges faced by the TDA. The TDA needed to raise the appeal of ICT and position it as one of the most exciting and evolving subjects you can teach. One common misconception about teaching ICT is that there's a lack of interaction with the children and you're stuck in front of the computer all day. In fact, it's very much the opposite. ICT as a subject promotes communication, collaboration and expression so teaching the subject means interacting with the children and using different applications to demonstrate how ICT can impact the world around us.

Idea

Draftfcb London felt that if they could actually have children in school design an email campaign themselves it would enable them to demonstrate the types of projects that an ICT teacher might be involved in. They partnered with Grey Court School in Richmond, London and briefed one of their Year 9 classes to design and develop their own email marketing campaign to promote ICT teaching. The students were taught how to design and produce an html email by the agency's digital creative team. They were also given a copywriting lesson to create the email's tag line, responding to the statement 'Why I like ICT'.

The children were filmed whilst they were in the process of planning and designing their email. The winning email was selected for its creative and professional use of Photoshop, and their inspirational quote of why they like ICT. The winners went to the agency offices to learn about and assist with the final stages of production, and they even did their own edit of the video to take home. The final edit of the video was incorporated into the email that was broadcast to prospects so that they could see for themselves how exciting it is to teach ICT today.

Results

The email delivered an excellent enquiry click through rate of 44%. Of those who responded an impressive 48% went on to make an application to train to teach ICT, and 33% watched the video. The ICT email campaign also achieved national coverage in the Daily Express with a half page feature that put teaching ICT in the spotlight. Both the teachers and pupils involved were able to comment on how rewarding they find ICT and how much they both learnt during the project.

Target Audience

Most prospects have a degree that allows them to teach ICT. This includes degrees such as Computer Science, ICT and Information Technology. However some prospects had expressed an interest in teaching ICT but didn't have any official ICT qualifications. Instead their interest will have developed from their experience in the real world; it could be anything from managing IT projects to designing and building a database. This audience needed to be reassured that if they have any concerns about their subject knowledge, the training available on the PGCE course is intensive and can be tailored to cover areas of weakness.

Size

The email was initially sent out to 2,140 prospects. It is now being rolled out to all new prospects who register an interest in teaching ICT.

Our Thoughts

While creative directors have come and gone at Draft FCB, the teams have quietly been getting on and doing consistently praiseworthy work for the Training and Development Agency for Schools. Take this pack. It’s a virtuous circle, getting a group of children to create the e-mail that will entice in new teachers because they’ll be working with children who want to learn. Full marks.