Guildford, Farnham and Merrist Wood Colleges now form part of the Activate Learning collective, however between 2016 and 2019 we partnered with the three institutions to help drive attendance to their open days and admissions. The colleges offer more than 100 courses ranging from business and tourism to beauty therapy, as well as animal care and agriculture.
The colleges were experiencing low interest in prospective students, so the aim of the campaign was to get in front of people who may be looking to pursue higher education, providing them with more information around the benefits of higher education and encouraging them to sign up for the colleges’ open days.
Each campaign had two key audiences – parents who would usually have a role in decision making over their child’s future and teenagers who would be potentially looking to higher education after leaving school.
We implemented a multi-channel campaign using organic social media and digital advertising to target the two key audiences. The organic social media focused on educating the audience, offering information about the college and its courses, through engaging video content. It also included updates on upcoming open events. The Guildford and Farnham College campaigns were based on locality, however for the Merrist Wood College campaign we targeted individuals interested in land-based subjects such as animal care, horticulture and agriculture.
Leveraging platforms such as Facebook, Instagram (Meta), YouTube in-stream ads and Google Search, we structured our campaigns with tailored lead funnels. In addition to the primary campaign promoting the Colleges’ Open Days, we also launched ad hoc initiatives including the ‘It’s Not Too Late to Apply’ campaign, aimed at encouraging students who were undecided to register before the application deadline.
The key aims of the campaign were to share the key benefits of the colleges and encourage prospective students to sign up for the open days. The campaigns were hugely successful and helped generate an impressive 1000s of leads for the colleges’ open days, which were passed on to the respective admissions team.
