Genesis Career College unlocks the keys to success amid the coronavirus pandemic
With nine programs in both the health and medicine and beauty and wellness spaces, Genesis Career College has six campuses across the Southeast, in addition to Loraines Academy in St. Petersburg, Florida and Woodruff Medical in Tucker, Georgia. While the campuses offer different programs, they each have one thing in common: a desire to reach more students, thus offering them better-paying, fulfilling career paths. In order to fuel this growth, however, the multi-location career college knew it had to lean into impactful lead generation campaigns.
Its marketing goal had always been simple: increase the number of enrollments each month.
Working with The ABM Agency since 2015, the career college began to utilize a full-service digital marketing strategy in 2019—including paid and organic social media, SEO, paid search, web copy, and email marketing—in order to achieve these KPIs.
All was going as planned, with consistent growth for the vocational school…
Then, in March 2020, COVID-19 flipped the switch—leaving Genesis with two options. It could either 1) wait out the pandemic or 2) double down on its marketing strategies, leaning into the need for educational opportunities, especially in the medical field.
Genesis went with option 2. This decision meant that even as the world continued to close its doors, Genesis Career College saw more impressions and an increased number of enrollments by May 2020.
“Despite a chaotic landscape caused by a global pandemic, our lead flow continued to outperform all expectations, resulting in record-breaking enrollments across the board. The ABM Agency has been a proven partner, continually going above and beyond the scope of work to provide us the marketing support that we need, pandemic or not,” said Richard Bundy, the president and CEO of the career college.
Here’s how Genesis Career College did it.
The Pre-2020 Strategy
The first step of any successful lead generation campaign is accounting for any problems you might have right off the bat. For Genesis, it was getting its reporting tools, analytics, website user experience, call tracking, and form submission leads up to par. Without accurate reporting and analytics, you can’t measure success or see where performance needs to improve. The ABM Agency revived the digital presence of the multi-location career college, turning its website and digital marketing channels into functional, forward-thinking platforms.
2020 and the Lead Generation Future
Even as the world battled COVID-19, Genesis Career College knew it had to maintain growth in order to keep the wheels turning.
This meant three pivots in its original digital marketing strategy:
- Ensure the safety of students upon reopening
- Update its website to be more user-friendly and navigable
- Create relevant, informative content with a pandemic angle
First and foremost, the safety of new and returning students, as well as administrators, needed to be guaranteed amid the pandemic. This meant online appointments had to be made available and information was easily accessible online. A virtual world also requires a website that goes beyond being user-friendly; with the assistance of The ABM Agency developers and content creators, Genesis launched a brand new site to partner cohesively with all other digital channels.
Lastly, blog, email marketing, and social media content had to be relevant to the landscape carved out by COVID-19—but it also had to keep the future in mind, provide valuable information, and showcase the opportunities available at the career college. This type of content included topics such as transitioning safely back to school, taking care of your skin while wearing a mask, and the importance of health literacy during a pandemic.
The Results
By May 2020, Genesis Career College was seeing vastly improved numbers:
Total impressions were up 148% year over year, and overall enrollments increased 15% in the same time period.
The 2020 lead generation campaigns also generated an 84% increase in clicks year over year, as well as an 18.25% increase in qualified leads for Genesis.
While success in the middle of a global health crisis is rare, Genesis Career College is proof it can happen. With the help of a full-service agency, the multi-location career college remained nimble and continued to provide its services to those looking for a new career path.
