Prospectuses & DVDs

Making your promotional material stand out  

There are thousands of printers / designers in the UK – so why use us, when we are neither a printer or a designer?

To put it in a nutshell, we advise thousands of parents on school choice – so we know what they are looking for. Schools spend thousands of £s on brochures. Many of them look very glossy and pretty.

But,

• Do they really address what the parent wants to see and read?
• Do they make the school stand out from the inevitable 3+ other prospectuses the parent has collected?
• Do they convey the school ethos and USPs in a differentiated way?
• Was the school ripped off on the printing?
• Does the design override the message?

Prospectuses  

You can retain us in any of 6 ways

1. We manage the whole project – design, copy, imagery and print outsourcing
2. We aid you in design, copy, images and print without project management.
3. We appoint and manage a photographer.
4. We write your copy.
5. We give an overview on your own copy.
6. We manage the printer appointment.

Why should you retain us for one or more of these tasks?

We have produced the “best” school brochure in the UK - named an expensive hardback prospectus for Hurtwood House – specifically designed to convey the same marketing messages as an expensive luxury car such as a Ferrari.

Of course, not everyone wants an expensive Ferrari! We also do rather less ambitious prep school prospectuses – but still colourful and glossy. If a school has a full time marketing manager, then our role is going to be one of innovative ideas contributor.

We do not claim to be designers, but we have supplied the spec and ideas for all of our own websites and school prospectus projects and feel they are superior to those produced by independent designers.

Imagery is vital and on most occasions we recommend a new photographer. We can recommend photographers, supply the brief and manage the photographer.

We write a huge amount of copy for schools, because we know what parents want to see and we also know how to make it look different.

We work with certain preferred printers or we can work with your school printer or we can manage a tender process. On a recent project we obtained a range of quotes from £6,900 to £23,000 for the same specification prospectus – and we recommended the second cheapest quote because we wanted run-ons to be competitively priced as well.

DVDs  

We are in the electronic age, but are still some way from hard copy disappearing. However, more than 50% of parents use websites to find or validate schools. Therefore most will have a computer with integrated DVD player – are you making the most of that opportunity? Video has much greater potential to convey a school ethos, give a guided tour of a school and show examples of music, performing arts, art and sport.

Some schools have given a DVD project to their sixth formers or a teacher with variable results. As an example of what their pupils can do, that can be quite interesting, but it is normally unsuitable as a professional way of conveying an effective impression of a school. We think that internally produced DVDs should normally be restricted to “supplementing” another initiative e.g let the students film their theatre performance. Aside from giving the DVD to existing parents (who then show other parents – viral marketing), it provides a good image of the school’s performing arts capability for a prospective parent specifically interested in performing arts for their child.

School DVDs should be professionally produced. There is a temptation to think a DVD is a replacement prospectus, when it should really supplement the prospectus – there is nothing to stop you putting the static prospectus on the same DVD. We believe a DVD is most useful at conveying certain school features which video and sound surpass a static soundless picture. Those include:

1. A “warm” welcome from the Head, who also explains effectively his vision for the school with convincing reasons why it’s better than others i.e differentiated.
2. A vox pop talking heads of pupils giving the opinions of the school. Pupils can sell a school far better than any teacher.
3. Moving subjects like sports or performing arts are perfect subjects
4. If a school has boarding, there is no more effective way of illustrating the facilities aided by real commentaries from boarders.

Just like a website, a DVD must have a powerful call to action – the parent must be persuaded to visit the school – so there has to be a certain psychology to the DVD program.

The cost of filming DVDs has fallen dramatically and they can be done relatively inexpensively. You can benefit from our expertise in selecting an experienced film crew, specifying the content, scripting of prepared presentations and management of the film company.

We will give you a DVD which is effective, differentiated and value for money.