Blue Cliff College
Comprehensive Digital Marketing Overhaul Leads to Large Spike in Enrollment
Key Metrics
+100%
PPC conversions
-31%
clicks per lead
-50%
budget
The Problem
Blue Cliff College—a trade school based in Louisiana and Mississippi—was investing heavily in marketing efforts but wasn’t seeing the desired results. Its enrollment rate was hovering around 1%, which was far below their expectations. Given the school’s substantial financial commitment, the return on investment was simply unacceptable, so they decided to do something about it. That’s where we came in.
The Goal
With Youtech leading the way, Blue Cliff College was determined to increase its lead quality and achieve an enrollment rate of 12%. We tackled those challenges head-on with a strategic focus on reducing the school’s budget by up to 50%. By aiming to keep its cost per acquisition under $100, we were confident in our ability to effectively promote its programs.
The Strategy
Youtech evaluated Blue Cliff College’s entire marketing strategy and performed an overhaul in the three biggest places where it was losing money from marketing investments–PPC, SEO, and Paid Social.
PPC
Main lead funnel for short-and-medium term growth
SEO
Positioning for long-term success
Paid Social
Customers think of you first when it’s time to buy
The Results
Blue Cliff’s VP of Marketing came to us with a difficult task: cut the marketing budget in half and produce the same results. We implemented various methods to achieve this goal. Despite an uphill battle, we were able to deliver.
YoY SEO Results
We revised the keyword set, including long-tail terms and geo-specific and “Near me” keywords. We improved NAP accuracy, which brought more local signals to the site. We optimized GBP profiles to increase local impressions and clicks. We revised the content strategy to reach the right audience and intent. Our custom schema creation resulted in more “ZERO Positions” and PAA spots.
+22.30%
website sessions
+12.54%
website users
+33.96%
form submissions
+16.40%
mobile traffic
“
Our experience with Youtech has been phenomenal. They took the time to understand our goals, business, and desired state, and we have been on a roll ever since.
The quality of inquiry, the tracking of metrics, and the people involved with the company set them apart. We have seen a 26% increase in the inquiry-to-close rate in the first three months and I expect that to continue as we are seeing some locations starting to hit weekly 50% and 60% rates.
Brian Maggio – Vice President of Admissions and Marketing
YoY PPC Results
We restructured the entire Google Ads account. The previous agency had about 18,000 ads running, which was unnecessary and negatively impacted performance. After simplifying the account and trimming off the least efficient ads and keywords, we quickly saw a significant (24%) decrease in cost per lead. Blue Cliff College also reported even more qualified leads after Youtech took over its Google Ads advertising.
-57%
cost per click
-54%
cost per lead
+101%
conversions with -30% budget
Paid Social Results
When taking over Blue Cliff College’s paid Facebook ads, our higher education marketing agency established a completely new ad account, along with a new pixel. Since it takes time to build pixel data, we initially targeted based on interests rather than using lookalike audiences or retargeting website visitors. In the first month of running Facebook ads (October 2022) on this new ad account, we recorded a cost per lead (CPL) of $94.61. Two months later, we saw a 31% decrease in CPL, bringing it down to approximately $65.
$65
Cost Per Lead
Transparent & Flexible
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