Client

STEM-focused Ed Tech Platform

 

Project

Growth Marketing

Project Description

This global education technology startup was focused on growing their audience and footprint in the US. Their target market includes both public and private school systems, with the key personas including administrators and technology procurement managers. 

Given the nature of the buying cycle and the types of personas, the primary objectives were to grow their audience, raise awareness and become a thought leader for hands-on learning. Pairing outbound and inbound marketing tactics, our outcomes were focused on growing their audience and setting up inbound funnels to convert them.

Project Specifics

  • Outbound Systems
  • Inbound Systems
  • Audience Growth
  • Follower Growth
Strategy

Taking a Persona-Based approach

The target market for this company remained inside of one industry vertical (K12 education). There were a handful of personas that would vary slightly depending on size and type of school (public or private), but business cases remained generally the same across decision-maker and influencer groups.

Given the nature of the market, we took a persona-based approach aimed at delivering persona-specific messages and content horizontally across the target industry vertical. 

Technical

Growing an audience, engaging an audience

Given the personas being targeted, we wanted to create an engine that grew an audience through direct and targeted messaging, driving participation in educational content and virtual events.

Outbound:

  • We configured a robust email stack that focused heavily on deliverability over large volumes of cold contacts. 
  • We also targeted this persona group via paid ads on search, LinkedIn and instagram.

Inbound:

A key aspect of growing our audience was to position relevant content - in this case, how-to's and explanatory content about how to incorporate hands-on STEM in K12 curriculum, how to impact standards and curated material for particular persona groups.

  • Content & Events: The major driving factor of our email campaigns was a webinar series. The second component we used was heavy LinkedIn and Instagram content creation to build presence where are personas were spending time.
  • Automation: The last piece was to build an inbound funnel that nurtured and converted the organic audience into leads.

Our mission was to grow an organic audience of unique personas through thought leadership. We were able to triple the number of email subscribers and grow social followers by 6 times.

Results

Email subscribers and followers increased by factors

With this tailored growth marketing solution, we were able to smash through audience growth goals and set the stage for a robust inbound funnel.

Key findings:

  • Webinars generated increasing returns and high-prospects
  • Instagram performed better than expected. This audience clearly spends a lot of time there.
  • Approach verification: This audience is clearly hungry for thought leadership on the subject, big opportunity to own the ideas here.