THE IMPACT CENTER

Project Summary

The Impact Center is a non-profit leadership development organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. They have helped hundreds of professionals from all walks of life take their careers, and their organizations, to the next level through their programs which include Executive Coaching, Team Facilitation, Board Development, and the Women’s Executive Leadership Program.

 

“How can we increase interest, applications and enrollments in our WELP program faster than what we’re doing through our Alumni network? How can we build a repeatable model that we know will deliver a certain amount of interested and qualified candidates, every semester?”

 

This was the ask of the leadership at The Impact Center, and a project we were excited to tackle. Before we could help them build a marketing program that would deliver on their ask, we first had to learn about the program itself, the application process, how much the cost of tuition was, and just who was the perfect prospect to fill their funnel for success. Understanding exactly when, how, and why someone wanted to apply to this program was crucial to design a marketing campaign that would connect with the right prospects, and the right time.

SERVICES PROVIDED

  • Website Design
  • Website Development
  • Paid Search Marketing
  • LinkedIn Ad Campaigns
  • Copywriting

  • We Built A Better Mouse Trap

    Before we started advertising, we needed to be sure that we could convert as many website visitors as possible into applicants. We didn’t feel confident that the client’s current site would convert the way we wanted, but the client’s budget didn’t allow for a full website re-design and development. So instead, we focused on building the absolute best landing page for our campaign that we felt would convert.

    We accomplished this by:

     

    1. Designing the prospect journey down the page in a way that established credibility, built trust, and got the candidate excited about what the program could do for them.
    2. Instead of just words on screen, we used audio testimonials on the page so visitors could hear about the program from past participants, but without the cost or production burden of video. In this case, we believe the audio actually performed BETTER than video would have.
    3. Lastly, we changed the ways in which people could convert. Previously the online conversion available was for interested parties to fill out a full application. From our perspective, it was asking too much, too soon – and turning off interested parties by only giving them the chance to commit to everything right away. We introduced alternative conversions so that visitors could still opt to apply; schedule a 15-minute phone call with staff to learn more; sign up for a mailing list to stay connected; or apply, but through a much more streamlined “quick app” that didn’t have the burden of a full application, but would allow staff to follow up and connect with the would-be applicant.

  • LinkedIn InMail: Creating a 1:1 Connection

    LinkedIn seemed the obvious first choice for a marketing campaign targeted at professionals, but within LinkedIn the LinkedIn platfwe had a number of options. How should we focus our ads, and which type of ad unit would be the best performer?

     

    We started with two campaigns withinorm – a traditional in-stream ad unit, and an InMail campaign using the Executive Director as the sender.

    When the initial results from our campaigns came in, we saw that while the InMail campaigns had a much lower reach – they were overwhelmingly the top performer. Over the course of the next year, we continued to launch new InMail campaigns for clients, testing new messaging and audience targeting each team, and increasing our ROI and # of applicants each time.

  • Better Targeting + A More Efficient Spend = More Applicants and a Shortened Sales Cycle

    Over the course of the past 2 years, we’ve helped The Impact Center launch numerous campaigns for multiple cohorts of the Women’s Executive Leadership Program. With each cohort we’ve been able to increase not only the number of applicants, but also the quality of the applicants, the diversity of their backgrounds and industries, and reduced the amount of time it takes to between initial interest to application and down payment.

     

    We’re thrilled to partner with such a great organization that is helping to advance the careers and leadership skills for professionals all over the country, and to help them grow in an effective, predictable way.

Our Work