30 June 2021
North Metropolitan TAFE (NMTAFE) Advanced Diploma in Graphic Design students have worked with one international and eight local businesses to optimise their digital marketing campaigns as part of the Global Online Marketing Academic Challenge.
As part of the worldwide student competition, 32 NMTAFE students were split in teams to offer the Perth businesses and United States company digital support in their post lockdown recovery to not only drive traffic and sales using Google Ads, but also analyse how the businesses could achieve the best return on investment.
In total, the students contributed over $24,855 in-kind support to the nine businesses.
The student teams managed budgets totalling over $1592 in Google Ad spend and competed globally with student teams predominantly in the University sector with results to be announced in September. Winning teams are selected based on their marketing campaign’s performance.
NMTAFE students received a free masterclass at the commencement of the challenge from industry expert, Alex Gavalas - Senior Digital Advisor at Bonfire, Marketing Agency of the Year, to bring students up to speed with the latest, high end techniques used in the industry.
Shannon Uren, one of NMTAFE’s team captains, enjoyed the challenge and was surprised how much of an impact increasing the daily budget had on the company they were assigned, Osborne Park Glazier Glass WorkX.
“We only increased it by $2 per day, however we had a lot more impressions and clicks after we made that change and it helped drive an increase in over 224 clicks and over 10,600 impressions,” she said.
Fellow student and captain, Joel McSherry worked with small Perth home business Nina Bailey and was amazed by the insights they were able to achieve from the campaign data.
“Our team exceeded expectations with over 232 customers clicking through to our client’s website in just two weeks, the amount of exposure for Nina Bailey was fantastic,” he said.
NMTAFE Graphic Design lecturers, Tim Ewers and Brendan Hibbert were both pleased with the students work.
“The students displayed outstanding organisation and quick absorption of complex Google Ads interface and the results have been both extremely promising and hyper competitive with the small budgets and finely crafted and refined campaigns,” Brendan said.
“Congratulations to all the Advanced Diploma Graphic Design students involved in this year’s global challenge.”
Other businesses included in Chef and Co restaurant in Bedford, Thanh Dat Vietnamese Noodle House in Northbridge, gardening and landscaping specialists Sustainable Outdoors in Fremantle and Garden Elegance in Subiaco, Osborne Park glazier Glass Workx, Midland-based beauty salon Blueberry Lash Bar; Maddington used car dealership Our Car Autos; Perth-based mother and daughter natural skin products business Nina Bailey and US online neuro-counselling service Pathfinder Neuro.
For more information on the competition, see the Global Online Marketing Academic Challenge website
Photo: The 32 Advanced Diploma in Graphic Design students who took part in the Global Online Marketing Academic Challenge.