A brand refresh and marketing plan for a teachers' union

What was our challenge?

As with many unions that have a strong membership base, NASUWT had not reviewed its position for many years. Our challenge was to explore what was working well and what could be better, before developing better ways of articulating NASUWT’s unique offer, then communicating with members through the channels they prefer.  

How did we approach the problem? 

As with any Agenda project, we started our work by researching the union’s priorities, existing evidence and the external landscape. We looked at:  

• Membership recruitment aims and priorities 

• Membership data to understand profiles by age, sector, roles and locations 

• Current subs, support and services on offer for all and segments of members 

• Competitor subs and offer 

• Existing brand narrative, look and feel 

• Current success of channels and activities in recruiting members 

• Member journey from non-membership to awareness, engagement, ask, application, join and onwards. 

We held interviews and workshops with staff and reps to dig deeper into what we were learning, and we worked closely with senior leaders to make sure we were heading in the right direction – including sharing any ‘quick wins’ to improve current activity that we found during the recruitment, join and onboarding processes. 

Taking the time to listen

We used our internal and external review to develop surveys for non-members, members and reps to help us find out in more detail:  

• What they value about NASUWT membership 

• What evergreen and emerging professional issues they face 

• What support and services they want 

• How they want their union to engage with decision-makers 

Using this insight, we brought clarity to: 

• How NASUWT should talk about itself to teachers and decision-makers 

• What professional support and services NASUWT could offer all members 

• What the union could offer each segment of membership, which varied depending on their role and their sector 

A refreshed brand  

We developed a brand key for NASUWT that outlined the union’s target membership, USP, offer, voice and vision as a proud, pragmatic union that supports teachers’ and therefore learners’ progress. 

We wrote a new narrative around the key’s main points, then iterated into a series of standard words and phrases for use across the union, with examples of how to apply the standard words across a range of recruitment opportunities and channels.  

NASUWT’s communications team took the new brand position and created a look and feel that aims to set NASUWT apart from its competitors.  

A new marketing plan 

We next ran workshops with staff, helping them turn the general messaging into compelling content for the different types of teachers they aimed to recruit – thinking about the issues and concerns that keep a teacher awake at night, and how NASUWT can demonstrate they understand those worries and have an offer for them that alleviates those concerns. 

Using insight from existing channels and activities, and research from the wider education sector, we mapped out the various channels and activities NASUWT could undertake to move non-members along the member journey – from awareness, engagement and ask to application, join and onwards. 

NASUWT’s design team applied the new brand to the various channels, along with our segmented marketing messages. 

An external positioning plan  

Alongside our work to develop messaging for members, we also conducted Comms Lab research, which examined how NASUWT’s positioning in the wider education sector could support its ambitions for teachers. 

We looked in-depth at how the Labour government talks about its aspirations for young people and schools and the way the media frames education news, and then compared this to NASUWT’s external messaging. The aim was to see if and where the union’s messaging needed to be adapted to have more resonance. We’ll share a blog on the process, findings and recommendations soon.