How We Trebled Our Outdoor Education Business With Just One Lesson Plan
We went from struggling to fill our events to selling out within 24 hours, all due to this one kick-ass lesson plan that left kids desperate for more! This lesson plan allowed us to grow our business, reach new audiences and increase our income. In this short case study we’re going to show you exactly what we did and why kids addicted to video games were choosing instead to unplug and come on our outdoor activity days.
The lesson plan is called Wildcraft Adventure™ and we’ll explain exactly what that is later, but first let’s take a look at the amazing response that it got from parents.
When we first posted our Wildcraft Adventure™ event on facebook we reached 46,957 people, without spending a penny on advertising. Using this lesson plan, just one event got us 2,446 responses and 578 total ticket clicks on the event page!
Over the next few events running this lesson plan we continued to get impressive figures for audience engagement. Combining these with our first event we’d generated over 4,000 new leads on facebook, again without spending a single penny.
In fact, we did even better than this a few weeks later, the same event, using this lesson plan, at a different venue reached over 200,000 people organically on facebook! Again, no money was spent on advertising. Parents were advertising our events for us through word of mouth.
We also got free coverage in the national press from The Week magazine and Wales Online and the best thing is, their journalists contacted us!
With all the interest that this lesson plan generated we grew our mailing list by over 40% in just a few days! Parents didn’t want to miss out on future announcements for Wildcraft Adventures™.
Also, not only were more people subscribing to our newsletter to hear about future events but we were also smashing the industry average ‘open rate’ for newsletters. In the education industry, the average percentage for subscribers opening an email from a service provider is 17.34%. With the success of Wildcraft we were getting a massive 68.18% open rate! That’s impressive by any standard.
On top of all that we increased ‘likes’ on our facebook page by more than 34% over the period we announced Wildcraft.
Source: facebook insights, 1st Dec 15 – 1st Feb 16
As a business, positive word of mouth is the most powerful advertising you’ll ever have. Hundreds of parents shared our events, invited their friends and spread the word for us. This of course, hugely increased the reach of our business and raised awareness for Woodland Classroom and all the other services we offer.
THE LESSON PLAN THAT MADE THIS POSSIBLE
Hopefully by now we have your attention so we’d like to take this chance to introduce ourselves and give you a bit of background as we’re sure you’re wondering how we got to this point.
We’re James & Lea and between us we run our own outdoor education business in Wales, UK called Woodland Classroom. We work with parents, schools and organisations to engage children in the outdoors. We’re passionate about getting kids connecting with nature and having positive experiences through creative play.
It was spring 2015 and we were sat planning our summer programme of events, struggling for new ideas and wondering how many activity days we could realistically fill.
We already had a core audience of parents and kids who were on board for the types of regular activities we provided; bushcraft clubs, forest school sessions, wild play and outdoor pursuits. But we knew that there were so many more families who were not engaging with our business, in short we wanted our business to grow. To do that we needed a way to reach all those parents who were struggling to get their kids interested in what we had to offer. These are the kids who would rather be on their consoles than playing in the woods. That’s where this lesson plan came in, but we couldn’t predict the huge response that it would receive.
“Today’s children are spending an average of seven hours a day on entertainment media, including televisions, computers, phones and other electronic devices.” American Academy of Pediatrics
Like so many teachers and activity leaders in the outdoor education industry we’d read Richard Louv’s eye-opening book Last Child in the Woods which warns of the rise of ‘nature deficit disorder’ in today’s children. Parents were telling us that they faced an uphill struggle, as there’s such an addictive quality to video games that restricting screen time can cause big arguments in the family home. The more parents we spoke with, the more we heard about this recurring problem.
All this lead to one question; “For those kids who are spending too much time glued to their screens and have little interest in getting out into nature, how do we engage them in a way so that they choose to go outside?” the answer suddenly hit us… “Simple, we take their video games outdoors!”
Let’s be clear, this didn’t mean that kids would be sat on their tablets, playing on-screen games in the woods with us. Our idea was to take their favourite video games and transform them into outdoor adventures that would also have them learning about the natural world without even realizing it.
So, we did A LOT of research. We watched and spoke with children playing video games, identified the most popular titles, then picked out the common themes and features in those games. One game that stood out particularly was Minecraft, which we’re sure needs no introduction. Since being launched it’s sold over 100 million copies. Having ranked it the 6th best video game of all time, Time magazine said of Minecraft; “Has there ever been a game as impactful as this one?” Not only is it hugely popular with children but it was also perfect as a basis for creating outdoor adventures. Rather than try and compete against the video games, we decided we needed to harness their popularity.
It was Autumn 2015 we unveiled Wildcraft Adventure™ to the world and the response was incredible! At time of writing, we have sold out EVERY Wildcraft event we have run.
The tickets for our first events sold out in less than 24 hours and we then spent 3 days answering the phone every 5 minutes to tell potential customers that we were sorry but tickets had all gone. Talk about demand outstripping supply. We didn’t waste these new leads though. Because of all the interest in Wildcraft Adventure™ we were able to rapidly grow our email list almost overnight. We knew we had definitely hit on something.
Throughout 2016 we ran as many Wildcraft Adventures™ as we could fit in, around our outdoor after-school clubs and other Forest School events. At the time of writing we’ve hosted 46 of these events across Wales, reaching 860 children. That’s a massive 5,160 hours of outdoor playtime for kids, when they might otherwise have been indoors playing video games. We’ve got many more planned for the future too.
WHY IT WORKS!
Our Wildcraft lesson plans have been such a huge success because they provide a solution to the problem that many parents are having, the daily struggle to get their kids away from their tablets, iPads and consoles to spend more time outdoors.
“What an amazing experience for my son. Like many parents I worry about the time he spends on electronic games and the fact that I have to beg and bribe to get him outdoors. Not so with this genius idea to use popular computer games to tempt him into activities that I knew he would love if he would only give them a chance. When asked if he wanted to go again, my son’s reply was “no, Mum. I HAVE to go again.” Emily Carne (parent)
“I haven’t seen my son (10 yrs old) so animated in a long time. He talked about his experience for two hours solid and now is designing his own ‘real minecraft’ in a book ready to go out in the woods to do it with his friends. I cannot recommend it enough, it’s back to when I was young and no computer games existed, but it’s pure genius to use video games as a basis to start from, the children are already hooked before they even start! Brilliant!” Suki Morys (parent)
“Such a fantastic antidote to the ever increasing creep of the screen.” Hannah Cutler (parent)
AN ON-GOING SUCCESS
We’ve had 100% positive feedback from kids and parents and it’s really put our business on the map. We also found that kids who had been on our Wildcraft Adventure™ were then booking onto our other events. Going forward, we have a larger pool of returning kids and we’re building great long-term relationships with parents who trust our brand.
“Ryan had a fabulous day. He got home and immediately wanted to build a den and a fire. Before coming I had tried to get him to join in a forest school day but he said ‘it wasn’t his thing’. However ‘would you like to go on a Minecraft style bushcraft day?’ And he couldn’t sign up fast enough, he was so excited he couldn’t sleep the night before and you certainly didn’t disappoint on the day.” Jacky John (parent)
“My two had a great time at the Minecraft Bushcraft day, so nice to see them turning off the video game and getting some fresh air and fun! Great, great day, they would go again in a heartbeat!” Laura Murphy (parent)
We have had children returning 4, even 5 times to the same event and Wildcraft is also proving to be a great gateway activity for kids who are new to the world of outdoor pursuits.
“They haven’t stopped asking can they come again. They were so inspired that they will be joining a local bushcraft group.” Lisa-Mare Hayes (parent)
The success of Wildcraft enabled us to both quit our part-time jobs to realize our dream of running Woodland Classroom full-time. We have been able to follow our passions, make a living from them and have now booked a month-long honeymoon in beautiful Thailand.
The next step in our story was creating Wildcraft Adventure™ as a digital lesson plan that we could make available to other activity leader and teachers to run at their own venues. It’s a growing community of outdoor education centres, summer camps, schools, holiday clubs and freelancers who have been sharing in the success of the game. Let’s hear from some of them…
“We’re really excited about the Wildcraft Adventure… I was really inspired by what you guys are doing. We’re looking for ways to get our kids out of the classroom, playing together. Your game gives us the perfect vehicle for mixed-age, cooperative, outdoor fun.” Brenda Sutter, Laurel Tree Charter School, California U.S.
“We are FULLY BOOKED for both our Wildcraft events and are very much looking forward to it!” Helena Louise Broadbent, Forest Explorers, England
“Wow! What a full on, wild and adventurous day for our kids AND leaders in the woods. Learning new skills, making friends, exploring, building, crafting, cooking and getting muddy… THIS is what real gaming is all about! Really glad we used the pack as it has saved us so much lesson planning and resource time and it is something we will go back to using all year. Good value for money.” Holly James, KidsGroWild, Scotland
“Wildcraft Adventure is a great way to get children away from the screen and in to the natural environment. The children were fully immersed in the game… They loved every minute of it!” Jackie Meager, OutLET Play Resource, Scotland
As a gateway to the world of Wildcraft Adventure™ we have created a special, simplified and fast-paced version of the full game called Wildcraft: Mini Game, which can be played over just a couple of hours. Anyone can run the game, no special training is required and everything you need to know to run this lesson plan is included in the package.
“I have been endeavouring to incorporate more outdoor education activities into my classroom in the last few years. I just purchased your Wildcraft game…what a great idea. I am going to save it for an end of the year celebration activity so that the kids can use all of their newly acquired bushcraft skills. Thank-you for sharing your expertise and passions with the outside world…this teacher across the pond certainly appreciates it.” Susan Brown, Teacher (Grade 3), Canada.
If you want to try Wildcraft Adventure™ for yourself then click the link below to check out our Wildcraft: Mini Game. We think you’ll love it.
YES, I WANT THIS WILDCRAFT LESSON PLAN
If you want to find out more about Wildcraft Adventure™ you can check out the video below.
YES, I WANT TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT WILDCRAFT ADVENTURE PACKS
