MARKETING AGENCY
How Echo Marketing Booked 26 University Meetings in 3 Months After Their Previous Lead Gen Provider Delivered Zero Results
32 leads and 26 qualified meetings in 3 months
Leads in 3 months
Qualified meetings
Outbound channel used
CLIENT REVIEW
Hear it straight from the client
Katherine Salazar
Business Development Manager at ECHO MARKETING
THE CHALLENGE
Where they were stuck
Echo Marketing is a marketing agency specializing in disruptive enrollment campaigns for universities. They came to Outbound System after getting burned by another cold email agency that delivered zero results, wasting budget and destroying confidence in outbound as a channel entirely. The target market, university admissions leaders, is notoriously hard to reach and slow to move.
Previous lead gen agency delivered zero results and wasted budget
University admissions leaders are notoriously hard to reach and slow to decide
Sales team had lost all confidence in outbound as a viable channel
THE SYSTEM WE BUILT
How we solved their problems
Rebuild Trust in Outbound
We had to rebuild trust in the process itself before we could deliver results. This meant demonstrating immediate traction with a disciplined approach. We mapped the higher education landscape to identify institutions with declining enrollment trends, recent leadership changes, and public statements about recruitment challenges.
Intent-Based University Targeting
Rather than targeting all universities, we focused on institutions actively feeling the pain: declining enrollment, recent admissions leadership changes, or public statements about recruitment challenges. Outreach was built around Echo's track record with disruptive enrollment campaigns, with every sequence personalized to reference the prospect's specific enrollment context.
Multi-Channel Execution
Cold email was the primary driver, with LinkedIn outreach providing a secondary channel for engaging admissions and marketing leaders at target universities. AI cold calling was deployed selectively for institutions showing the strongest intent signals, creating multiple touchpoints for the highest-priority prospects.
Echo Marketing specializes in disruptive enrollment campaigns for universities. They came to Outbound System after getting burned by another cold email agency. Zero results, wasted budget, and a sales team that had lost confidence in outbound as a channel entirely. We had to rebuild trust in the process before we could deliver results.
The target was universities struggling with student recruitment, a niche where decision-makers are notoriously hard to reach and slow to move. Outbound System mapped the higher education landscape to identify institutions with declining enrollment trends, recent leadership changes in admissions departments, or public statements about recruitment challenges. These signals told us who was actively feeling the pain, not just who fit a demographic profile.
Outreach was built around Echo's track record with disruptive enrollment campaigns. Not vague "we do marketing" positioning, but specific examples of how their approach moved the needle at comparable institutions. Every sequence was personalized to reference the prospect's institution and its specific enrollment context. Cold email was the primary driver, with LinkedIn and AI cold calling adding touchpoints for the highest-intent targets.
In three months, the campaign generated 32 qualified leads and 26 booked meetings. As Katherine Salazar noted, Outbound System "actually delivered results" with a personalized approach that worked "when nothing else did." We became the only agency to deliver on Echo's lead generation goals after multiple failed attempts.
