The context: New business limited to referrals
After 25 years in business, the video agency still relied only on referrals from existing clients to win new ones. That limited growth to the reach of its current network. To expand its potential client base, the agency needed a second acquisition channel.
Partnership objectives
The client wanted a client acquisition channel beyond referrals. Higher education came first, and other segments were tested as the campaign went on.
Strategy and implementation
The campaign ran on cold email in four steps: defining the ideal customer profile (ICP), launching department-specific campaigns, re-engaging prospects who didn’t reply, and testing new segments.
Defining the ICP
The team targeted colleges and universities with 4,000 to 25,000 students.
Within each institution, it focused on four departments: Admissions, Marketing, Athletics, and Advancement. Target titles were VPs, AVPs, Directors, and Athletic Directors.
The client’s work for digital scoreboards and social media matched what athletics and admissions teams buy. Outreach started in Pennsylvania and then expanded across the US.
Department-specific campaigns
Each department got its own email templates, built around its concerns and vocabulary. On top of that title-based segmentation, the team used two approaches:
- Local outreach in Pennsylvania. Prospects in the client’s home state received messages built around the local connection and the option to meet in person.
- Referral asks in every template. Each email asked the prospect to point the team to the right colleague in their department or network. In higher education, decision-making authority varies from one department and institution to the next, so a referral often reached the decision-maker faster than another cold email.
The initial campaigns across the four categories reached a 68% open rate and reply rates between 12% and 25%.
Re-engaging prospects who didn’t reply
Prospects who didn’t respond moved into follow-up campaigns. These kept a 62.25% open rate and brought a 7.5% reply rate.
Expanding into e-learning
The team then targeted the same universities with campaigns aimed at different titles, and reached out to e-learning platforms with tailored video content offers.
Testing new offers and markets
To find more opportunities, the team tested three directions:
- Corporate product demonstrations: pitching the client’s experience in product video directly to corporate companies
- Professional training and coaching: testing several industries with offers for training and coaching content
- In-person meetings in Pittsburgh: moving corporate outreach toward face-to-face meetings in the client’s home city
Challenges Belkins encountered
- Slow responses. Tight higher education budgets led to slow replies and occasional negative feedback. Follow-up campaigns kept those conversations open.
- Shifting decision-makers. Even with department segmentation, results varied across departments and institutions. The team kept testing titles and used referral asks to find the person who actually made the decision.
- Bureaucracy. Long negotiations and approval layers are standard in higher education, so the team adapted its outreach to how institutions buy.
- A 9–12-month sales cycle. Few decisions could close within the engagement, so the team followed up continuously and kept opportunities moving through the pipeline.
Lessons learned
- Segment by department, not just by institution. Admissions, Marketing, Athletics, and Advancement responded differently, and reply rates ranged from 12% to 25% across the four categories.
- Ask for referrals inside cold outreach. When buying authority is spread across departments, asking for the right colleague shortens the path to the decision-maker.
- Plan the follow-up before the first wave ends. Prospects who ignored the first campaign still replied at 7.5% to the follow-ups.
- Start where you have a local advantage. Pennsylvania outreach used the client’s home-state connection before the campaign expanded nationwide.
- Fit. Higher education outreach suits companies that can wait 9–12 months for a decision and keep nurturing after the first appointment. A company that needs closed revenue within a quarter or two should start with a segment with a shorter buying process.
