Surrey County Council
Our research provided SCC with the insight that the tone of voice of prior publications was very preachy; readers didn’t engage because they felt the magazines talked at them rather than with them. There was no opportunity for the reader to have a voice. Readers valued a human connection, and the old-style magazines just didn’t have this. We recommended a content strategy that included insights, success stories and real life advice from the early years’ practitioners and the parents themselves; person to person connections, the opportunity for readers to shape and influence each magazine and a warm, informal tone that would gain credibility and attract a wider readership.
The re-style reflected the warm, more informal and engaging tone and readership grew: SCC had to reprint to satisfy audience demand. The magazines were so overwhelmingly received that the CEO of SCC praised Preface and the Early Years Team for turning the magazines around. We’ve designed each edition since then and we’ve commissioned a fantastic illustrator to take the magazines to a new level of engagement. As a result of the great feedback and trust in us, we’ve been commissioned to design SCC’s Ezines too.
Surrey County Council produces two magazines three times a year – Way Ahead and Parents’ Pages – for childcare practitioners and Surrey parents respectively. When the readership for both declined SCC realised that valuable information wasn’t getting through, and that they were not making the best of public funding. We competed against four other agencies to relaunch the new-look magazines, and we won for two reasons. One, we researched. And researched. And researched some more. We spoke to early years’ practitioners and parents.
We checked out the competitor publications. We studied what visuals worked with the target audience. Two, we created a very attractive design.
Our research provided SCC with the insight that the tone of voice of prior publications was very preachy; readers didn’t engage because they felt the magazines talked at them rather than with them. There was no opportunity for the reader to have a voice. Readers valued a human connection, and the old-style magazines just didn’t have this. We recommended a content strategy that included insights, success stories and real life advice from the early years’ practitioners and the parents themselves; person to person connections, the opportunity for readers to shape and influence each magazine and a warm, informal tone that would gain credibility and attract a wider readership.
The re-style reflected the warm, more informal and engaging tone and readership grew: SCC had to reprint to satisfy audience demand. The magazines were so overwhelmingly received that the CEO of SCC praised Preface and the Early Years Team for turning the magazines around. We’ve designed each edition since then and we’ve commissioned a fantastic illustrator to take the magazines to a new level of engagement. As a result of the great feedback and trust in us, we’ve been commissioned to design SCC’s Ezines too.
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