• MarketingSherpa, Thursday, August 14, 2008 1:45 PM

Ashworth University's marketing team had two goals in mind when they revamped the school's SEM strategy--to improve conversion rates, and to improve student retention. And after implementing a number of keyword-focused strategies, the average conversion rate hit 17%, and the lifetime value of students increased by almost 50% in some cases.

"Retention was a big part of what we needed to do better," said Chris Burford, Ashworth's director of search marketing. "While we wanted to get more enrollments on the front end, we also needed to get them to stay for a while and spend money."

The company started by attacking its roster of 25,000+ keywords, weeding out the costly terms that were driving lots of non-converting traffic, and honed in on terms that would better attract their target. Burford also made use of automated SEM management systems that helped find keywords with poor quality scores, manage bids to specified maximums, as well as take advantage of the various match types available across the big three engines.

Ashworth's strategies also included landing page optimization, email follow-ups, as well as a retooling of the phone sales reps' scripted dialogue. But keyword-focused optimization was the first step toward generating the desired results.

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