Case Study | Lead Generation | EMarketz | Study abroad/ Immigration agency, Leads from India

Case Overview

Problem: The company has seen a gradual decrease in lead generation over the past three months.

Analysis: A detailed analysis of the company's lead generation activities was conducted to identify the cause of decrease.

Findings: The analysis revealed that the company was not making enough use of digital channels such as social media and email marketing. Additionally, there was a lack of content marketing and SEO optimization, which could have been used to improve organic traffic to the company's website. Furthermore, the company was not taking advantage of referral programs or webinars, which could have been effective in driving potential customers.

Our client is an overseas educational consultancy operating from its headquarters in Bangalore since 2007 and has 10 centers throughout India. They have a legacy of making the overall journey of the students from India to the UK a delightful and hassle-free experience by providing comprehensive and detailed information about the educational opportunities available in different countries through trained consultants who help students choose the right courses and universities that best suit their needs and goals and the company also offers assistance in the visa application process and other related activities and an all-round guidance and personalized support to students throughout their journey.

Preparing for the new surge to the UK, the company resorted to its established modus operandi for sales and marketing measures to target students in South India for the new academic year. The company faced immense competition, especially due to the sprout of numerous alternatives to overseas education with colleges and universities actively engaging with the students on one side and with fierce competitors offering multinational education support. They understood that their efforts and traditional approach to scout students have been back-firing and their customer base concentrated in South India has been drifting away from their reach and even with essential contacts getting them through to eligible candidates, they were not able to close the deals. The company also largely thrived on their referrals and closed-circuit contact with a few institutions without a dedicated lead generation operation working in-house.

A Closer Look

From September of 2019 to November of 2019, the company generated an average of 75 leads per month, this included student information gathered from their closed contact with institutions. The conversion rate was a diluted image of its previous success, with the company able to convert only 14% (on an average) of the leads generated. The distance to decision days for these leads generated were also a hefty 31 days.

New Approach

The company was faced with an imminent failure if the underwhelming business performance was to continue and so they decided to try a variety of lead generation strategies and emphasized on verified leads that they bought from a local lead generation agency, they did report a moderate success with this, in the June 2020 to July 2020 window, but the overall developments were far from satisfactory. In Aug 2020 they approached Emarketz with their challenges and we were given a substantial timeline to work on the issue with a positive development to be seen at least from October 2020.

Emarketz Plan of Action

After our research, we concluded that The decrease in lead generation was found to be the result of a lack of focus on digital channels and other strategies that could have been used to generate leads. The company should focus on improving its digital presence and utilizing content marketing, SEO optimization, referral programs, and webinars.

We got to work on the segments that were solely in our domain and collaborative support to the company was offered on other aspects. The company subscribed to our ‘Pay-per-Click’ pricing package for the leads generated. We also focused on improving the leads through:

• The demographic target was carefully optimized to ensure it reached the right student audience
• We improved the client website with various interactive elements and creative inputs to ensure that the visitors were engaged.
• Improve the on-page SEO by optimizing titles, meta descriptions, and other elements of your website for search engine visibility. We also use keywords in the content to draw in more visitors. And, of course, we made sure the website is mobile-friendly and easy to navigate.
• We also enhanced the content strategy by regularly publishing relevant high-quality, keyword-driven content that is specifically crafted for the target audience.
• This included blog posts, informative & engaging whitepaper, focused newsletter, and landing pages. This was followed by performing A/B testing to determine our website/directories visitors’ behavior. This enabled us to identify the users’ response to our content and thereby allowing us to determine the right position for placing CTAs that were developed in a customized manner

Other Strategies

1. Direct mail campaigns to reach potential customers.

2 . Cold calling to generate leads.

3. Networking at education-related events to build relationships.

4. Utilizing print media such as newspapers, magazines and radio to advertise.

5. Outreach through social media platforms to engage potential customers.

6. Creating promotional materials such as brochures, flyers and newsletters.

7. Offering incentives such as discounts and free consultations.

Outcome

Within a span of three months, the professionals at EMarketz were able to produce 3X the leads and increase the conversion rate by 4X. That is, EMarketz generated 230 leads on an average, and the conversion rate climbed to 38%. Before partnering with EMarketz, the “distance to decision” for the client was 31 days, which later considerably reduced to 19 days.

Lead Generation with Emarketz