Department for Education
With powerful market insight and targeted content, the Department for Education transformed perceptions of a career in teaching
Changing the subject
In 2018, the Education Policy Institute reported that England’s schools are facing a “severe shortage” of teachers. Based on pupil projections, TES, the magazine for teachers, calculated that by 2024 recruitment needs to increase by 22.5%.
By engaging with the youth education market early, and maintaining that relationship across the student life cycle, the Department for Education can begin to influence students and make teaching a top career choice.
With over 10 million monthly users, aged 14 to 24, looking to The Student Room for guidance about their future, we’re the natural place for the Department for Education to start connecting authentically with the teachers of tomorrow.
“The Student Room understands what their audience likes, and knows how to communicate with them. Their short surveys and polls were well received and had great response rates, allowing us to tailor our activity to engaged audience groups.”
– Assistant Campaigns Manager, The Department for Education
How The Student Room helped the Department for Education achieve its goal
With exclusive access to the largest online community of students in the UK, The Student Room was able to provide the Department for Education with the valuable insights it needed to power a marketing campaign capable of transforming perceptions.
Our expert team created a bespoke online survey, as well as a series of polls, to help the Department for Education learn about young people’s attitudes towards teaching. With unrivalled access to their target audience, we were able to deliver the insights the Department for Education required to understand students and power a strong content campaign.
“They delivered content that was professional, informative, thought-provoking and fun. They also made the working relationship very easy. The interactive elements of the partnership show The Student Room’s ability to use technology that enhances content and messages”
– Assistant Campaigns Manager, the Department for Education.
Working with the Department for Education to combat core misconceptions about teaching, our editorial team created three compelling pieces of content, including an interactive quiz, to challenge the negativity surrounding the profession.
Leveraging unrivalled first-party data with real-time market insight, The Student Room used targeted display media and email to promote the content and survey to three key audience segments: students interested in teaching, students interested in social change, and students with relevant subject interests.
“Our campaign with The Student Room gave us a voice on a trusted and relevant platform. Their team were always willing and eager to tackle the challenge of marketing teacher recruitment and always full of unique and interesting ideas for potential content. We were extremely pleased with the outcome of our main aim – achieving a staggering increase in perception change”
– Assistant Campaigns Manager, the Department for Education.
By combining powerful market insight with content designed to educate and inform its target audience, the Department for Education was able to change student perceptions and inspire the next generation of teachers.