UK-based organization Role Models strives to educate children beyond society’s solely-academic standard. Founded in 2014, Role Models is rooted in the belief that life skills and character development are vital to the well-being and potential of every child.
Role Models offers life skills courses that aren’t typically included in a traditional school curriculum, and further promotes the happiness, academic success, and overall achievement of each child who enters their program.
Through sharing helpful and free information to parents who are looking to expand their child’s education, Role Models uses the power of email marketing to build a trusted, generous, and credible brand.
With Campaign Monitor email software, Role Models finds success with aesthetically pleasing emails and an analytics dashboard that highlights real-time insights and key takeaways. Plus, with an easy-to-use platform and a dash of marketing confidence, the team can quickly—and successfully—shift strategies, battling obstacles as serious as a global pandemic.
From one-off Outlook sends to buttoned-up campaigns
Before working with Campaign Monitor, the Role Models team was not largely focused on email marketing, and instead limited their email use to generic Outlook sends. However, with the introduction of Campaign Monitor as the brand’s first ESP, the team is now capable of drafting and achieving new and exciting goals for the organization.
With the help of Campaign Monitor, Role Models can now organize subscribers in one, easily-accessible place, create segments, and embed call-to-action buttons, all while designing aesthetically pleasing emails that are always on-brand. Plus, the analytics dashboard offers real-time insight that the team uses to mold future campaigns and strategies.
A strong brand presence that yields financial growth
When asked about Campaign Monitor and how the platform contributes to Role Models’ overall growth, Founder and Managing Director Hugo Shephard told us that email has become the organization’s most important channel.
“Email is the most direct access we have to our customers. Because with other channels, like social media, you’re never entirely sure how engaged your audience really is,” says Shephard.
Campaign Monitor enables Role Models to create a platform where they can share their story, provide additional resources for parents, and continue to reiterate what they stand for as an organization. And in doing so, the team builds strong brand awareness and lasting relationships, which ultimately leads to a sweet result: conversions and revenues.
Data that makes the difference
Using the analytics dashboard, the Role Models team can dig into specific insights, like one takeaway that revealed that their audience engages more with early morning sends.
The team can also look deeper into what regions of the world are engaging with their newsletter. And for a brand that is focused on establishing a global presence, these learnings proved crucial for their international strategy. For example, the team noticed significant engagement drop offs in the Middle Eastern region.
With a little digging, they were able to find that many Middle Eastern countries don’t directly rely on email as a primary channel for marketing communications. With this information, Role Models could move forward with a personalized strategy that better suited their Middle Eastern audience.
Turning challenges into triumphs
Before COVID-19 evolved into a global pandemic, Role Models focused on sending one newsletter per month, with in-person courses that typically ran during holiday seasons. However, with health regulations and social distancing in place, the team quickly shifted their strategy. The monthly newsletters turned into bi-weekly sends, while irregular, in-person classes evolved into weekly online courses.
In short, in just 2.5 months, Role Models ran 30 times the number of courses than they did in all of 2019. The result? A 24% increase in bookings (approximately £2,450 in revenue over two months) and a revolutionized strategy to build on.
Plus, online courses during such trying times helped to strengthen the relationship between the Role Models brand and their growing customer base.
In the future, when COVID-19 restrictions lessen, the team plans on continuing their in-person courses. However, with new knowledge that online courses can be successful, they will also offer virtual follow-up courses to build on the in-person experience.