Hunter Valley Grammar School (HVGS): 2018 Educate Plus Award Winner: Marketing & Communications Online In 2018, HVGS launched an innovative new Rural Scholarships Program.This scholarship aimed at providing rural students with an opportunity to finish their HSC years at HVGS, while living with a homestay family. Launching a brand-new scholarship program has the potential to draw criticism from full-fee paying parents. From the beginning it was clear that HVGS was offering something amazing and people needed to care about it. We knew the best way forward was through a compelling storytelling campaign which evoked an emotional connection to the program. Our campaign required fresh new thinking and a strategic digital approach. It was important for this campaign to divert from literal marketing tactics and find the story that would speak to both school families who we wanted to sign on as homestay parents, and to rural scholars we wanted to recruit to the program. As it happened, we found our story very close to home. Personal stories speak volumes so our Principal, Paul Teys, became the spokesperson for the campaign. His story about growing up in the bush and the requirement for his parents to move so he could access quality education, resonated with our audiences. The story became the hero - rather than the program. Three videos were made: . . A long video with Paul’s story and vision for the program . . A short video to appeal to prospective homestay families . . A second short video to target rural families. The longer video was launched to the school community via a branded eDM. A short video targeted this same group via a strategic social media campaign. The video drove people to a landing page to read more. New digital assets integrated the campaign across all digital platforms and channels. Custom audiences on social media delivered the second shorter video to prospective rural scholars and a Facebook pixel retargeted warm leads with the encouragement to find out more. Google Adwords advertisements ran in tandem with the Facebook campaign. The tagline ‘Be part of something bigger’ was developed to communicate that this was an opportunity for everyone. Almost immediately, we received responses from school families and teachers interested in hosting a rural student and shortly thereafter we started to receive the first signs of interest from prospective rural scholars. This campaign has not been without challenge. Marketing HVGS in an area outside our catchment and typical target market is difficult. Therefore, the marketing spend to attract rural students was higher than anticipated. Thankfully, this was offset by the effectiveness of the homestay family recruitment phase, which resulted in lower than expected marketing spend. However, the power of our story and the strategic delivery of that story to our audiences, has proved successful. The videos have been viewed for an incredible 3,431 minutes and social media engagement increased by 280%. We achieved our objective – we attracted our homestay families and interest from rural scholars. This campaign heralded in a new era of video storytelling for HVGS and made people care about something they may not have otherwise. Feedback from the school and broader community has been incredible.     The videos can be viewed on YouTube, search HVGS. DIONNE MOLINA MARKETING MANAGER HUNTER VALLEY GRAMMAR SCHOOL Rural Scholarships Be part of something bigger FACE 2 FACE MAGAZINE 5 2