Background

Southern California Children’s Chorus (also known as SCCC) is a choral music program based out of Orange County, CA that enhances young singers' lives through distinguished education and world-class performance. For a quarter of a century, SCCC’s choruses have performed in front of worldwide audiences at iconic venues such as Carnegie Hall and the Sydney Opera House. A recipient of three Emmy awards, SCCC received international acclaim for the quality of its music education program. Its Emmy-winning performances include a collaboration with Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and a live performance with Esperanza Spalding at the 84th Academy Awards. In addition, SCCC has contributed singers for major motion pictures, television productions and commercials, opera productions, and many Disney events, both televised and live. Despite its great achievements, the size of its choruses gradually declined over the years. When John Loftus, President of SCCC, began engaging with Stackmatix in July 2022, he asked us to develop a successful paid marketing campaign to help scale enrollment.

Challenge

When SCCC brought Stackmatix in to support the business, there were worries around its ability to grow or maintain the size of its choruses for the 2022-2023 term. The objectives were:

        1) Drive 60 net new enrollments for the 2022-2023 term

        2) Drive a positive ROI from ad campaignsStackmatix successfully achieved both objectives.

Solution

We initially experimented with Google Search Ads alongside Facebook Ads for 2 weeks, running a Non-Brand campaign, but found that the channel was not effective at showcasing the aspects that make SCCC appealing – its music and grand performances. Additionally, for the period in which both platforms were running, Google consistently drove a CPA that was over 4x higher than what we got on Facebook. Therefore, we decided to go all-in on Facebook Ads.

For Facebook Ads, we were incredibly successful in generating leads due to successful experiments with ad copy, creatives, creative formats, audience targeting, and budget allocation.

With our ad copy, we experimented with a variety of messaging in our primary text that touched on the different appeals of SCCC, such as:

        1)Teaching Values - SCCC fosters discipline, teamwork, and confidence on top of musical aptitude.

        2) Nurturing Passion - SCCC prepares teens for their future musical endeavors.

        3) Globally Acclaimed - SCCC choruses perform at iconic venues and the program is a recipient of internationally recognized awards.

We found that the messaging highlighting SCCC’s globally acclaimed status was the strongest.

For creatives, we tested footage from SCCC rehearsals and performances that was provided to us. As for creative formats, we tested single image ads, carousel ads, and video ads. We found that video and single image ads with footage from big stage performances were the most effective in generating leads.

With our audiences, we started out by categories and subcategories for testing and targeting. The categories were three demographics: “Parents of Teens”, “Parents of Preteens”, and “Teens”. Our subcategories were all types of interest and other targeting besides age and demographics. We tested all kinds of subcategories in order to maximize reach for the 2-month duration of the campaign. Some are directly relevant to SCCC’s industry (e.g. “Music Entertainment Interest”, “Music Education Interest”, “Artistic Background”) and others that were more unconventional (e.g. “Homeschool Interest”, “Education Interest”, “Stay at Home Interest”). The best performing audience category was “Parents of Teens”, followed by “Parents of Preteens”. Top subcategories were “Stay at Home Interest”, “Broad Prospecting”, “Homeschool Interest”, and “Lookalike”. We also tried layering on category and subcategory as an audience (e.g. “Parents of Teens - Artistic Background”) vs targeting broader audiences with just subcategories (e.g. “Education Interest”). We found more success with our broad targeting strategy.

Another challenge that arose halfway through our campaign was a lower than projected leads-to-auditions conversion rate, which stemmed from a delay in responding to leads as they converted. SCCC was responding to leads through a phone call that would take place 1-2 days after a lead entered our system. Given the 5 minute rule in lead nurturing – stemming from a Harvard Business Review study that found leads who are contacted within 5 minutes are 9x more likely to convert – we knew we needed to find an alternative solution in order to drive lower funnel actions. We helped SCCC set up an automated email cadence that would trigger right when a lead converts. The emails provided all the important information for leads to take the next steps right away and alleviated the administrative burden for SCCC. Our automated email cadence boosted our audition rate from 24% to 31%, a 29% increase, which played an instrumental role in helping us reach our goals.

Results

Our click-based attribution model showed we drove a successful campaign for SCCC – achieving a 3.29x ROAS. The results would have been far greater had view-through conversions been considered, as well. SCCC gained almost 2x the number of new enrollments they had aimed for, and doubled its annual revenue compared to 2021-2022. The impact of ad views on driving overall results was apparent through the high number of engagements that we saw on our ads and through SCCC’s feedback that current members saw and shared the ads to their communities.

Throughout the period our campaigns were running, SCCC saw a growth of 31% in organic reach and 75% in organic engagement compared to the 90 days prior. Before working with Stackmatix, SCCC’s average annual enrollment was approximately 53% lower than the 2022-2023 term. Our success resulted in SCCC seeking Stackmatix’s ongoing support in driving ticket sales for future concert tours and enrollments for subsequent audition seasons. Most importantly, we activated a new and reliable awareness channel for SCCC that enables the business to substantially expand reach and strengthen its brand in Orange County.

Stackmatix’s mission is to support the growth of startups and high-velocity businesses over the long term, so we’re always excited when we can really move the needle for our clients. We’d love to see if we can do the same for your business as well. Email us at sales@stackmatix.com to schedule an introductory call with our team!