HOW TO REACH 500.000 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES, ACQUIRE 8.500 LEADS AND INCREASE SALES BY NEARLY 50%?
Learn about the case study of the first recruitment campaign on Instagram in Poland prepared for EF Education First by Remarkable Ones and Social Leaders.
EF Education First is an international network of schools offering foreign language courses. Today, EF has more than 600 schools and offices in 114 countries and regions around the world. Every year, hundreds of thousands of customers use the company’s services. Most of them are people aged 16-25.
Although EF offers a very wide selection of educational programs, the most popular of them are language trips lasting no more than 2 weeks. The company asked us to reverse this trend. The client set us a demanding and specific criteria – they wanted to gain 1500 contacts to people interested in language trips and increase sales of holiday language trips.
The first step we took was… to narrow down the target group. We decided to focus on then high school graduates who, after passing the most important exam in their lives, are looking for an idea for themselves, take their first holiday job or go on vacation. We decided that this moment is perfect to offer them work and entertainment in one.
This is how we came up with the idea of creative recruitment for a LANGUAGE TRIP TESTER. The recruited person’s task was to publish on Instagram about a 4-week English language course in Singapore. In return, in addition to covering the costs of the course, the tester would receive a salary – 5.000 PLN.
We decided that Instagram would be our main communication channel. According to research, it engages young people 70 percent more than Facebook does.
The third step was to determine the form of reach. According to research, 56% of teenagers skip online advertising. Moreover, the target groups we identified have a high level of trust in influencers. People born after 1995 are 30% more likely to choose products recommended by influencers That’s why we decided to reach them by offering them a job and a holiday in one, involving popular influencers.
The campaign, which took place from May to July, was divided into 3 stages:
Stage I – Selfie as CV
To take part in the recruitment, all you had to do was send a private message to @efpolska on Instagram. In response, applicants automatically received a link to the application form and the first recruitment task. The task was to publish the perfect selfie for the CV with the tag #testerEF and to encourage their friends to write in the comments why they think this person would be the perfect candidate. This allowed us to achieve a high organic reach of the campaign by informing more people about the action in a viral way.
Stage II – A day in the life
From all the applications, we selected the 50 best candidates, who were given the second task, which consisted in recording and sharing on Instagram video in which they recount their day in the life of a tester. The decisive influence on the result was the support of friends who were to answer our question under the video: What three things should a future Tester take with them to Singapore. This significantly expanded the reach of the campaign and engaged even more people.
Finale stage – Live on Insta
In the finale of the action, during a live broadcast on Instagram on the @efpolska channel, a jury consisting of popular influencers jointly selected the winner of the competition. Karolina Chmielowiec (@chmielowiec.ka) spent several weeks reporting on her dream trip to Singapore.
Social media
To build organic reach, we used the support of influencers and Instagram micro-influencers who, in posts on their Instagram channels, encouraged people to take part in recruitment. We also invited 4 popular influencers to cooperate – Wiktoria Gąsiewska, Dominik Bakuła, Aleksandra Furka (Olciiak) and Aleksandra Pawlik (Alex Mandostyle). Instagram users not only chose the winners of the competition, but also kept the campaign updated on their profiles.
Media relations
We conducted media relations activities that increased the reach by people who were absent online. Information about the campaign was published on many youth and marketing portals. We also attracted the interest of aszdziennik (one of the most popular satirical portals read by our target group), which published its own article on our recruitment.
Additional activities
We took our action to the streets and universities. At key universities in Warsaw and Krakow, we distributed leaflets about the project. To arouse even more interest in the campaign, we placed a real job advertisement in career offices and Facebook groups offering work.
The results of the campaign were spectacular. We received 8.500 applications from high school graduates. By this we exceeded the number of applications by as much as 566%. The campaign also turns into higher sales of language courses, which increased by as much as 46% in comparison with the same period last year.
In addition to that:
- brand search rate in the internet increased by 86% and the number of reservations increased by 60%
- content related to the campaign has been viewed over 1 500.000 times by nearly 500.000 people
- the average daily organic reach of the profile during the campaign was 15.300 people
- we gained nearly 15.000 new followers throughout the campaign, so that at the end of the reporting period the @efpolska profile was followed by over 28.000 people
What about you?
Would you like to become a language trip tester?