Case study: 256% increase in event registrations | Nottingham Girls High School x Distinction

The challenge

Nottingham Girls' High School came to us with three challenges:

To break the stigmas around private schools and single sex education
To address the increased competition from the adjacent boys’ high school becoming co-ed, and
To reverse the falling numbers in student admissions

The results

Following a period of research and testing, we make various changes across their brand, website, messaging, and user journeys and built a multi-channel digital advertising strategy to increase registrations.

The senior school is now at full capacity and the open days are hitting the highest ever attendance numbers.

The most recent open day generated potential school fees in excess of £1.4m.

The full story

The brief

Nottingham Girls' High School came to us with three challenges:

To break the stigmas around private schools and single sex education
To address the increased competition from the adjacent boys’ high school becoming co-ed, and
To reverse the falling numbers in student admissions

The approach

We surveyed current parents and those that didn’t apply to understand how much the stigmas played a part in the final decision-making. This research fed into landing page designs and content that educated, informed and inspired prospective parents and their daughters. We launched paid social campaigns to target this audience at the right time and in the right place with personalised content.

Whilst advertising the school’s open days, the global pandemic hit, which meant all in-person events were cancelled and school applications dropped to an all time low. We quickly created online virtual school tours that took visitors on the same journey as the physical open days. As restrictions lifted, we built a multi-channel digital strategy to increase registrations for the in-person open days which could once again take place.