Learndirect utilises technology to transform the skills and employability of the working population. Learndirect covers four broad areas: training, courses, skills and learning. Training courses and advice for SMEs are marketed under the Learndirect Business brand.
The challenge
The objectives of the Learndirect Business campaign were to drive sales of training e-courses via an online shop and to raise awareness in Learndirect’s Business offerings within the target SME audience.
Although awareness in Learndirect is high, it is primarily associated with consumer and individual training advice and courses whilst Learndirect Business’ courses are specifically designed for SME’s to allow employees to train and develop in their own time at home or at work.
The main challenges faced by Learndirect Business were to achieve a coherent presence on the main search engines’ results pages.
Furthermore, directly competing against Learndirect’s training offering on search engines results, were not only commercial companies, but other Government’s departments, such as the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). Therefore, it was also essential to ensure that Learndirect Business’s search listings did not directly compete against other Government’s campaigns, which in turn could have caused inflating prices in the keyword auctions on the search engines’ results, but complimented them to maximise complimentary messages.
Combining awareness and direct response
The campaign utilised paid search text adverts on Google, Yahoo and MSN, between August 2007 and May 2008 and is still live now. The monthly budget levels varied in order to accommodate the seasonality in the training market; overall budget for the forementioned ten month period was just over £200k.
In order to achieve the objectives laid out by Learndirect Business, the search strategy deployed for the campaign focused on the following:
- Understanding the total scope of products that Learndirect business offers and focus on those areas
- Identifying the courses unique to Learndirect and with a lower level of competition;
- Maintaining a low level of visibility on the more competitive keywords in order to lower the cost per sale but achieve the necessary visibility on the first page of the search results.
- Differentiating Learndirect Business from other paid search campaigns for Government funded training schemes, which were live concomitantly.
- Leveraging existing natural visibility and site sales data to lead the scope of keyword coverage
Keyword development was of critical importance to ensure the right balance between visibility and direct response.
Site offered courses and training program keywords were grouped in three main areas which were allocated different budget levels and sales targets.
To identify those courses that were unique to Learndirect, the training areas that the companyranked highly for in the natural search results were identified and it was ensured that these course keywords received a high proportion of the campaign budget.
This information, along with sales information from Learndirect, competitive analysis of the SME training search market and historical campaign learnings, formed the basis of the campaign’s strategy.
High keyword visibility
The strategy aimed at achieving first page visibility on a wide range of keywords, with the highest level of visibility being maintained for those keywords that converted well in terms of sales, and with a lower level of visibility on high volume ‘awareness course’ keywords such as ‘excel training’ or ‘business training courses’ were used.
“As this was one of our first key search campaigns, I-level’s understanding of our objectives specific to SMEs was critical, as was their understanding as to how search works and how it could best deliver alongside our other marketing activity,” said Justine Poole, of the UFI/Learndirect marketing department. “I-level delivered across the board, with a strategy which has succeeded in enhancing our ROI on this strand of the business. They also fully embraced the challenges we face in delivering against our overall marketing objectives and enlightening us on the wonderful world of search marketing.”
