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Universidad Continental took advantage car owner database package of Inbound Marketing to nurture its offline database and increase its conversion rates. Rossio Barrios, Business Manager at the University's Graduate School, tells us about the process of converting contacts generated offline into online leads and then converting them into clients in a new chapter of our #InboundDesdeAdentro series .
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EE : Hello everyone, in this new episode of Inbound from Within, I am at the graduate school of the Universidad Continental together with Rossio Barrios, its business manager with whom we are going to share and well, she is actually going to share with us her learnings, knowledge about how she is doing with the implementation of a comprehensive marketing and sales strategy with an inbound focus . Rossio, welcome to the program, thank you very much for receiving us here at the facilities.
RB : Hello Eduardo, well, thank you for being interested in us.
EE : Always, always. We have been working with Rossio for over 18 months on the redesign of his entire commercial strategy. So I would like to start, Rossio, so you can tell us a little about how these first steps were back in May 2017, I remember when we started this adventure.
RB : Yes, Eduardo. Well, in the understanding that the consumer currently begins his purchasing journey by Googling, he wants to be the protagonist and co-creator of content, programs and above all experiences. So we began to question our way of reaching customers, people interested in our programs, and we decided that it was time to incorporate inbound marketing. Being an educational institution we had the possibility of providing relevant, interesting and above all useful content.
EE : What was the process like before, Rossio? Tell us a little bit, because you just told us something key: they started to become more aware that what they were doing wasn't working, what wasn't working?
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RB : Well, it actually did work. We may be doing well, but we can be doing better, so how was it and how do we continue with this type of approach? We develop external conferences to publicize, let's say, the programs as a solution to needs that are generated in different types of audiences. Our school has been focused on the training and education of public servants and well, the market recognizes us as such and our strategy was to approach them, create offline databases, hold internal and external conferences and send them, let's say, educational offers: educational commercial offers.
EE : But that experience had to be enriched, then.
RB : Yes, but we didn't know if they would read that offer or not, and also what they were interested in. Although we could do specific campaigns, they were punctual and we wanted to do something much more comprehensive, also in the search for information, to record it.
EE : To know more about your ideal client.
RB : Exactly, to know more and have information that would allow us to record, evaluate and analyze for improvement, we said that it was important to have a digital ecosystem linked to what is inbound marketing and what is content marketing .
EE : And that's exactly where what you mentioned comes in, content marketing. How has this content strategy helped in this whole process that you mentioned? I don't know, putting together an event, how does it now enrich the content of these events, how do teachers, for example, or the entire part of the institution of teachers, participate in the development or production of content? How is this helping you?
RB : Yes, of course. Well, I'll tell you and you also participated; we held two workshops with teachers to tell them that we had decided to develop content as part of the marketing and sales strategy and we invited them to participate in developing content at that time, 18 months ago. Now, we have been evolving to videos and webinars, but we invited them and they loved the idea, and they also have a lot to express, students and alumni also have a lot to express and therefore they collaborate with great enthusiasm in the generation of this content that can then be published.
EE : Of course, today the school has a content hub that generated more than 100 thousand visits in the last year.
RB : Yes, Eduardo, we are at 135 thousand organic visits.
We are at 135 thousand organic visits.
EE : We are already at 135 thousand visits and obviously as a result of these visits there is a lot of downloadable content, content that invites the user to interact with the brand so that they begin to educate themselves on what they want to study before committing to buying the product.
RB : Of course, people who are in the discovery stage and who are not yet very clear about what they want, we work with them and attract them through our social media posts and well, through keywords, organic search. We attract them and they become our visitors and then they naturally move on to leads when the consumer is ready. The most important thing is that they enjoy reading the content that we have.
EE : And now you can have a much richer contact database because you know not only demographic data that you can capture in a form but also behavioral data, what type of content they like, where they are interested.
RB : Yes, indeed the CRM that we implement as an intelligent system that learns to know people and their interests, their tastes, also allows us to choose the topics and know which ones people prefer to read.
EE : I think that is a key issue today, there is so much information that we can capture from our potential clients that we have to know how to take advantage of it for what you mention, personalizing that experience, bringing them the right content at the right time and in this way leading it to a commercial process. How have the contents helped you to integrate both worlds? To integrate your offline actions that you rightly mention that you continue to carry out with the online actions that you have today.
RB : Well, I can tell you that we have more than 100 pieces of content on our different landing pages and these pieces of content are evaluated, let’s say, prioritized by the number of times they have been read. And answering your question, when the advisors enter the offline database, these people begin to receive non-invasive and repetitive content as we said at the beginning, but rather useful content. And it’s nice for them, which they demonstrate through the complete readings they do. The system allows us to know what they are doing and then, the advisor can approach them in a certain way, already with the knowledge of the people’s interests.
When advisors enter the offline database, these people begin to receive non-invasive and repetitive content as we said at the beginning, but rather they receive useful content.
EE : In other words, nowadays, thanks to content, you are able to educate your prospects before the sales team makes contact with them, so that when they talk, they have a much closer, more empathetic, and ultimately more human approach.
RB : Of course, all of this has been a learning experience because even the processes and measurement KPIs were previously one thing and now they have had to be changed because we have to prioritize other types of issues.
EE : They are evolving. Of course, I do have some data here that I want to share with our audience, percentages obviously, of how this integration helped increase the generation of new business by more than 150%, the fact of the prospect nurturing that you were talking about, of these offline prospects. What other valuable things have you seen that have helped you improve this strategy?
RB : What other aspects? Well, at the time we made the decision, we were not deeply familiar with the application of the experience…
EE : The application of the entire methodology.
RB : From the whole methodology and therefore we also decided to identify an agency that would allow us to learn, to have a multidisciplinary team with which we could move forward together and that is what gave a result, not in the short term of course, but in the medium term and today we can say that we have grown 150%, which is the figure you mentioned.
Today we can say that we have grown by 150%,
EE : I think you have said something that is very key in business today. I also meet with many business people and most of them are always thinking in the short term. Obviously, you have to have a short-term strategy because the business has to continue to survive, but what I value about you is your long-term vision and I think that is super important, that the people who are in decision-making in their businesses have to consider that when investing in growth.
RB : Well, a company has to have a long-term vision, especially in the educational field in which we are involved. This university has a life expectancy of 500 years. We will no longer be here, but it does force us to have a long-term vision without neglecting the daily cash flow.
EE : Exactly, inbound supports that. Inbound supports you so that your medium and long-term strategy makes your business sustainable over time.
Inbound supports you in ensuring that your medium and long-term strategy makes your business sustainable over time.
RB : Of course, and it is also in line with the university's vision, which is to train students who become citizens who create a positive impact on their family and work environment in Peru and, why not, in the world.
EE : You were just telling me that they are going to open online education, right?
RB : Yes, to strengthen that line. Continental University has a very clear commitment to the implementation of a complete digital ecosystem.
EE : Let's talk now, to close this very educational interview, about the next steps of the university. What is your vision for the next two years?
RB : It is to consolidate our presence in the four cities and on the five campuses that we currently have, to move through and strengthen the three “M” model that has to do with multimodality, multicampus and multilevel. Multimodality is in-person, online and people who work; in the case of multilevel, it is institute, university and graduate school; and multicampus so that students can move through and study at the same time in different cities.
EE : Interesting for that vision. Very well, well then it is clear to us that if we have a well-defined strategy and a long-term vision, this is what is ultimately leading the university to consolidate itself as a reference in its ecosystem, in its market. Rossio, I thank you very much for opening the doors to us and telling a little about your experience with inbound to our audience. Please leave us your comments, share this episode and we will see you at the next Inbound from within.
