About
Website: ArtinAction.org
Art in Action kindles students’ thinking and creativity by providing a comprehensive and engaging art education program. Filling a need for accessible education for K–8 students, AiA closes the achievement gap by making the skills and joys of visual arts accessible to all students. Founded in 1982, AiA now reaches over 50,000 students and has trained more than 3,000 teachers in nearly 200 schools nationwide.
The Challenge
Art in Action needed to build a web-lead-sales system in order to bring more of its art curricula to middle schools. They approached Whole Whale with a goal of reaching the $40k Google AdWords grant level and, more importantly, leveraging that grant into growing its base of interested teachers through a tracked system in Salesforce. In addition to this, the AiA website needed a visual refresh and a more user-friendly CMS
What we did
Whole Whale’s work with AiA began in 2010, and since then we’ve worked closely with the digital and sales teams to help build relationships with thousands of interested teachers.
Google AdWords Grant
Whole Whale supported AiA’s digital strategy and managed its Google AdWords grant, reaching the $40k level within 6 months. By creating custom landing pages and A/B testing the results, we grew a list of over 30,000 interested teachers. Testing involved a free sample curricula and webinar lead form that helped the sales team qualify leads in Salesforce.
In 2013, 13% of revenue for AiA came from sales leads; by 2016, sales leads accounted for 57% of revenue.
Google Analytics and Impact Mapping
Whole Whale created monthly insight reports which analyze the quality and quantity of AiA’s site traffic, in addition to the efficacy of its social media and mailing platforms. These reports are archived in a custom data site so that they may be accessed with ease. In 2014, Whole Whale oversaw the migration to a new WordPress platform for Artinaction.org.
Example of a sales conversion funnel built in Google Analytics that pushes leads to Salesforce:
A/B Testing & Lead Acquisition
By using A/B testing and conversion page optimization, Whole Whale helped Art In Action grow a newsletter list of over 30,000 teachers. Testing involved a free sample curricula and webinar lead form that helped the sales team qualify leads in Salesforce.
Email Marketing
Whole Whale conducted a historical email analysis to determine what content already works, and what Art In Action could test, in order to increase open and clickthrough rates. Whole Whale also re-structured their account and assisted in migrating their email marketing system over to MailChimp. By re-arranging their lists and groups, Whole Whale streamlined their email process and opened up the doors for more targeted email sends, which has proven to increase open and clickthrough rates. Whole Whale also consulted on their welcome series to drive different users down the funnel of engagement and trained the Art in Action team on MailChimp.