Blog
How Developers Institute Built a Winning Digital Marketing Strategy with the Candlefox Marketplace
Claudia Reiners Head of Strategy
Building a winning digital marketing strategy is a mission for well-established education and training providers, let alone those in their early stages.
Boosting enrolment volumes and improving ROMI was a priority for Isabelle Bierwirth, Head of Marketing at Developers Institute. Still in their youth phase, Bierwirth understood the importance of marketing and lead generation, and knew they needed to diversify their strategy and nail their marketing mix.
Since 2019, Developers Institute has leveraged Candlefox’s learner-centric Education Marketplaces to amplify their course marketing and student recruitment performance.
So, how have these market-leading solutions contributed to higher student enrolments and fuller quarterly student intakes and enrolments?
Meet Developers Institute
Developers Institute is a leading vocational education provider in New Zealand, specialising in web and software development training.
At Developers Institute, their curriculum is cutting-edge, industry-driven, and agile. Their instructors are experienced professionals at the forefront of programming and coding.
“We’ve noticed that there is a big gap in the software development industry. We’re seeing employers struggle to support junior developers as they transition from study to experience. While there are senior developers that can help to mentor these graduates, they often lack the time or capacity to do so,” says Bierwirth.
“Developers Institute helps fill this crucial gap. Our instructors are mentors to some of Australasia’s future leaders in software development.”
Challenge
Developers Institute was a relatively new training provider when approached by Candlefox’s Partnerships team.
Established in 2017 and very much still in its early stages, Bierwirth says they were juggling multiple pieces of the brand, marketing, and sales puzzle at the time.
During a discovery call, she identified three main priorities for Developers Institute:
Finding the right marketing mix.
While they were going to utilise traditional marketing channels such as Facebook, Instagram, Google and other advertising platforms, they were eager to explore a marketing channel that could provide them with stable, predictable costs and results across the entire year.
Being at the front of mind of prospective students.
Being a newer provider, they wanted to increase their brand’s exposure to prospective students and increase their market penetration.
Performance consistency and tracking.
Performance and ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment) underpins every marketing strategy. Bierwirth wanted to ensure that the marketing partner they chose could provide data in real time.
These three priorities in combination ensured stronger marketing performance and fuller quarterly student intakes year-round.
“We were looking for a channel that could form a core part of our marketing strategy,” says Bierwirth.
“When Candlefox approached us over LinkedIn, it made sense to partner with them. Their approach to brand and course marketing – primarily leveraging structured, sound and SEO-heavy initiatives – seemed like a good fit for us.”
How Candlefox helped
Candlefox now plays an important role in their marketing and lead generation ecosystem.
Many providers in today’s digital age are concurrently running paid social (Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn), paid search, and other advertising campaigns.
Education Marketplaces are newer – and often untapped – marketing channels for education and training providers across Australasia. We tap into our owned marketing channels to provide our partners with consistent leads every month of the year.
Nailing the marketing strategy is one feat, converting students in the enrollment funnel is another.
In addition to our lead generation services, we provided Developers Institute with best-practice techniques and tips to help them nurture and convert their student leads.
Speaking to their onboarding experience, Bierwirth said: “We started the relationship with Candlefox with a 3-month onboarding and ‘trial’ period. Flexibility was crucial to us – and Candlefox understood this. They listened, adapted, and worked with our needs.”
Results
Since partnering with Candlefox, Developers Institute have seen improvements across multiple fronts, including:
Developers Institute has received a consistent volume of pre-qualified, high-intent student leads, contributing to their fuller student intakes each quarter.
Bierwirth says partnering with Candlefox was a great decision.
“We receive more certainty around student leads. We understand that we always have a baseline of leads to count on.”
“In addition to this, they provide us with great exposure to an audience of high-intent prospective learners. They have cultivated a nice synergy of learners actively researching and enrolling in courses.”
“In some way, Candlefox became our marketing manager, and helped us grow our business.”
Discover how Candlefox can support your brand and course marketing activities. Get in touch with the team today.
