Objectives
- Attracting new customers to purchase the main service – obtaining a residence permit in Slovakia from the CIS countries.
- Generating stable, controlled and monitored lead flow with the opportunity of upscaling.
- Increasing brand awareness and raising the level of trust.
About the project
The company has existed for several years now, and it is among the biggest ones in the immigration services market in Slovakia. It covers almost all the needs of those wishing to obtain a residence permit in the EU. The cost of the services starts from 1599€.
The main sources of clients at the start of work were the YouTube Channel ‘Slovakia For Life’, referrals of those who had used the company’s services before, and SEO website promotion.
Analytics systems were installed on the site without the conversion and goal tracking setup, so it was almost impossible to map out the customer journey. The lead source wasn’t tracked in the CRM system either. Due to all the above mentioned, the customer flow was very fluctuating and unpredictable.
Work plan
We chose two hypotheses for the controlled lead generation: use of contextual advertising and advertising on Facebook and Instagram. But first we had to prepare for the launch of the paid traffic:
- Analytics systems setup
- The analysis of competitors’ audience, content and promotional posts.
- Creating a content plan and publishing posts.
- Creating post templates and redesigning social media.
Analytics systems setup
We used a Facebook pixel and Google Analytics. All the systems and the goal setup were done through Google Tag Manager. Now we could track every time the forms were filled out, the phone number or messaging apps buttons were clicked, the residence permit calculator was used etc. Because of this, we could understand what exactly worked and what didn’t.
In the CRM system, sales managers started to track the source of leads and, more importantly, the buyers.
Competitors analysis
There were almost no competitors with the systematic content creation. The majority’s social media accounts didn’t maintain an active presence. Even if there were promotional posts, they looked quite simple – poor quality images with a photo of an international passport or a residence card. However, through the content analysis services we could evaluate the audience engagement depending on the post subject.
Content marketing
Moving to the EU is quite a time-consuming and not the cheapest process, so in order to make this decision, people have to get as much useful warm-up content as possible. The content plan was directed at those who were just considering the move, those who would follow Facebook and Instagram accounts after the ad campaign launch.
Redesign
We redesigned the Instagram and Facebook feeds. We added Instagram highlights with the main information about company’s services and competences, changed the bio and the visual content.
Before/After:
We added mobile landing with all the necessary information, because the main website is rather “heavy”, and the created landing loaded several times as fast.
Targeted advertising
First of all, we collected data for primary analytics from the two main paid sources. Contextual advertising and advertising on Facebook & Instagram.
Contextual advertising
Unfortunately, this type of advertising generated rather expensive leads both from ads within Russia and from ads in other CIS countries. Through contextual advertising we generated 83 leads at the cost per lead of 4,1€. We took into account interactions with the website feedback forms, the residence permit calculator, the phone number and the messengers.
It’s likely that, by means of the retargeting campaigns setup, in the long run we would have managed to bend buyers towards making the purchase. However, it was the social media advertising that created broader and more lucrative opportunities to engage with prospects.
Ads on Facebook and Instagram
We needed to evaluate several lead generation techniques:
- Use of the website
- Use of a quiz
- Converting social media followers into targeted conversation
As a result, social media advertising generated 248 leads at the cost per lead of 2,6€. It’s almost twice as cheap as contextual advertising.
Use of the website
The website generated leads comparable in price with contextual advertising. But the majority of leads from contextual ads were applications from the residence permit calculator and messengers, while social media mostly brought in leads through feedback forms where a person left their phone number. These leads were “warmer”.
Use of a quiz
Unlike the website, the quiz loads must faster. A lot of useful integrations and redirections can be embedded in it. For instance, redirection to the main site after completing the quiz, and automatic addition of the contact details to the e-mail newsletter chain and CRM.
The quiz generated the cheapest leads and made it possible to warm up in different ways those who had left their contact details. Considering these two factors and the fact that the leads from the quiz converted into real customers, this lead generation technique was chosen as the main one, when allocating the budget.
The first quiz page:
Work with social media followers
Active work with followers became possible because of a good content strategy which focused on the attractiveness of obtaining a residence permit in Europe. As a result, the degree of the prospects’ “warmth” increases.
We set up follower ads to create a steady growth of social media follower base. Thereby, by the time this case was written, we had been able to grow the Instagram account, gaining new followers at less than 30 cents per follower. Cost per follower on Facebook is less than 13 cents.
With time such people were warmed up by the content and eventually got into conversation with the company.
Ads and audiences
In the process we selected the best visuals for advertising. Videos with Slovakia’s beautiful and iconic views turned out to be most converting.
See some examples below:
Texts of the ads were based on the pains and desires of those wishing to immigrate to the EU.
Different detailed targeting interests, connected with obtaining citizenship, international programs, interest in Slovakia and the EU, study in Europe, were used as audiences.
After setting up analytics systems, we were able to set up retargeting ad campaigns for the site visitors and create look-a-like audiences. It allowed us to show ads to one of the warmest audience segments.
Primary analytics results
After the evaluation of advertising effectiveness, we decided to choose social media as the main source of lead generation. The bulk of the budget is used for the work with the quiz; at the same time there is traffic flow to the site, and social media keep gaining new followers.
Aside from customer conversion at the first contact, we were able to warm up a lot of people later through social media content or the e-mail newsletter chain.
Long-term results
- Monthly advertising budget 1500€.
- Final cost per lead varies from 1,5 to 2,6€.
- Generated on average around 800 leads a month.
- There is constant warming up of prospects through social media and newsletters.
Of course, not every lead is converted into a company’s client. The length of the decision cycle plays an important role. In this particular case it often lasts over 6 months. During this period it’s really important to remind about the company through social media, newsletters, retargeting advertising campaigns, creating new touches to engage prospects.
The graph shows the volume of leads generated in the first three months of work.
Considering the high cost and marginality of the service, advertising campaigns and content marketing pay off completely and increase revenue during a lot of months.
We have created a stable, controlled source of clients which can be analyzed through configured analytics systems.
The exact profits are not disclosed due to the NDA.