Blackpool and the Fylde College

Engaging with school leavers, students and parents

Blackpool and The Fylde College is a provider of further and higher education. It ranks in the top three pecent of further education colleges in England.

It offers a huge range of courses at campus locations and caters for everyone from school leavers to adult learners.

The college works closely with industry to co-create technical and professional education and training, to develop the skills, knowledge and attributes needed to drive business forward.

GCSE results day is a major event in the college’s calendar and an important time to attract new students and encourage them to take the next step in their learning journey.

Enrolments in person

We created a vibrant school leaver recruitment campaign to capture the attention of teenagers and their parents.

We produced a series of eye-catching designs that focused on Blackpool and The Fylde College’s unique selling points and created messaging that was targeted around specific times – before, during and after GCSE results day.

We launched a tactical marketing campaign including OOH digital six sheets, football stadium advertising, an advertising van and social media.

On results day we organised fun, interactive activities including a giant deckchair and personalised T-shirt printing.

Thinking outside the Zoom box

Enrolment day is an exciting time when students collect their results and sign up for the next stage of their educational journey. When face-to-face enrolments were no longer possible because of the pandemic, the college needed to promote virtual events.

Using the Google and Bing display networks, plus Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat, we targeted Year 11s and their parents in key postcodes with ads promoting the college, courses as well as the new T-Level qualifications.

We set clear goals and tracked engagement, landing page visits and conversations. We also booked selected out-of-home sites and an advertising van.

ICG’s efforts reached an impressive audience reaching over 175,000 on social media leading to over 1,000 ad conversions; PPC gained over 150,000 impressions and converted to almost 2,000 actions.

“The marketing campaign was a great success despite the absence of a face-to-face enrolment event.”

Marketing, Blackpool and the Fylde College

PPC and Digital Marketing

We delivered Google Adwords, programmatic and paid social media campaigns across the school year to promote courses at key times to specific audiences.

Campaigns focused on school leavers, T Levels, apprenticeships, open days, virtual learning and higher education courses.

We also delivered cross college event campaigns to engage with students at multiple campus sites, maxmising the use of Snapchat.

We managed bid adjustments, including device, demographics, scheduling, re-marketing setup, quality scores, keywords and location reviews.

Wall graphics to inspire

Our design team helped transform a series of wide open spaces for the college’s engineering, automotive and electronics students.

We were tasked with creating wall graphics to brighten up blank classroom walls with inspirational and informative content.

We blended photography with illustrations based on relevant symbols and iconography such as circuitory and electronics.

Information on the appropriate PPE to wear was also included to remind students about the importance of safety.