The digital marketing that drove a push for 200% revenue growth

Feeling the limits of Indeed, with no way forward in sight

First, could you tell us your role, your team and your goals there?

I am Mikio Yoshizawa, head of the ITCE department in the HR Value division and of the recruitment department at Enrise Corporation. In the ITCE department we support young people who want to become engineers without prior experience into work and new roles, and we support companies hiring young IT engineers. The business started two and a half years ago and has grown steadily; this year the pandemic held us at a standstill, but for this term we have set a target of 200% of last year’s revenue and want to expand the business at once.

What problems did you have before coming to us?

The problem was attracting aspiring IT engineers. From 2019 we used mainly Indeed to gather them. It worked in some respects at first, but as we kept going the results gradually fell short and we struggled. We could just about gather applications, but the rate at which people moved through the next stages, interview and enrolment, would not rise as we wanted.

The reasons were that applicants from Indeed
were often older, with many we could not support through this service
did not fully understand what the service was, and applied under a misunderstanding
or simply could not be reached
so in many cases they were not effective applications.

On top of that, from 2020 more companies used Indeed, acquisition cost rose, and I felt strongly that we needed a new approach. We also tried affiliate advertising among other things, but the results fell short and we found no fundamental solution. We consulted various advertising agencies and marketing support firms, but could not find a method that worked, did not know what to do, and were in a kind of deadlock.

Concrete proposals grounded in results made 200% growth easy to picture

Why did you choose us?

I had known Mr Imamura since before he founded the company. Hearing that he had started a consultancy using social media and digital marketing, I talked to him, and that was the start. When we actually discussed it, unlike other marketing support firms you did not stop at surface marketing but looked at the business as a whole; I felt you were not just an agency but a partner who would think about the growth of our business and act with us. And having actually won aspiring IT engineers yourselves, advising from real experience, was persuasive.

Changes on the ground from faster execution than we expected, and steady results

Once consulting began, what did you work on?

We asked for support from December 2020. First you listened carefully so as to grasp the current problems more accurately. That time was valuable to us; it became a chance to see our own situation objectively again, and brought the whole team to a shared view of where the bottleneck is now.
After that it moved very fast. A new landing page, opening social media accounts, setting the strategy for each advertising channel, implementing it, designing the improvement cycle: everything started far faster and in far more detail than we could have managed alone.

Could you tell us the measurable results of the work?

It is still a short time since the new measures went live, but the effect is already visible. New channels began to bring in exactly the aspiring IT engineers we wanted. And applications have improved in number, quality and cost alike. Measuring the final effect will take more time, but I have a strong sense that good results will come.

Has the work changed the atmosphere or culture inside the company?

Besides the results, the air inside the company feels different. Because Ryo Aoki, the consultant on our account, faces the results seriously, I feel our own staff’s attitude to work has changed too. When results fell short and no light was visible, the load on each person grew and things turned tense internally; now I feel we are becoming an organisation where each person thinks about what they can do to produce results, and acts.

A partner we can trust to meet high expectations

Is there anything from working with us that stayed with you?

We run the improvement cycle with a meeting roughly once a fortnight, but at the moments that matter you propose two meetings on consecutive days without hesitation, and early in the morning at that; it is not passive vendor behaviour but proposing what is needed to get results, and we trust you greatly for it.

―Where are you now, and what do you expect from us?

Various measures using social media and digital marketing are under way, so I would be glad if within this year we end up saying the classroom is full, let us open another one.

What do you think characterises NowVillage?

With outside consultants and agencies the impression is that you say one thing and get one thing back; Mr Aoki returns ten for one, which is a great help. In that sense it is welcome that instead of that is outside our scope or we cannot do that, whatever we say he thinks about what can be done to make it happen. And on top of that he advises us to drop a measure, which is not talking his own book; I think that is a major characteristic.

Which companies would you recommend our services to?

I would recommend you to anyone, but especially:
companies looking for a marketing partner who will run alongside them with a management perspective
companies wanting to redesign their marketing strategy from the ground up
companies sensing a decline in their existing methods or growth curve and looking for the next move
Those are the companies I would recommend you to.