Case Study "Elbrus Bootcamp"

How We Promoted a New-Format ED-Tech Project

Elbrus Bootcamp is a three-month educational it-bootcamp designed to prepare individuals for working with JavaScript and Python. After three months of intensive offline and online training, participants secure junior positions in IT companies in Russia (and beyond). It is one of the fastest ways to double or triple one’s income by changing qualifications in the post-Soviet space.

Project Objectives

I joined this project under rather unusual circumstances (after September 20, 2022), but managed to work successfully for seven months and even achieve certain results. The company is entirely self-sufficient, living off its earnings without investors or loans. It has a large staff and many highly qualified programming instructors. My tasks consisted of three main areas:

Lead Generation

Generating hot qualified leads. This was a new challenge for the entire Russian market because, at that time, Meta and Google had left the Russian market. Easy and inexpensive ways to reach the target audience seemed to have become unavailable, causing the company’s revenue to drop in direct correlation with the decline in reach.

Community Management

Up to 40% of all qualified leads came from recommendations. The hottest leads always come from satisfied client referrals. Therefore, significant marketing resources were spent on community development to encourage participants to create referral leads. Strong referrals and brand ambassador creation greatly aided us in lead generation.

SEO Promotion

Developing the website and creating a flow of leads through organic traffic became a priority again, as other tools became increasingly ineffective. It essentially brought us back to the distant 2011 when SEO was considered a magic wand for lead generation, and being in the top 10 in Moscow for high-frequency queries was akin to having a personal money-printing machine.

What We Learned

Yandex.Direct and VK: These platforms are ineffective for selling expensive courses, especially if the school founder or a recognizable figure is not involved in promotion. Corporate approaches in online education work only at large scales like SF, Skillbox, Mail.ru, etc.

Telegram: Works well for converting people to courses after a period of nurturing. Treat your channel as a media outlet where course sales are just one aspect.

Influencer Marketing: Effective for reach and awareness but not for direct lead generation. For instance, spending a million rubles on a post with Varlamov resulted in one lead that didn’t close (I advised against placing the ad with him).

Effective Tools: Reels, SEO, nurturing sequences, webinars, targeted ads in Telegram, unique giveaways, and community engagement are the best tools currently.

Organic Reach of Short Content: Great for brand awareness but not effective for direct high-ticket lead generation.

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What Was Done:

Telegram Channel: Launched and developed a full-fledged TG channel with editorial policies, activities, live streams, games, etc. At its peak, it reached 12,000 subscribers (average cost per subscriber: 150 rubles). After five months of promotion, 50 clients were generated with an average check of 300,000 rubles, investing about 1 million rubles in advertising (targeting and placements in other channels).

Google and Meta Traffic: Targeted Russian-speaking audiences outside Russia, attracting people to free webinars and workshops. Initial lead cost was around 20 rubles including VAT, with a conversion rate of about 4%, which was acceptable given the low acquisition cost.

SEO Content Creation: Started creating and publishing SEO content massively with the beta release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Results were seen within the second month, particularly in Google, due to fast indexing and the absence of an ad block. A strong content team delivering 4-6 long reads per week helped nearly double organic traffic in a short time. Implemented live end-to-end analytics using Alytics.

Alumni Meetings and Webinars: Held several alumni meetings in different countries (Armenia, Turkey, Bali) with live streams, organized over 30 webinars, and relaunched the ambassador program, restoring pre-crisis lead generation values through the referral program.

Achievements in the project

12 000

Growth in Telegram channel subscribers over 3.5 months.

1 200+

Qualified leads generated over 5.5 months, a 40% increase in lead growth.

1,5 mln $

Revenue achieved and target met for Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.

Successfully tested and launched

Case Study "Elbrus Bootcamp"

How We Promoted a New-Format ED-Tech Project

Project Objectives

What We Learned

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What Was Done:

Achievements in the project

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