Your Guide To Promotional Products For UK Schools & Students

Now, we don’t want to stress you out as we’re sure it felt like only a week ago that you were in WHSmith trying to justify to your child why they don’t need 16 fluffy notebooks and a pack of felt tips costing more than your mortgage but… here we are! The back-to-school season is right around the corner as we near September, and it seems that almost as soon as school is over, parents are preparing to send their kids back. This back-to-school season is the second-biggest shopping season of the year, and in the US alone it accounts to $27 billion in sales and touches 29 million households (Deloitte). We thought we would take a look at some of the current back-to-school trends of 2017, as well as considering what the back-to-school market is and how you can best approach it.

Who Is The Back-To-School Market?

Companies have a variety of target markets for their products, and one very common market is the back-to-school group. There are 110,000 more pupils in the school system than in January 2016 according to the UK Department for Education. The same report shares that there are a total of 8.67 million pupils in all schools in England, and this number has been growing every year since 2009. Of course, the main target of back-to-school marketing is the student, but this consumer audience can also include parents, teachers, young students (who have an influence on parent spending) and adult students.

Why Do Teachers Matter?

You may not realise it, but teachers have untapped spending power; they are in need of constant classroom supplies as well as other purchasing needs. With more and more cuts on education spending, it is likely that teachers will be spending a lot of their own money on supplies, therefore, they are one consumer audience you should not be forgetting. Consider a few targeted advertisements geared towards teachers alone, as well as the adverts for students. Keep the data you receive from teachers separate from your back-to-school audience data so that in the future you can see how to effectively target the teacher audience.

When Should You Start?

Most companies have actually already started their back-to-school marketing, and from some of the statistics we have seen we can understand why! Google showed that before consumers actually shop, they search. The term “back-to-school” grew in search interest 48% in 2015, and it’s still on the rise as well as trending earlier and earlier. Google also showed that 80% of back-to-school shoppers aim to complete their shopping in under a fortnight, and 70% of consumers aim to shop at three or fewer stores for their supplies, suggesting that the purchasing process is relatively quick. Therefore, you want your company to be early, present, and online during these critical months.

Browse our full range of promotional products for schools and contact us today for your bespoke pricing!