Encyclopaedia Britannica publish an award-winning range of curriculum-correlated digital products and resources, supporting teachers to help their students reach their true potential.

Britannica came to us with a challenge. They had been using a third party to set up sales appointments for their three reps, but these had proven to be both low volume and low quality. The Britannica reps needed appointments with a school’s senior leadership team in order to make a profitable license sale of their digital resources.

They asked us to help them to improve their lead generation and sales appointment process, as well as to design and write a series of sequential, branded emails whose call to action would be a request for a sales demonstration.

We adopted a three-stage approach. First, we segmented Britannica’s target audience, using geographical criteria, as well as the school’s financial profile (pupil premium). The result was a prospect list of warm leads who were most likely to be receptive to what Britannica offers.

We sent a series of personalised emails to School Librarians, Senior Leadership Teams, Heads of Departments and Heads of Curriculum at these schools, and followed up by telephone anyone who clicked through from an email to learn more about the relevant resources.

We created and embedded a web demonstration request form into the emails, and forwarded these automatically to Britannica. By the end of the initial campaign we had secured good quality web demonstrations and physical appointments with senior leaders at 45 schools. As a result Britannica made 7 sales, with 17 still currently active in the sales pipeline. 

We held a review with Britannica in August 2015 and we are delighted to be asked to continue delivering marketing and appointment making services for the new school year. In addition to securing quality appointments for the UK sales force, Britannica have also asked us to complete a trial for one of their key international markets.