Luke Saunders is the Senior Business Development Manager at Britannica Education
Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc. has been the worldwide leader for encyclopaedic content for over 250 years and have 40 years of experience in pioneering digital learning. Britannica Education is a division of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. which supports schools around the world with their online resources, offering a range of different platforms. Luke Saunders, senior business development manager at Britannica Education, explains the influence of working with ISC Research to accelerate its international growth.
Keeping track of new international schools opening
Luke outlined that “the international school market is so important to the business and how we grow”. “For us, the priority is keeping on top of any new schools that open and making sure that we are a platform that they are aware of. That’s where we have used ISC Outreach in the past and are using it daily to see the future schools, the schools that are active, and any of those areas that we may not have reached out to before, where there is a gap for us to support.”
Contact data for a personalised approach
“For me personally, I think the best thing about ISC Outreach is the data that you have, the depth of data you have for these top international schools, and the fact that it’s up to date.” To expand in his discussion of how reliable ISC Outreach is, Luke said “We always want to make sure that the data is up to date, which I know ISC Research are doing a great job of, but also the right people.”
“In the international schools market, teachers are changing roles all the time. The negative for us is that, for some schools, we are often not told that the director or our main contact has left. So having ISC Research data where there is often between 10 to 20 contacts [listed for each school] gives us confidence that, if someone did leave and we weren’t aware, we’ve got that data to fall back on and find someone else to contact again, bridge that gap, and make sure that they continue to use our resources effectively.”
“We are very happy with the data, and we have used it effectively in all of our campaigns.” Luke outlined how ISC Outreach is “pretty much our bread and butter for data.”
“With ISC Outreach the school data is great, but what we always look at is the calendar and the report functions. The reports are great, because we can’t always keep up to date with all the current trends in the market or anything that may be of use to us and an opportunity for us to follow on. So, whenever we are looking at the reports, we can see the different data changes where we can maybe help other schools in certain countries or territories.”
Digital features to support in-person interactions
“I think what’s nice with ISC Outreach, the calendar is a lot more streamlined to some more key events or exhibitions where we feel that we could offer our support to the event and also support the schools and educators that attend. So other than the actual physical school data within the map zone, or the school data section, I think the reports and the calendar are very useful for us: we’re always keeping an eye on those tabs.”
Luke mentioned how the map function on ISC Outreach provides great value, assisting Britannica Education with identifying key markets. “I love the map. Whenever I’m planning a trip somewhere, I’ll just go into a country and see what school was within a five-mile radius, for example. It’s helpful for us because we have customers in the international school business within these different areas. So, then we’re often able to name drop some of the international schools we work with currently to help encourage other schools in that community to join.”
Luke emphasised how confidence in the data provided by ISC Research is “something we rely on in the background whilst we are doing the face-to-face interactions and trying to sell what we have with a smile on our face.” Having worked with ISC Research for over four years now, Britannica Education has had great success in contacting schools and establishing relationships within the market. To develop new relationships with schools and cement existing relationships further, Britannica Education continue to embrace opportunities and are sponsoring the 2023 Digital Technology in Learning Award for the International School Awards.
