2021 was the year that Edtech consolidated its presence in the mainstream, both in society and in the venture community. As in 2020, marketers have played a crucial role in helping users across the whole Edtech user base in 2021- including Pre-K, K12, Higher Education, corporate learning and consumer- to understand and utilise the broadening and deepening pool of offers from across the Edtech spectrum. In exploring the insights of more than 40+ Edtech CMOs and founders, we provide a snapshot of the strategies that EdTech companies have actioned in 2021.
Before we dive in, we would like to thank all of the individuals who took the time to share their insights. We are delighted to have received such a full set of responses- your input is extremely valuable for the Edtech community and we couldn't publish this kind of work without your insights. We also greatly appreciate feedback we have received on previous reports which continues to inform our insights and are glad that they are useful for readers in benchmarking their own marketing approaches.
Thank you! 🙏
Here are the key findings:
Summary:
Who answered the survey?
More than ½ of respondents are from companies targeting 2-3X growth in 2022
More than ½ of respondents indicate marketing budgets of between 5-15% of expected annual revenue
What were respondents’ perspectives on marketing budgets?
On average, marketing spending as a % of target revenue per customer is highest for companies selling to consumers and to schools, and lowest for companies selling to universities and government
Marketing budgets as a % of revenue targets appear to increase as revenues increase, peaking for companies in the $5m-15m revenue range
Breakdown of marketing spending between organic and paid channels was most commonly 75% organic – 25% paid, followed by 50% organic – 50% paid
Companies selling to large companies had the most even split of organic vs paid marketing spending across the categories, whilst companies selling to universities had the least even split, with 100% of respondents (across a small sample size of 3), opting for 100% organic marketing spending.
What were respondents’ perspectives on marketing channels, barriers and priorities?
The top 3 most effective marketing channels as reported by respondents were social media, organic search and content marketing
The top 3 barriers to effective implementation of marketing strategies were considered to be lack of brand awareness, lack of leads generated and lack of automation of processes
The top 3 2022 marketing priorities include funnel conversion, lead generation and marketing automation
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