Surrey County Council launched the Skills for Life Bootcamps to offer targeted, intensive training, helping individuals acquire and enhance key skills for personal and professional growth. These sector-specific programmes provide Surrey residents with the tools needed for career progression and development.
Launched in the Summer of 2024, the Skills Bootcamps were based on skills that were integral to the county’s future economy. Available to individuals over 19 years old across Surrey, the courses cover sectors ranging from health and social care right through to construction and engineering and are not only free but delivered by expert training providers. The key challenge was raising awareness of the incredible offer amongst eligible candidates and driving sign-ups to the courses.
To engage a broad audience effectively, we crafted a focused campaign designed to ensure the ads connected with the right people. Leveraging Meta’s powerful targeting tools, we built a digital strategy that aimed to reach individuals eager to learn new skills and advance their careers. Targeting an age range of 18 to 64, we personalised ads for specific courses, carefully aligning the visuals and messaging to resonate with each audience. Eye-catching phrases like ‘Fast-track Your Career’ and ‘Secure a Job Interview’ were strategically deployed to capture attention, tapping into the aspirations of those seeking personal and professional growth.
Meta was our platform of choice due to its unparalleled targeting precision, allowing us to home in on users by location, interests, and career ambitions. In particular, for the social care sector, we employed bold, impactful visuals to spark interest among individuals passionate about this field, driving engagement and making a lasting impression.
However, a number of the courses were affected by Facebook’s Special Ad Category classification, designed to help prevent discrimination in advertising and protect people on Meta. This meant there were limited audience selection options including age, gender and demographics, meaning we had to be even more resourceful with the creative used.
Although we were faced with some barriers from the special ads classification categories, in the first few months of launch the campaign is running exceptionally well surpassing the launch KPIs. The campaign has already been seen nearly 450,000 times and achieved over 775 leads.
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