hamilton house
public relations agency

The benefits to companies that sell to schools of having a "Show School" are huge.

Your advertising is immediately differentiated from that of your competitors - which is one of the prime ways of enhancing response rates in your advertising.  As a result you sell more.

How it works

Imagine you sell storage equipment that is used in the classroom.  You might buy it in from a manufacturer who, as part of the deal, supplies you with publicity photos.  

But those photos are just pictures of the equipment - not the equipment being used by children.  What's more, you know that your competitors also have the same pictures of the same equipment in their catalogues.  Everyone's advertising looks the same.  How does the school choose you as a supplier rather than someone else?

Or imagine you have a unique product - such as an interactive whiteboard program.   You might be illustrating it with screen shots in your catalogue - exactly as your competitors do.  But imagine you could have photos of the program in use in a classroom.  The picture would be more dramatic and much more likely to interest and excite teachers.  And it would be different from the advertising of your competitors.

It can also work with a service.  Suppose you provide a cashless catering facility - you can have photos of the children moving through the checkout, with comments from children, staff, administrators and parents on how much better this approach really is.

In each case, these photos, along with comments from supportive and enthusiastic teachers, can be arranged through having a Show School, a school that will not only allow you to take photos and gain comments from teachers and children, but will welcome you back when you have other products to promote.

In what follows we look in detail at how setting up a Show school can work, how you could use this concept, and how you can get everything arranged:

Initial invitation: 
The way one writes to the school and puts the offer is important - the language of the letter can make a huge impact on the way in which the school responds.  One normally writes to a number of schools to invite them to participate, in order to open the negotiations, and then selects the most promising offer, holding the others in reserve in case matters do not work out.

The offer: 
In return for allowing you into the school to take your photos and talk to staff, you give the school something.  In an ideal world you give the school the product that you want to advertise.  In other words you take it into the school, do the photo shoot, and then allow the school to keep it.  

For example, if you have some chairs for use in the classroom these are used in the photo shoot and then left with the school as a free gift.  As part of the deal, you are able to return to the school later and ask teachers for their views having had these chairs in the room for some time.

The photos: 
As part of the arrangement, photos of children using your equipment are taken.  You then also allow the school to have copies of the photos for use on their website and/or in the prospectus.  For many schools this is as much of a benefit as the possession of the equipment.  All you ask is an acknowledgement in each case that the pictures are yours. 

Working with parents: 
A small minority of parents can be nervous about pictures of their children appearing in advertisements.  But the number is small - and the reaction of parents depends very much on how the matter is put to them.   For this reason help should be given to the school to ensure that full explanations are given to parents and permissions obtained.  Parents can normally see the benefit of the whole process in terms of the school - and hence their children.

In many cases however parents are very supportive of projects like this, and so you can now use parental comments in subsequent publicity.

Using the results: 
A quick review of the direct mail sent to schools will reveal that most advertisements for products in schools contain photos that either omit children, or have them in very false positions - one or two children in isolation around the equipment.  (Quite often these are the children of the retailer - a ploy used so often that it is immediately apparent to most teachers that that is who is being used.)   But as soon as you publish professional photos of your equipment in use in a real live situation you will find a significant change in the way your advertisements are perceived.  The result is more sales.

Teacher to teacher: 
Teachers and managers talk to each other, and most do not mind being asked by colleagues about a product that they have put their name to.   Which means that in advertisements to schools you can always refer back to the show school and know that the teachers there will speak favourably about your product.  Most school managers adore positive publicity about their school.

Maintaining contact, being ready for the next promotion: 
It is important to stay in touch with the school, making sure that the school is happy with the equipment, getting reactions and thoughts from staff and parents, and using the best comments for future promotions.  In this way, you will get real insights into what teachers think, and have a school to turn to when you launch the next product.

Getting it all done:  
Of course you can handle all this yourself - setting up the deal with the school, taking the photos, working with parents, maintaining contact with the school, and so on, but there really is a lot of work here.  The benefits of doing it are huge, which means it is worth investing in the work, and this is why most companies that seek a show school or two use an outside agency to handle this.  

If you would like to talk to the Hamilton House Agency about handling this type of work, please do call 01536 399 000.  We can do this as part of an ongoing PR arrangement, or as a one-off project.