Why is it that the skills that are used to sell things are rarely taught in schools?

Who at school learns how to write something that is quirky, or is in the form of an open question?  Indeed who at school learns what an “open” question actually is?

Come to that, no one that I have met has ever debated at school why a message of over three words written in red rarely gets read.  Or why green on white on a screen is not a good idea.

Or, in more general terms, the best online techniques for persuading people to buy things. Which is interesting because most of the biggest companies in the world actually focus on getting people to read stuff and buy things.

And that last part is particularly interesting because persuading people to read stuff is also step one towards persuading people to give up their personal information which, we have all now learned, is quite valuable when it comes to selling more things and fixing elections.

To my mind the lack of teaching these specifics is both a great disadvantage and a great advantage. A disadvantage to people who place email and website adverts and assume that how other people do it is what one should copy.  Because basically most adverts get it wrong, so people are copying something that doesn’t work very well.

But it is an advantage because it means that many people who use email and internet for advertising don’t put their best foot (or is that their best fingers?) forward, and so undersell their product or service.

There are two ways around this. One is that you can use the “Four email” campaign and vary your email each time in order to see which approach works best. That is rather helpful at the moment because if you start emailing in September we’ll give you a free email in August as well, for when the teachers return to prepare for the new term.

The second is that if you want our comments on your advert or webpage before you book in the email, we’ll give you a written report for free, not just on how we think it might be changed for the better, but also why.

Of course, you don’t have to do what we say, but some people find these notes quite helpful. One lady reported a tenfold increase in replies last year.

The 4-Email campaign to secondary, nursery, or special schools costs just £53.75 each email, the primary campaign costs £72.75 each – in both cases with an August email free.

The price includes transmission of the email via a validated UK based server to teachers’ personal email addresses, plus the provision of a detailed account of how many emails were opened and how many people clicked through to your website.

And, if you don’t get the number of sales you expected, we’ll look at the whole process, make our recommendations, and then when you are ready with any changes you want to make, we’ll do it again, for free.

There’s much more information on the 4-Email campaigns on our website here. Or, you can call us on 01604 880 927 or email Stephen@schools.co.uk

The schools marketing website

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