English Language Learning
digitally transforming a known language framework and pairing it with selected technology allows for a diverse and effective global communications strategy.
marketing communications
ELL’s user base stretches across the globe, hosting students from every continent, all with varying levels of English language proficiency. Selling language as a product increases the importance of effective communication dramatically. It also creates a greater challenge marketing to an audience with limited English abilities – ensuring your messaging is understood is a common hurdle to overcome.
To deliver this, a framework was required – a digital communications strategy to ensure full comprehension from ELL’s varied audience.
communication framework
The CEFR scale (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) organises language proficiency in six levels – A1 to C2 – which can be regrouped into three broad levels: Basic User, Independent User and Proficient User. All courses sold by ELL follow this framework. Building a strategy around this existing scale was the clear choice for ELL’s marketing comms.
digital marketing
Due to the global nature of the ELL audience, our approach to their comms focused on a digital strategy; a well-constructed website paired with precise marketing campaigns, paid and organic social media strategies and search engine marketing were at the heart of this. The communications needed to align with their overarching business goals, which were, broadly speaking, to onboard new students and to maintain a solid retention rate.
In order to achieve this we followed a set of standards for all marketing communications. These were: to always provide clear learning outcomes and to encourage and educate students. This approach was integrated throughout the ELL website.
One segment of our social media strategy was to share free resources to ELL’s audience; an approach that has seen the ELL Facebook page gain a steady following – currently standing at 20k followers. Facebook was selected as the primary social media channel due to its reach – it is by far the most used social media channel globally, hosting nearly 36.9% of the world’s population. Weekly digital content is shared, allowing ELL to continuously communicate with potential customers, as seen on the Facebook page here.
target audience
With a full understanding of the CEFR scale, it became clear that targeting messaging for each and every level of the scale within the digital communications strategy would not be a valuable use of resources; ELL needed to understand their target audience by level of English proficiency.
We reviewed past course sales, in order to get a deeper understanding of who we should be targeting messaging to. The most popular courses were between the levels of B1-C1, meaning a reasonably proficient understanding of English. Knowing this, combined with an understanding of the native languages of existing students, it was decided that we would base all digital marketing output on these personas. Focusing communications towards a more niche audience allowed hyper-targeted campaigns, which in turn offered greater success. You can find examples of this here.
technology
Despite focusing on a clear segment of the prospective audience, it was still imperative to ensure that the ELL website was available for all levels of English proficiency, including those at the lower end of the scale. Our solution was to rely on existing high-quality tech, embedding Google Translate into the site. This guaranteed that all prospective students, regardless of existing proficiency, would have the ability to access the information needed to make the decision to purchase, ensuring that no potential customers were shut out.
results
ELL continues to host users across the globe; with a social media following of 20,000 and around 2,000 website visitors per month, it’s clear that our multi-level communications strategy is an effective model.