We went from struggling to fill our events to selling out within 24 hours, all due to this

one kick­ass 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.

How we TRIPLED our outdooreducation business with

JUST ONE LESSON PLAN

When we first posted our Wildcraft

Adventure™ event on facebook we reached

46,957 people, without spending a penny onadvertising. Using this lesson plan, just one

event got us 2,446 responses and 578 totalticket 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, againwithout 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 TheWeek magazine and Wales Online and the best thing is,their journalists contacted us!

With all the interest that this lesson plan generated we grewour 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 amassive 68.18% open rate! That’s impressive by any standard.

On top of all that we increased‘likes’ on our facebook page bymore than 34% over the period we

announced Wildcraft.

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 forWoodland Classroom and all the other services we offer.

www.wildcraftadventure.com

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 fantastic position.

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 natureand 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 weneeded 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 dayon 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 eye­opening 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 videogames and transform them intooutdoor adventures that would alsohave them learning about the natural

world without even realizing it.www.wildcraftadventure.com

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, whichwe’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 when

unveiled Wildcraft Adventure™ to

the world and the response wasincredible! At time of writing, wehave sold out EVERY Wildcraftevent we have run.

The tickets for our first events sold out in lessthan 24 hours and we then spent 3 daysanswering 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 ouremail 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 after­school clubs and other Forest

School events. At the time of writing we’ve hosted

46 of these events across Wales, reaching 860children. That’s a massive 5,160 hours ofoutdoor playtime for kids, when they mightotherwise have been indoors playing video

games. We’ve got many more planned for the

future too. 

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 myson. Like many parents I worry about

the time he spends on electronic gamesand the fact that I have to beg and bribe

to get him outdoors. Not so with thisgenius idea to use popular computer

games to tempt him into activities that Iknew he would love if he would only give

them a chance. When asked if hewanted to go again, my son’s reply was

“No Mum, I HAVE to go again."Emily Carne

WHY IT WORKS

www.wildcraftadventure.com

"I haven't seen my son so animated in a long time. He talked about hisexperience 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 cannotrecommend 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 startfrom, the children are already hooked before they even start! Brilliant!"

Suki Morys

AN ON-GOING SUCCESSWe’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 long­term relationships with parentswho trust our brand.

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.

The success of Wildcraft enabled us to both quit our part­time jobs to realize ourdream of running Woodland Classroom full­time. We have been able to follow our

passions, make a living from them and have now booked a month­long honeymoon

in beautiful Thailand.

"They haven’t stopped asking can they come again. They were so inspiredthat they will be joining a local bushcraft group." Lisa­Mare Hayes

www.wildcraftadventure.com

“We're really excited about theWildcraft 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 mixed­age, cooperative,outdoor fun.” Brenda Sutter, LaurelTree Charter School, California U.S.

WHAT LEADERS & TEACHERS ARESAYING ABOUT WILDCRAFT

The next step in our story was creating

Wildcraft Adventure™ as a digital lesson

plan that we could make available toother activity leaders and teachers torun 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…

As a gateway to the world of Wildcraft

Adventure™ we have created a special,

simplified and fast­paced version of the full

game called Wildcraft: Mini Game, whichcan 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.

“Wildcraft Adventure is a great wayto get children away from the screen

and in to the natural environment.The children were fully immersed inthe game… They loved every minute

of it!” Jackie Meager, OutLET PlayResource, Scotland

www.wildcraftadventure.com

“Wow! What a full on, wild andadventurous day for our kids AND

leaders in the woods. Learning newskills, making friends, exploring,

building, crafting, cooking andgetting muddy...THIS is what real

gaming is all about! Really glad weused the pack as it has saved us so

much lesson planning and resourcetime and it is something we will goback to using all year. Good value

for money.” Holly James,KidsGroWild, Scotland

“I have been endeavouring toincorporate more outdoor

education activities into myclassroom. I just purchased yourWildcraft game...what a great

idea. The kids can use all of theirnewly acquired bushcraft skills.

Thank­you for sharing yourexpertise and passions with the

outside world...this teacher acrossthe pond certainly appreciates it.”

Susan Brown, Teacher (Grade 3),Canada.

Available NOW online

James Kendall

& Lea Wakeman

£17ONLY

WANT TO GET MORE KIDSOFF-SCREEN & OUTDOORS?

YES, I WANT THISWILDCRAFT LESSON PLAN

Activity leaders and teachers are running

their own Wildcraft sessions...

"We had a blast... Wildcraft is the bestactivity we've ever found."

Brenda Sutter, Teacher, California

Want to see more? You can watch ourWildcraft Adventure VIDEO by clicking

right here.