Problem
The team I inherited at IFSA in 2016 was better described as a communications team, not a marketing team. Adept at information-sharing and public relations, the team responded when called upon, sharing information with customers as requests came from other departments. The five-member team utilized Constant Contact for B2B communications and had just implemented Pardot for B2C communications, even though Pardot is most often utilized in B2B settings. Social media was a largely disjointed effort, with more than 50 different Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts managed by global staff with no brand or social media standards in place. Most of their B2C communications involved updating pre-departure information packets rather than promotional, lead-generating marketing activities.
Solution
Evaluating the Martech Stack
One of the first items I tackled at IFSA was to review the technology stack available to the marketing team. I might not normally recommend that this evaluation come first; however, IFSA was operating with two instances of Salesforce CRM, and this needed to be resolved immediately. This led to an immediate evaluation of email automation tools. With all of the B2C application system built on Salesforce, it only made sense to transition the B2C down funnel communications into Marketing Cloud, so as soon as we simplified the CRM instances, we began an eight-month, cross-departmental implementation of Marketing Cloud.
We maintained Pardot for early funnel B2C engagement in order to take advantage of the tool's grading and scoring capabilities and connecting it to Salesforce so marketing qualified leads could be escalated to the internal sales team as Leads within CRM. We moved all B2B communications to the more powerful Pardot, removing the need for Constant Contact as an email tool, and we implemented training opportunities so that more members of the marketing team understood the technology.
Email Marketing Best Practices
Along the way, we implemented modern email marketing best practices, including:
mobile-responsive designs
personalization and dynamic content
progressive profiling
A/B testing
obvious calls-to-action
dynamic photos with alt-text
links to our website for more information
Marketing team members regularly reported on email metrics and watched for areas to optimize. We brainstormed and created multiple journeys and automations, especially for the B2C consumer, creating an intricate web of communications across the student experience.
Lead Generation
Prior to the pandemic, the sales team generated the bulk of the leads at in-person events. If these on-campus events, called study abroad fairs, were old-school, then the lead collection method was archaic. Students filled out lengthy interest cards, often with illegible handwriting, and those cards had to be manually entered, occupying valuable employee time. We needed a more modern solution.
We invested in iPads for the sales team, and we transitioned the interest card to an online format. The sales team carried a small stack of cards in the event the WiFi failed, but they were rarely used. In the transition year, more than 90% of the leads came in using the iPad form.
When the pandemic hit, all on-campus events switched to virtual events. To combat this, we invested in paid digital ads and built gated, on-demand webinar content to drive early funnel interest. Despite missing the in-person events that traditionally delivered 75% of the year's leads, we still ended the fiscal year achieving 80% of our pre-pandemic lead generation goal.
Social Media Transformation
Within the structure of IFSA in 2016, each global office held a certain amount of autonomy. As a result, many of them created their own social media platforms to promote their programs to potential students and communicate with students on the ground. Unfortunately, this led to brand confusion and mixed messages.
This was a difficult challenge to untangle, largely because the on-site teams used the social media channels as a critical part of their student crisis communication. Until we could offer a better solution for the on-site team, we decided not to remove the social channel for them entirely.
Instead, we created country-specific branded logos for use on social platforms, in email signatures, and in signage so our global teams could remain brand compliant and identify themselves as part of their local country. This branded house approach also helped to create visual clarity and direct customers to the appropriate social feed.
Establishing Brand Voice
Working with an education-oriented marketing agency, we tackled our brand voice and story for both the B2B and B2C audiences. With the mission, vision, and commitments as the backbone, we established the brand platform to guide our work. Then, we selected key themes to craft messages focused to each audience.
We invested in message testing with focus groups, and as a result, we learned a great deal about the nuance of word choice and marketing, especially to our B2B audience. Many edits later, we settled on wording and tone for a set of key messages.
This process allowed the marketing team to establish core messaging that could be used as-is, but also created a format for utilizing pull-out phrases that articulated our brand platform. We took all of this and created a guiding document for non-marketers, which was designed to help them communicate on-brand while using most of their own words.
Results
Transforming the team from a communications focus to a marketing focus took some time, but these steps allowed the team to shift from order-taker mode to a more proactive, lead generating mode that more directly contributed to the top line of the business.
Lead generation increased by 48% due to our efforts implementing a more modern solution, and we maintained retention through the application pipeline at more than 55% across all programs. Additionally, B2B email communications across time maintained an average open rate well above industry standard and a click through rate of 8%. Prior to the pandemic, we recorded the highest semester program enrollment the organization had seen in nearly a decade.
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