Wickford C of E School
Wickford Church of England School is an outstanding infant school with an amazing curriculum and a phenomenal reputation. 100% of their parents would recommend the school to other families.
Despite the school’s excellent reputation, the impact of falling pupil numbers more generally in the area had started to take its toll. Applications were on a downward trend and not all places were filled each year. The school wanted to reverse this trend and so called on us to help.
“Since working with The Influence Crowd we have gone from a shrinking pupil roll to a full intake.”Annie Bristow
We know that when it comes to promoting a school, the best way to engage with parents is to focus on the wants and needs of their child. So, our first task was to create some engaging messaging on the great things that Wickford has to offer. This included highlighting the small class sizes, guaranteed wraparound care for each pupil and amazing school trips. We also needed to counter the misconception that the school was only for practicing Christians as it welcomes children of all faiths.
We decided that an advertising campaign across social media channels would provide the quick results needed and be the most efficient way to maximise the school’s budget.
We designed and launched a series of targeted digital ads across Facebook, Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) to reach parents and encourage them to book a visit to the school.
We began to see results very early on with parents signing up to come and view the school.
Bookings for visits were five times higher than the previous year and 40 parents ultimately selected Wickford as their first choice during the primary school application process.
Scroll down for the full results and impact of this campaign 👇
5-fold increase in school visit bookings – up from 11 to 57
School achieved full capacity of pupils in reception
Adverts seen by target audience over 774,000 times, plus 5,000 visits to the school's landing page
Steady increase of new users in web traffic and general awareness raised, resulting in more parents considering Wickford C of E School.
