We began promoting our Summer 2020 term in March without the knowledge that we would need to go entirely online by May. By the end of March, we needed to edit our messages quickly to reflect that all classes would now be online and also to show consideration for how people may be feeling in the midst of this pandemic.
VIDEOS
We commissioned a series of short videos from 20 seconds to 1 minute long to assist in promoting the online Introductory Course with new content reflecting the new context. The impetus to create them was inspired by a video created by the UK school.
The videos we developed contain stock imagery – with time, social distancing and budget constraints, we couldn't film real students together. The videos were created by Darren Young of Young Creative, (a student in our Belfast branch).
SUCCESSFUL
The videos were played on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram in the 2 weeks prior to the beginning of term. They were seen by over 90,000 people on YouTube. The 5 ads had different text mentioning the words happiness, challenges and difficulty. Our most popular ad, with the most clicks is Are You Finding Life Difficult Right Now?.
You can view all videos here on our YouTube channel here
Summer has traditionally been our lowest student intake. This Summer 2020 term has been the most successful Summer term since 2003 in terms of numbers registering. 447 students have now signed up from all over Ireland for the Online Introductory Course. This compares with 340 in Summer 2019 and 42 in Summer 2018 Introductory Courses.