Return to Case Studies main page

PARTNERS IN CHANGE: WORKING WITH THE TTA

The TTA’s role is to fund and regulate over 200 teacher training providers in England and Wales. Its stakeholder group is large and complex and on-going communications with these organisations is a key and important role of the TTA. Consequently their data management strategy is a critical part of sustaining and managing effective stakeholder relations. This case study explores how Shamrock Marketing is working with the TTA to help it develop, refine and implement targeted communications strategies.

Yvette Tomlinson, Head of marketing and publishing services has embarked on a long-term change management initiative within the TTA that will drive new and more effective ways of communicating with stakeholders.

She said “The basis of our communication strategy is to ensure that the right people are getting the right information at the right time. We are trying to reduce the amount of information sent to providers our providers. We want to be much more targeted, understand their needs and then define effective programmes to meet them”.

At the heart of this communication strategy is the TTA’s database, an evolving tool, which will ultimately be rolled out across the whole organisation and integrated into day to day activity.

Yvette views the development of the database as a long-term project where the benefits for the organisation and key stakeholders will evolve over time. “I want to grow the database into something that is a real information system, something that teams can use to make their relationships much more effective.

“Ultimately the database will contain details on all stakeholder organisations and our key contacts in these organisations. It will hold information such as, who last went to see them and information about current news stories or press activity. Information about what information our stakeholders want and what we have sent to them will help us give a better, more streamlined service. This will really help us to manage relationships more effectively and to really add value to those relationships”.

Shamrock and the TTA started working together 12 months ago. In that time there have already been significant changes in the way the TTA communicates with its target audiences and some real tangible benefits.

“In a year we have come from the position of each policy team holding their own lists for mailing purposes. This clearly impacted on the effectiveness of the TTA’s communication with stakeholders. Each team would have contacts at these bodies and would update them as and when information was provided, but there was no mechanism for informing sharing”.

One year into the project the benefits are clear already. “By centralising our database management we initially were able to remove substantial duplication and improve accuracy. These are inevitable benefits of centralisation but the real improvements have come in working with Shamrock strategically on our long term objectives and building a database that supports these. This has been a truly valuable service in addition to the day to day data management”.

In the last year The TTA and Shamrock have worked closely together to define the key stakeholder audiences through a process of interviews and feedback sessions with TTA team members. Detailed audits of data held by the teams and the way in which the data was used and maintained were all taken into consideration before a detailed audience map was created. Once the map was in place it was possible to identify where there were gaps and go and fill them. This is where Shamrock’s Research Team was particularly effective.

“The TTA used to send out thousands of copies of information to librarians at a significant cost each month” says Hilary Warren, Shamrock Marketing’s Managing Director, “We were able to identify that there was a nominated contact in each Local Authority responsible for disseminating information to that county’s libraries. We reduced that particular audience distribution list from thousands to 42 in one go”.

And there have been many other instances of working with the TTA to identify more effective ways of reaching their key audiences that also save money.

However understanding the prevailing culture in an organisation is a very important part of any marketing database and Yvette used all her experience gained at the Department of Health in this respect. See stressed that avoiding marketing jargon is important. “I was careful not to talk about a marketing database, as this is off-putting to people in Public sector related industries, it is better initially to start by talking about running their existing campaigns more effectively. You can then gently introduce people to new ways of working and win their enthusiasm demonstrating the value”

Shamrock and the TTA work very closely together in the mutual support of the long-terms aims of the organisation. “That is the great thing, Shamrock lead us. They work very closely with our teams at an operational level, they look at the details of data and mailings but they also work with directors and senior managers to learn as much about the strategy and forthcoming business plan so that we can make sure that the database is aligned with their future needs. They are very proactive”.

A real demonstration of this partnership approach is their ability to identify real, practical solutions. “The work Shamrock undertook on one of our audiences, The British Council, really demonstrates how they have worked to add value. We had some of the Council offices on the database but not all. Shamrock’s view wasn’t just that we should either have them all or none, they went the extra mile by agreeing with the British Council in London to supply information that would then go in the diplomatic bags to all British Council offices. This has achieved fantastic savings for the TTA but has also enabled us to communicate with this target audience in the way they are used to being communicated with”.

Developments are on going. “Eighteen months down the line I want to be able to dispel some of the myths that we have about how we communicate with stakeholders” concludes Tomlinson, “I want to provide real time information about all the communications we have with our stakeholders through all available channels. We already have an excellent high profile advertising programme; I want our direct outbound communications programme to equal that in terms of impact and prestige”.

Return to Case Studies main page