Queenstown Resort College is New Zealand’s premier Tourism & Hospitality Management College, offering Diploma’s in Hospitality Management and Adventure Tourism, and a Graduate diploma in Tourism and Hospitality Management. QRC attracts students from across New Zealand and around the world, who come to study in the adventure capital.
Showcase the amazing career opportunities in tourism and hospitality.
Position QRC as the first choice in tourism education
Increase the number of application through online channels to 15%
Expand each region, especially students in schools that are not reached through traditional student recruitment efforts
Create a targeted and personalised online marketing experience for prospective students.
Launch of an “always on” digital direct marketing campaign
Targeted Landingpages with integrated A/B tests to capture leads from the different target groups: prospective hospitality students, prospective adventure tourism students, potential graddip students and parent.
Facebook advertising that focuses on the career opportunities, the love for the job and the ‘world is at your feet’ concept.
Google AdWords advertising that emphasises the USP’s of the product.
Remarketing via Google and Facebook that confirms the message why QRC is a good choice and how it suits the potential student.
QRC utilises marketing automation software to create a personalised e-mail chain. This, combined with website tracking, allows for leads to effectively scored and Student Recruiters to prioritise lead follow-up.
In response to Australian education funding cuts, QRC capitalised by targeting Kiwi’s living in Australia in the ideal age-bracket via Facebook.
200%
increase in number of potential students generated through online channels
12%
conversion rate for targeted landing pages
30%
of total applications are being generated via the online direct marketing campaigns
Historically, Queenstown Resort College relied heavily on domestic and international recruiters to connect with potential students via direct school and agent visits. This has been reflected in the marketing budget with the focus on recruitment efforts in person and on year 13 classes.
Over the past two years there has been a dramatic shift in thinking and the decision was made to start investing in online marketing and utilise it as a lead generation channel.
With the help of Riksta Bos, QRC launched an “always on” digital direct marketing campaign. A content focused strategy was put in place. The decision was made to make a key shift in messaging, choosing to focus on future potential and careers rather than a ‘bricks and mortar’ university approach. QRC’s new strategy promotes opportunities, encouraging students to pursue their dream, to turn your passion into your career, to succeed doing something you love! With tourism and hospitality, the possibilities are endless; whether your end goal is to be a GM of a large hotel chain or become an entrepreneur in the adventure tourism industry; the world is at your feet.
Riksta created campaigns to drive engagement through Facebook (paid and organic), customised landing pages and marketing automation. Advertising budget was directed to paid search (Google AdWords) and remarketing for both Facebook and Google.
Targeted Landingpages were set up with integrated A/B tests to capture as many leads as possible and to find the ‘perfect’ imagery, messaging and call to action for each of the different target groups.
Through A/B testing it became clear that although the overall messages resonated, the marketing copy and imagery for adventure tourism students needed to be very different than for potential hospitality students. It also became clear that user generated content was one of the strongest campaign elements; a landing page that used a video banner with footage created by current students was an absolute winner in terms of lead generation.
In order to create the most positive user journey for students who had engaged with one of the digital channels, QRC utilised marketing automation software to create personalized e-mail chains. This, combined with website tracking, allowed for leads to effectively scored and Student Recruiters to prioritize lead follow-up.
QRC also used its e-mail databases to retarget and reengage prospective students.
The results were very impressive:
The targeted landing pages generated a conversion rate of 12%. (visitor to lead)
30% of total applications is being generated via the digital marketing channels. The target was set at 15%.
