The client

Manchester Islamic Educational Trust (MIET) comprises of three independent schools; two secondary and one preparatory, named Kassim Darwish (KD) Grammar School for Boys, Manchester Islamic High School for Girls and Manchester Muslim Prep School. The Trust is long-established and collectively provides an empowering, faith based education with the vision of developing a new generation of proud British Muslims, underpinned by their core values of Faith, Learning and Life.

The brief

Following an extensive selection process, MIET chose Creativeworld to support them in achieving an improved brand reputation to differentiate their schools from local competitors, boost student recruitment and ensure consistent external perceptions of all the multi academy trust’s schools. Our wealth of experience developing brand strategies for schools meant we were a perfect fit for MIET’s school marketing requirements.

Our solution

Creativeworld recognised the need to begin this project from a strategic standpoint to make certain that the Trust’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Board understood why a new brand direction was needed to achieve their goals. We know that clarity and active support from leaders is key to a successful education brand strategy implementation, so we worked with each of the school’s SLTs through individual discussions to make this happen.

Following this, we carried out a thorough school marketing audit including primary research via focus groups with the Board, staff, students and parents to attain feedback on current perceptions of the Trust, including the brand, core values, ethos and its future. Analysis of the research enabled us to determine the strategic direction needed and we developed a report of recommendations for presenting to the Board. This was centered around development of a school branding and marketing strategy, covering a re-brand and associated marketing elements, including digital marketing for schools solutions, as well as suggestions regarding an internal re-structure to ensure staff roles were aligned with this new strategic direction, from both an internal and external perspective.

MIET chose to implement all of our proposed recommendations, encompassing new brand development, brand guidelines and a communications toolkit, which we created with a focus upon the Trust’s core values of “Faith, Learning, Life”. Subsequently, in line with the new branding, for each school we designed, built and developed new school websites, school prospectuses (printed prospectus and digital interactive versions), school videos, internal and outdoor school signage, social media support and branding for schools, and delivered a student recruitment campaign.

As a result, MIET now has brand consistency across all three schools; they’ve since achieved over 3 times as many student applications for their previously under subscribed schools and overall, are now clearly showing their external stakeholders they are completely aligned in sharing the same values and strategic direction.

View our Education Spotlight to find out how we can help your school or multi academy trust with branding requirements, and like MIET, how you can take advantage of our range of education marketing services; from branding strategies for schools through to digital marketing for schools solutions, prospectus design, school website design, social media strategy for schools and education signage, or contact our expert education marketing team here.