How we helped a Singapore training institute achieve over S$1 million in revenues

We have been providing digital marketing services to SMEs for over 20 years, mainly in Singapore and India. Coincidentally, many of these companies have been in the education and training sector- both for individual/retail training as well as corporate training.

One of our recent success stories in helping a training institution grow their business has been in Singapore for a rather niche training services provider focused on the Singapore market.

There were quite a few challenges with the project that we had to overcome:

● Market size: Being in a rather niche industry and targeting a small geographic market, achieving high growth seemed difficult.

● Intense competition: Despite the small size of the market, there were already quite a few competitors with some of them being the education and training divisions of well-established players.

● Timing & external environment: Not only were our client new entrants in this space, but also they had ventured into this in-person training business in the immediate aftermath of the Covid pandemic, when several restrictions were still in place.

● Scepticism: The client was initially quite sceptical of the effectiveness of digital marketing for lead generation, as they had been reliant on traditional media including expensive newspaper advertising. So, the onus was on us to convince the client that digital marketing could be more cost-effective for lead generation and business growth. To their credit, the client was open to exploring a different marketing method.

Results from sustained digital marketing efforts

Over sustained digital marketing efforts with carefully allocated and monitored budgets, the training institute has managed to establish itself as one of the top providers in Singapore in its niche. The training unit now clocks well over S$1 million annually in revenue and continues to grow at an impressive rate.

Not only does it get well over 30% of its monthly trainees through new online leads generated via Google and Facebook, but also gets a significant volume of repeat trainees each month as well as referrals from their existing students (many of whom had first become a customer for the first time through the digital marketing campaign).

How we drove results

We relied on a combination of Local SEO, Google Ads and Facebook marketing (both organic and paid).

Social Media

On social media, where the primary platform being used was Facebook, our efforts were on using lead generation campaigns as well as increasing the number of followers to the company’s Facebook page, both organically as well as through paid advertising.

We worked closely with the company to obtain and create content for social media marketing: these could be achievements, celebrations, new announcements, information on courses, course schedules, student testimonials, achievements by the trainees and so on. Consistency was key with the posting of content.

Wherever possible, we posted videos. Some were professionally shot videos, but most were short videos captured on mobile phones.

Local SEO/Increase Google visibility

Our priority was to take care of some of the key, non-negotiable elements for SEO success: ensuring that pages on the site are crawled and indexed; content is added/ updated regularly; and obtaining links or mentions for the institute’s website from relevant sources.

We worked closely with the client to identify content creation opportunities for the website. As we have seen often with clients across industries, some obvious content opportunities were being missed. The regular dialogue on all the activities and happenings in the company helped us slowly forge a ‘content publisher’ mindset, which has been quite beneficial. It is still a work-in-progress.

Besides these, a couple of important steps we took that helped with visibility on Google in Singapore:

● Focus on Google My Business (GMB): We viewed that as another important social media channel and shared updates regularly, either reusing or repurposing content used on other social media channels, as appropriate.

● Encourage Google Reviews: We worked with the company to establish a good process to ensure that every participant at their training program was encouraged and nudged to give a Google review.

Even without any incentives, such as coupons or offers, that many local businesses tend to give in return for reviews, we found that this training company continued to add to their reviews consistently and organically. Equally importantly, the reviews were authentic and any reader could discern them to be so. Some were more elaborate than others, some had incorrect grammar and typos while some did read to be in ‘Singlish’ , and as is to expected, several trainees just left a rating without a detailed review.

It was slow and steady– but from the eventual results, it seems that establishing the process to get more Google reviews and then working on it in a disciplined manner have compounded the benefits.

Google Ads

We alternated between using both the content and search network to manage the monthly budget closely. Typically, we managed to keep the variance well below 5% of allocated spend.

We experimented with different changes more frequently, especially in the early stages of the campaign. However, in our view, we should give sufficient time for changes to take effect rather than constantly tinkering with the messaging and the targeting.

Though Google Ads promotes and pushes Performance Max campaigns (and now other campaign types), one has to be careful and monitor closely the impact on results. We used the Performance Max campaign sparingly, as the results we got indicated that it was good for greater reach and visibility but didn’t work as well for lead generation.

Key lessons and takeaways

The years of engagement with this Singapore training institute has reinforced some key lessons that we learnt in our two decades as a digital marketing agency.

These may seem quite obvious and are often taken for granted, but in our view, these are worth repeating for any training institute/ small business.

Collaborate closely and work as a partner: Rather than merely focusing on a bunch of activities as the primary deliverable, it helps for the client and the digital agency to work closely to achieve the ultimate objectives. Such collaboration helps unearth plenty of opportunities that may otherwise remain unseen.

Adapt to changing guidelines and requirements: All digital platforms- be it Google, Facebook or Instagram- constantly change their features and functionality as well as their algorithms. Understanding and adapting to the changes is critical.

Experiment but give sufficient time to learn: It is important to experiment, tweak and tinker with tactics, but ensure that you are giving sufficient time to learn from these and draw meaningful conclusions. It may be a difficult balance to achieve, but one that must be.

– By Manoj Aravindakshan

Manoj Aravindakshan is a leading digital marketing consultant and strategist based in Singapore. He is the founder of Singapore digital marketing agency, On Target, a top provider of digital marketing services for training companies and education institutes. Contact us now to discuss your SEO, Google Ads or social media marketing needs for digital visibility and lead generation.

See articles on

Can we help you ?

Let us be your outsourcing partner for all your content, marketing and web design needs.

Interested To
Get Our Featured Service

Get Started Now

How we helped a Singapore training institute achieve over S$1 million in revenues