Course bundles, marketing automation, an optimized checkout process and a simple tweak to processing fees saw International TEFL Academy instantly increase their training business revenue.
Founded in 2010, International TEFL Academy (ITA) is a world leader in TEFL certification for teaching English abroad and teaching English online. ITA offers accredited TEFL certification classes online and in 20+ locations worldwide and has received multiple awards and widespread recognition as one of the best TEFL schools in the world.
Marketing Manager Stéphane Le Mentec specializes in demand generation and inbound marketing and could see the huge opportunities for ITA to increase revenue and grow their businesses. But their basic ecommerce platform and siloed technology stack was holding them back. Initially, Stéphane undertook a project to revamp their shopping cart and that’s when he came across Arlo.
Stéphane immediately saw the potential of Arlo not just as a training management system, but as a tool to integrate their siloed software applications, and as a powerful marketing tool to help grow their business.
One of the biggest draw cards for ITA was Arlo’s ability to integrate with their existing Hubspot website with Arlo’s web controls. This integration reduced internal friction by removing the need for manual updates, and reduced customer friction with a streamlined registration and checkout process – Stéphane’s personal favorite feature.
And the results of a smoother checkout process were almost instantaneous. A whopping +236% increase in self-service purchases through the online checkout in the first month post-implementation.
“We completed our switch to Arlo in 2023 which resulted in a +236% boost in self-service sales through our online checkout.” – Stéphane Le Mentec
This improved online registration and checkout process also reduced the need for customers to go through ITA’s traditional manual sales process, a further cost saving for the business.
Add to that Arlo’s ability to integrate with Moodle, the eLearning platform that ITA uses to host online courses and Salesforce, ITA’s CRM, and many more software applications via Zapier. This meant ITA could operate their business from Arlo as the central hub for the training business, significantly reducing their manual processes.
With Stéphane’s marketing and business growth mindset, he could see the potential to drive even more revenue for ITA from within the Arlo platform. But he needed some help. He approached Arlo’s Professional Services team to work alongside him as a partner on some key initiatives.
Working with Arlo’s Professional Services team
Professional Services is the consulting branch of Arlo – think of it like a dedicated agency for training companies. The Professional Services team came about after recognising the challenges that many training companies face whilst trying to operate with small teams or even one-man bands! The team is made up of web designers and developers, marketers, Zapier integration experts, learning design experts and more.
With years of experience in the training industry themselves, our team has a wealth of experience and expertise you can tap into – a valuable extension to your business. The Professional Services team works to identify opportunities and/or challenges in your business and design solutions that are specifically tailored to your needs – there is no one size fits all approach.
And that’s exactly how the Professional Services team worked with Stéphane. After a number of collaborative meetings brainstorming some ideas, they came up with some key projects that were tailored specifically to meet ITA’s business goals. First up – bundles and some email marketing automation.
Bundles. A course bundle is a collection of courses, or courses plus extras, that are bundled together and sold as a package deal. Training companies might choose to break a course into multiple parts, and then pitch it as a package deal. Another opportunity is to up-sell an intermediate or advanced course to learners who’ve completed a beginner course.
For learners, course bundles are appealing because they’re cost-effective – bundles usually provide a small discount. It also enables them to gain a comprehensive understanding of one subject or a variety of related subjects without having to go searching for more courses. And gives them the flexibility to pick and choose what options best suit them.
For training companies like the International TEFL Academy, it means an increased number of course sales, reduced marketing costs, higher value customers and increased customer retention.
“We’ve seen +340% more bundled product purchases and the average revenue per customer has increased too.” – Stéphane Le Mentec
Abandoned cart email automation. An “abandoned cart” means someone has added a course to their cart, partially or fully registered for it, but not made it through to the checkout and payment stage. Abandoned cart emails automatically send a series of emails reminding people to come back and complete their course booking.
The Professional Services team integrated Arlo with ITA’s existing marketing tool Hubspot and created a customized workflow to automatically send an email from Hubspot to registrants who didn’t complete their online course booking. ITA are now seeing 50+ sales per month from people who have interacted with their abandoned cart emails and returned to checkout to complete their booking.
Other initiatives to increase revenue include limited-time discounts, a checkout customization that allows ITA to recoup some of their credit card processing costs – by passing fees onto customers, and a customer referral program that includes providing a link for customers to share, right after they purchase a course online. A key benefit of this referral program is that the link is available for them to grab straight from the order confirmation page and share right away. One customer has already referred 13 new students to ITA, making $1,550 for herself, and much more for ITA.
ITA have already paid off their investment into Arlo’s Professional Services many times over, and Stéphane plans to continue using the team to brainstorm new ideas and execute more initiatives to drive revenue.
