Intelliworks boosts leadvolume while reducingcost-per-lead by 40%

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Intelliworks is a rapidly growing software company that provides CRM solutions for higher education. Colleges and universities that want to improve their student recruitment, enrollment, marketing, and retention efforts look to Intelliworks to help them make purposeful connections with students and drive tuition-based revenue.

Intelliworks’ software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform gives institutions access to comprehensive CRM technology and services at a low upfront cost, with minimal burden on their IT departments. As a result, hundreds of organizations worldwide have chosen Intelliworks as their CRM platform. Clients range from large state universities to small private liberal arts colleges, to publicly-traded educators and education service providers.

Dan Obregon, Vice President of Marketing for Intelliworks, says, “Relative to other companies in the market, Intelliworks is young and agile. We don’t necessarily have the big marketing budgets of some of the legacy players, but with innovative technology and a passionate customer base, we compete very effectively.”

About Intelliworks — www.intelliworks.com • CRM for higher education

• Privately-held company based in Bethesda, Maryland

• Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform for student recruitment, enrollment, marketing and retention used by nearly 200 institutions worldwide

Objectives• Target higher education enrollment, admissions, and IT professionals

• Reach potential customers early in their decision cycle

• Raise volume of quali�ed leads cost effectively

Why LinkedIn? • #1 trusted resource for business professionals

• Precise targeting by industry, job function, location, and professional interests

• Members actively focused on professional growth, education, peer connections

Results • 22% of quali�ed online leads come from LinkedIn

• Cost-per-lead is 40% less than leads delivered by search advertising

• Increased conversions since campaigns started using LinkedIn's Lead Collection capability

Reach new customers with LinkedIn Ads, LinkedIn’s advertising solution for direct response marketers. www.linkedin.com/adsCopyright © 2011 LinkedIn Corporation. LinkedIn, the LinkedIn logo, and InMail are registered trademarks of LinkedIn Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other brands and names are the property of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

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“We found that LinkedIn Ads perform better than display ads in trade publications and trade websites. With display ads, there’s no guarantee that your message will reach your exact audience, whereas with LinkedIn, you know precisely whom you’re reaching based on title or group membership. LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities are unrivaled.”

Precise targeting in a niche market Intelliworks’ customers come from speci�c sub-segments of the overall education market. This can be challenging when the segmentation and targeting options of traditional media don’t provide the optimal level of granularity. Dan states, “One of the things we like best about LinkedIn Ads is the ability to reach our exact audience. We target a niche within a niche – the people speci�cally responsible for student recruitment within higher education institutions.

Increasing lead volume while controlling costs With LinkedIn, Intelliworks has tapped into a pro�table new resource for demand generation. Dan reports, "We started advertising with LinkedIn just one year ago, and today LinkedIn Ads delivers 22% of our online leads. LinkedIn delivers a volume of quali�ed leads that’s comparable to our paid search campaigns, at a cost per lead that’s 40% less.”

“We’re pleased with our results and committed to continual improvement. For example, we tested landing pages that were more action oriented, which enhanced conversions. Then we tested LinkedIn’s new ‘Lead Collection’ capability, which lets our audience provide their email address and request that we contact them on LinkedIn in a single click. The Lead Collection capability reduced barriers to conversion and further increased our �ow of quali�ed leads. “We’re a small but growing organization that serves a unique market. We may not have the big conference and print advertising budgets of the larger players in our industry, but LinkedIn helps us get in front the right people early in the decision-making cycle. With LinkedIn, we connect with the exact professionals we want to reach and show them we understand their business and can provide tremendous value.”

CRM is a fairly new concept for many colleges and universities, so an important part of the sales process is educating buyers about their options. It's essential for companies like Intelliworks to reach decision makers early in the process.

Reaching buyers on LinkedIn One of the keys to Intelliworks’ success is connecting with decision makers online to provide insight and best practices around student enrollment, engagement, and technology selection. Dan says, “The education market relies heavily on referrals and word-of-mouth. Opinions of peers and peer institutions often outweigh other information sources, so it is important for us to engage enrollment, admissions, and IT professionals where they gather. One of these places is LinkedIn.

“We’d been active in LinkedIn Groups for higher education – sharing content, running polls, participating in discussions. As we learned more about the LinkedIn platform, we decided to experiment with LinkedIn Ads. We ran some test campaigns and what caught our attention was the quality of leads. The same kinds of people that we’d have conversations with in LinkedIn Groups were taking an active interest and downloading the resources we made available through our ad campaigns.”

Intelliworks ad promoting CRM for higher education

LinkedIn Ads complement paid search After successfully using paid search ads for several years, Dan discovered that LinkedIn added an important dimension to his demand generation program. He explains, "Paid search is intent-based – it �nds people who are experiencing a problem right now. LinkedIn lets us reach professionals even earlier, when they have latent pain and are just starting to think about solutions. Our LinkedIn ads expose potential buyers to Intelliworks and let us provide educational resources early in the decision process."

CRM for Higher EducationRecruit and Retain More Students with SaaS CRM Built for Higher EdFrom: Intelliworks