When it comes to picking online classes, an abundance of choice can often slow the process, or sometimes even halt it completely — especially when it comes to a class catalogue as broad as Skillshare’s. As their online learning community’s base expanded and the class catalog grew even larger, the team realized that if they wanted to engage students, they’d have to find a way to quickly serve each individual with classes tailored to their unique goals and interests.
Building vs. Buying Personalization
The Skillshare team initially tried to build their own solution, spending both significant time and resources on the initiative. But an in-house solution built by in-house engineers ultimately proved to be inaccessible to the marketing team and needed a manual update for each campaign.
They went back to the drawing board, listed their requirements for an external solution, and chose Blueshift for its out-of-the-box algorithms, ability to tailor course recommendations, scale personalized campaigns, and continuously test and optimize without any heavy lifting from the marketing team — or any team. In no time, they were able to accomplish more than they’d ever done before.
“AI marketing helps Skillshare’s marketing team appear larger than it is,” said Brooke Young, Senior Marketing Manager. “We are a lean team and having Blueshift helps us present ourselves and speak to our customers in a more sophisticated way like companies 10X our size.”
AI = Increased Enrollment and Engagement in 90 Days
The Skillshare team started seeing ROI within 90 days of enlisting the power of AI, all without having to rely on their engineering team. Results like an 89% increase in enrollment rates, a 33% increase in engagement rates, and a slew of all-new campaigns that only took 10 days to launch.
“We’ve never had a shortage of good ideas,” added Brooke. “There were just too few hours in the day and too much reliance on other teams to execute them. Blueshift has allowed our lean marketing team to be nimble and self-sufficient. We now have the power to spin up any advanced campaign idea quickly and test it on the fly.”
Discovering New Opportunities
By automating so much of the process, Blueshift gave Skillshare’s marketing team the opportunity to explore additional projects. They started by testing all the new ideas on their shortlist, including complex campaign strategies with multiple segments and different content versions for each.
To learn more about how Skillshare is achieving results like these, read the full case study. Or, if you’re ready to start investigating how AI might help grow your own marketing efforts, you can request a demo.
