Klient:
Populo School
A new website and campaigns are driving 100% YoY growth for this exceptional individual tutoring school.
case study
The school helps with tutoring and exams for elementary school students and future university students at dozens of branches, and is successfully expanding abroad
5×
that's how many times we've increased the number of people brought to the site
8
that's how many services we provide to Populo School in total
by 100 %
that's how much we grow year-on-year every year of cooperation
their story
POPULO SCHOOL HELPS STUDENTS ALL OVER THE CZECH REPUBLIC
In the beginning, it was a simple but laudable idea to help pupils and students with subjects they are not good at and to provide them with effective and high-quality tutoring. The result is dozens of branches throughout the Czech Republic from Cheb to Karvina, employing approximately 1,200 professional lecturers and hundreds of other employees. More than 10,000 students have passed through their hands and their ranks are constantly expanding. This is how the Populo School can be presented in a nutshell.
The Populo school specializes in tutoring all subjects taught at primary and secondary schools. It also helps with high school and university entrance exams and with matriculation exams. The already wide offer is complemented by courses designed for those who have to take reparations or differential exams when transferring from one school to another. In short, the organization helps with everything related to education.
The school is primarily based on an individual approach to each student with the aim of adapting the teaching as much as possible to their specific requirements. The basis is one-on-one tutoring. Therefore, the lecturer only focuses on one student. Thanks to this, together they can go through absolutely everything that is needed. Those interested also have the option of choosing between face-to-face and online form.
The school also offers impromptu testing. In it, students experience the real atmosphere of matriculation exams or entrance exams with everything, including time limits or the form of test questions. Pupils and students therefore have the opportunity to improve or test their knowledge outside of standard tutoring hours.
The fact that the concept is functional is evidenced by the positive references of many parents and also by statistics. Over 94% of students applying to secondary schools or gymnasiums are successful, in the case of tutored graduates, the success rate is around 96%.
their goal
IMPROVE PAID PROMOTION AND SCALE ONLINE MARKETING
Four Bros’ cooperation with the Populo School began in 2019. Initially, the client’s request was only for a smaller test and time-limited Facebook campaign. Thanks to mutual satisfaction, however, the cooperation gradually expanded to other and other segments of online marketing.
Currently, we help Populo School with performance campaigns on social networks and with PPC, we take care of its content on social networks and also web presentation. In addition, we also handle SEO, emailing, custom graphics and other activities. We also advise on several organizational matters and build a comprehensive marketing strategy that determines our common direction.
our solution
FUNCTIONAL CUSTOMIZED WEBSITE, TUNED CONTENT AND PERFORMANCE CAMPAIGNS
We have known the owner of the Populo School, Jakub Rakušan, for a long time. So we know that what this organization does has real meaning and that everyone is doing their best to help pupils and students with their duties as effectively as possible. Thanks to this, we very quickly found a common language and got to work.
1
PRECISELY ADJUSTED CAMPAIGN PERFORMANCE
Online performance campaigns were and are the most important part of our cooperation. The first joint project was a smaller Facebook campaign aimed at existing clients. It was very successful. Thanks to this, Jakub subsequently asked us to take over the complete management of Facebook and turn it into a meaningful marketing channel. Before us, another agency worked on the network, but the results were not very satisfactory. Only we gave structure to Facebook campaigns, divided them into prospecting and remarketing, scaled them and targeted relevant audiences.
However, after a while we ran into the limits of the single channel approach. Cooperation with an agency that managed PPC campaigns did not bring the desired results. Marketing works as an omni channel. Individual channels should therefore be supported and function comprehensively. Eventually, we took over PPC management as well and started managing this type of campaign.
Along with that, we also focused on SEO. We have prepared a detailed analysis of keywords that are searched for in connection with the focus of the Populo School. Based on it, we then started to process technical modifications on the website and also put together a content strategy for content to make sense and support our activities.
The customer’s journey from inquiry to payment is quite a painstaking one. Matching revenue to campaigns proved to be particularly difficult. In cooperation with an external data analyst, we therefore created an advanced and detailed measurement of the conversion path, which connects performance platforms with a CRM developed for the Populo School. This enables us to evaluate, forecast and plan the performance of campaigns with the greatest possible efficiency.
As part of the performance, the client gives us considerable freedom. However, this does not mean that our cooperation is freer. Populo School is a very dynamic client who wants and also actively participates in decision-making. So together we discuss, for example, price offers for tutoring, creation of tutoring packages or business growth. We then project all outputs into campaigns.
2
MEANINGFUL CONTENT ON ALL PAGES
An important part of our cooperation is the creation of content. At the Populo school, we create it not only for social networks, but also for websites.
Above all, we pay a lot of attention to Facebook and Instagram. We make 8-10 posts per month on these platforms. We have prepared the topics in the publication plan and we choose them mainly with regard to the current season according to what the interested parties are currently looking for. Thanks to this, followers can come across on Facebook or Instagram, for example, an offer of tutoring during the period when final papers are being written or a link to a blog article describing the procedure for submitting an appeal if the applicant has not been accepted to the university. We also gradually introduce individual branches of the organization. The plan also includes lighter topics, such as cheerful stories from the world of tutoring.
We have also taken over a blog for which we are currently creating three articles per month. Two are created for the Czech mutation of the website, one text is added monthly to the Slovak pages. Blog articles serve several functions. In addition to informing and educating the audience, they also increase the organic reach and use them to bring people interested in the services offered by the Populo School to the site. Last but not least, the blog helps the company build a reputation as experts and thus strengthen the brand. We further increase the reach of articles by sending e-mailing campaigns in which we draw attention to news on the blog. Let’s add that all materials are created according to a publication plan compiled in advance and approved for a year in advance. So nothing is done by chance.
A landing page offering online subject practice has proven to be extremely successful, with a large number of visitors passing through it. An interested party can, for example, prepare for tutoring there, or just brush up on the material covered at school. Just choose a subject and then choose a topic, year or language level. After finishing, he will receive the results by e-mail. This landing page also serves as a very functional acquisition tool, as many interested parties subsequently agree to subscribe to the newsletter. The great success of this site is evidenced by its traffic, which amounts to over 1000 users per month. In addition, since its deployment, we have recorded more than 100 leads for services that resulted from it.
The graphics are also exceptionally linked with the text component. Together with our colleagues from HotCat Production, we create a set of unique photos for each campaign, which are complemented by videos as needed. So whether it’s accompanying images for blog articles or Facebook campaigns, everything is original and nothing comes from photo banks or similar sources.
Influencer marketing is also an additional, yet very important component of promotion. For him, we arranged cooperation with the well-known influencer Míša Salak, who has two of her children tutored at the Populo School. This makes her experience truly authentic and believable for the recipient. We have also recently started a collaboration with director Biser Arichtev and trainer Hanka Kynychová. Their children are also tutored at the Populo School.
3
TAILOR-MADE WEBSITE
The Populo school originally used a website on the WordPress platform. However, quite quickly after the start of cooperation, we started to have many requests for various modifications. However, the existing agency that managed the website was unable to deliver them in the required time and quality. That is why we finally agreed with the Populo School that we will also take over the management of the website. We worked together like this for about a year. But the modifications were constantly increasing and WordPress proved to be more and more limiting. That’s why we finally came up with an initiative aimed at a customized website.
After consideration, we finally decided to move away from using a template platform. This solution would only provide limited possibilities for improvement and would only make the job more difficult in the future. That’s why we decided to move the site to a customized platform. This makes it much easier to apply all improvements or new elements with the promise of functioning in the future. A certain disadvantage in the form of the need for slightly more complex “maintenance” does not play a role in this case, given that we provide the client with complete website management anyway.
We decided to keep the existing design as it was not a priority at the time. But the backend, i.e. the “background” of the website, is completely new. It is divided into several modules that can be easily adjusted individually and each of them can work differently. For example, we can add an e-shop, which will have a different design from the rest of the site, without the need for lengthy modifications.
In terms of servers, the website is secured using AWS (Amazon Web Services). It is a cloud solution, with the help of which the website “runs” from several places in the world. Professionally, such a procedure is called geolocation redundancy. In the event of a failure in one location, the pages will start working elsewhere without any delays, and the visitor will not even notice that a problem has occurred. So the problems with slow loading or complete website outages, which the Populo School repeatedly faced in the past, have disappeared. For the sake of interest, let’s mention that Netflix, for example, works on this platform. Given the hundreds of thousands of unique accesses to the site each year, a similarly demanding procedure is completely appropriate – any, even the smallest problem with the site would result in financial losses and the reputation of the Populo School.
We have now reached the stage where we focus on increasing the conversion rate. So we returned to the design after about a year. We are currently in the process of completely redesigning the website with the aim of increasing the conversion rate. We can take such a step because we have a perfectly prepared custom backend and any changes are not a problem.
common success
Long-term and responsible cooperation brings great results. And that’s not only thanks to our professional work, but also to the client’s initiative and proactive approach, excellent planning and perfect feedback towards us. The Populo school is constantly gaining new clients, many existing ones return repeatedly due to good experiences. Every year we show unique increases in revenue, number of clients and number of lessons learned. This is in the order of tens of thousands per year. The organization has been building a long-term reputation as a reliable partner of pupils, students and parents for out-of-school education and an expert in its field who sets trends.
He is currently also turning his attention abroad, specifically to Slovakia. Our eastern neighbors already have a Bratislava branch, and we also tutor students online throughout the country.
We also have big plans for the future. Thanks to our perfect cooperation, we make excellent use of performance channels, so in the future we must focus more on building the brand and new target groups. We would like to focus more on children and students and show them that tutoring does not have to be just boring, which parents push them into, but also an interesting opportunity for the personal development of each person. We regularly meet with representatives of the Populo School at board meetings, where we evaluate the cooperation to date and plan the next steps.
In this case, too, it is confirmed that marketing needs to be done really comprehensively and if the appropriate time and effort is devoted to each component, the results are definitely worth it.
Jakub Rakušan, CEO & Founder
We started working with Four Bros in 2019 and have been very satisfied with their services since then. Four Bros Agency provided us with exceptionally comprehensive marketing support which helped us take our school to new levels and achieve great results.
During our cooperation, we appreciated their expertise and professional approach. Four Bros were not only able to successfully create and manage advertising campaigns, but also provided us with valuable suggestions and strategies for scaling our business. Their ability to quickly analyze the situation and propose effective solutions was indispensable for us.
We appreciated their excellent work in the field of online marketing the most. Four Bros has become an invaluable partner for us in online advertising and social media. Thanks to them, we achieved a significant increase in traffic to our website, which contributed to the growth of interest in our services.
Also worth mentioning is their ability to build relationships and communicate with us and our employees. Their approach is always helpful and professional, and they can give excellent advice.
Overall, we are completely satisfied with Four Bros and have no hesitation in recommending them as a great partner for any company looking for quality marketing support.
