Reflection - Learning Launch    Challenge    I have been running my own company for the past 8 years and our main goal is to guide  students from latin america who are looking for options to study in Austrália. The buying cycle  can be considerably long, taking up to 18 months for a lead to turn into a client, with conversion  rates lower than 3%. The business is remunerated only after a client successfully enrols into a  course with one of our partners and it requires hours of work from our staff to qualify potential  clients. In order to scale the business without having to change our revenue model we had to  find a way to reduce the time spent by our staff in educating and qualifying the prospects and  increase conversion rates.    Selection    It was clear to us that we would need to leverage the online space to engage with potential  clients in a more cost effective way and we believed that social media would be the best  channel to engage and educate our prospects. In order to test our hypothesis we decided to  conduct a Learning Launch, which is an experiment designed to test our assumptions in a fast  and inexpensive way.     Application    We knew from our previous experiences qualifying clients that potential clients who have  already decided which city they want to travel to, are aware of the country visa requirements  and articulate that they intend to travel within 3 to 6 months are more likely to make a purchase  within the next 6 months. Our current sales process at that stage would forward any enquiry  directly to the sales team and a salesperson would then contact the client over the phone and  try to persuade them to visit one of our offices in person. Only after a face to face meeting that  would normally last 1 to 2 hours we would disqualify a prospective client.    Our hypothesis was that if we could find potential clients on facebook who told us that they had  already decided which city in Australia they would like to study, that they were aware of the visa  requirements to study in Australia and that they intended to travel within 3 to 6 months, our  conversion rates would be much higher than 3%.    For our first learning launch we created a landing page with promotions to study in Australia and  a button for people to request more information. By clicking on the button they would be directed  to a form that would ask all their personal details as well as 3 qualifying questions: what city  they wanted to travel to, if they already knew what the student visa requirements were and  when they intended to travel. Only the potential clients who had answered the qualifying  questions in a satisfactory way would receive a call back, all others would receive an automated  email series.

Insight    The results were very encouraging as our sales people noticed an increase in the number of  leads coming though. However, a high percentage of unqualified leads were also going through  as some people would answer yes to the qualifying questions even though they were not sure of  the answers. The main insight here was that people really liked our promotions as they were  very well priced compared to our competitors and therefore they wanted more information but  they had not paid much attention to the questions and their answers did not reflect their level of  knowledge.    Approach    The team agreed that a second learning launch was needed to validate our hypothesis, so we  decided to direct people who clicked on the button requesting more information to a chatbot.  The chatbot would introduce herself and request permission to add the person to our database,  which would allow us to gather all the clients personal data available on Facebook. After that,  the chatbot would take the client through the qualifying questions. The chatbot allowed us to  create a few different paths for the conversation, directing potential clients to our marketing  collaterals as they interacted with each other and encouraging the prospective client to revise  that material prior to speaking to our sales team.    This approach was very successful as our sales team reported an increase in qualified leads  and we have managed to decrease the sales cycle from 18 months to 6 months average.


Reflection - Learning Launch Challenge I have been running my own company for the past 8 years and our main goal is to guide students from latin america who are looking for options to study in Austrália . The buying cycle can be considerably long , taking up to 18 months for a lead to turn into a client , with conversion rates lower than 3 % . The business is remunerated only after a client successfully enrols into a course with one of our partners and it requires hours of work from our staff to qualify potential clients . In order to scale the business without having to change our revenue model we had to find a way to reduce the time spent by our staff in educating and qualifying the prospects and increase conversion rates . Selection It was clear to us that we would need to leverage the online space to engage with potential clients in a more cost effective way and we believed that social media would be the best channel to engage and educate our prospects . In order to test our hypothesis we decided to conduct a Learning Launch , which is an experiment designed to test our assumptions in a fast and inexpensive way . Application We knew from our previous experiences qualifying clients that potential clients who have already decided which city they want to travel to , are aware of the country visa requirements and articulate that they intend to travel within 3 to 6 months are more likely to make a purchase within the next 6 months . Our current sales process at that stage would forward any enquiry directly to the sales team and a salesperson would then contact the client over the phone and try to persuade them to visit one of our offices in person . Only after a face to face meeting that would normally last 1 to 2 hours we would disqualify a prospective client . Our hypothesis was that if we could find potential clients on facebook who told us that they had already decided which city in Australia they would like to study , that they were aware of the visa requirements to study in Australia and that they intended to travel within 3 to 6 months , our conversion rates would be much higher than 3 % . For our first learning launch we created a landing page with promotions to study in Australia and a button for people to request more information . By clicking on the button they would be directed to a form that would ask all their personal details as well as 3 qualifying questions : what city they wanted to travel to , if they already knew what the student visa requirements were and when they intended to travel . Only the potential clients who had answered the qualifying questions in a satisfactory way would receive a call back , all others would receive an automated email series . Insight The results were very encouraging as our sales people noticed an increase in the number of leads coming though . However , a high percentage of unqualified leads were also going through as some people would answer yes to the qualifying questions even though they were not sure of the answers . The main insight here was that people really liked our promotions as they were very well priced compared to our competitors and therefore they wanted more information but they had not paid much attention to the questions and their answers did not reflect their level of knowledge . Approach The team agreed that a second learning launch was needed to validate our hypothesis , so we decided to direct people who clicked on the button requesting more information to a chatbot . The chatbot would introduce herself and request permission to add the person to our database , which would allow us to gather all the clients personal data available on Facebook . After that , the chatbot would take the client through the qualifying questions . The chatbot allowed us to create a few different paths for the conversation , directing potential clients to our marketing collaterals as they interacted with each other and encouraging the prospective client to revise that material prior to speaking to our sales team . This approach was very successful as our sales team reported an increase in qualified leads and we have managed to decrease the sales cycle from 18 months to 6 months average .