Building a lead generation engine through advertising and a site rebuild | DEiBA Company Inc.

■ Company profile
DEiBA Company Inc.
Website: https://deiba.jp/corporate/
Industry: staffing and recruitment
Employees: staffing and recruitment
Services: website production / advertising management

DEiBA Company Inc. (founded 2011, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo) runs job-hunting events across Japan specialising in “group discussions”, in the new graduate recruitment market.
Through around 70 events a year, it gives students practical experience of selection and gives companies contact with high-calibre candidates, and has built a distinctive position in the industry.

The problem: attracting students became harder as the market changed, and there was little marketing capability internally

DEiBA Company had established a distinctive position in new graduate recruitment, holding around 70 events a year across Japan specialising in group discussions.

But recent changes in the economy and in the hiring market had shifted the job-hunting market in students’ favour, with a significant effect on how participants were attracted.
Once, announcing an event was enough for students to come through word of mouth, and a certain turnout could be expected; now it is an age in which “scout offers arrive while you sit at home”. The hurdle to spending several hours attending an in-person event rises every year, and attracting students became steadily harder from around 2019. After the pandemic, the trend became even more pronounced.

They wanted to build up their own ability to attract participants, but no one internally had knowledge of running advertising or could design marketing strategy.
They wanted to use advertising seriously as an acquisition channel, but did not know where to start, and had not been able to analyse the current situation or plan a strategy properly.
So, with acquisition costs rising across the whole staffing industry, building a set-up in which they could control spend and participant numbers themselves had become urgent.

What we did: starting with advertising, rebuilding the organisation’s “marketing foundation”

Against that background, what they asked us for was “running Google Ads on their behalf”.
But NowVillage proposed working alongside them not simply as an agency running campaigns but as a “partner to their marketing department”, supporting DEiBA Company’s business as a whole, and in practice provided the following support.

1. The overall approach: working on several fronts

Rather than improving a single “point” through advertising, we supported them consistently from strategy through to production.

• Advertising: strategic management of Google Ads and affiliate advertising
• Website production: a full renewal of the student landing page and the corporate site
• Strategy: designing the path through their marketing as a whole and optimising conversion
• Organisational support: setting down and communicating their mission, vision and values (MVV)

2. Putting the “why” into words, and building up knowledge internally

On running the advertising, rather than simply running ads and reporting results, we kept making proposals from the point of view of “what really matters for DEiBA’s acquisition”. As well as optimising search keywords and bidding strategy, we proposed improvements that took in the whole of marketing, such as designing the path after arrival, organising the conversion points and defining the role of each channel.

In the weekly reports we also shared carefully not only whether the numbers rose or fell, but “why this result came about” and “which hypothesis to test next”. By explaining advertising jargon in plain terms, we made sure marketing knowledge built up inside the company.
We also took care to explain the terminology of advertising in plain language, to deepen DEiBA’s understanding further.

3. A site renewal with “two faces” to match its customers

To fit a business model whose customers are both students and companies, we reworked and optimised both the student site and the corporate site.

	Student site	Corporate site
What we changed	・Added real event photos ・Added comments from participants ・Pursued ease of use on smartphones	・Refreshed the design ・Set out credibility and track record systematically
Intended effect	Making “what it’s like after you attend” concrete, removing the psychological barrier to signing up	Evolving into a powerful sales tool that the sales team can present with confidence

For the student site, we renewed the design so that the atmosphere of the events and the benefits of attending come across intuitively. Real event photos and participants’ comments are placed to good effect, and the structure was redesigned so that visitors can picture concretely “what kind of experience they will have if they attend”. Designed on the assumption of smartphone viewing, the path through the site has been simplified, lowering the hurdle to signing up.

The corporate site, meanwhile, had a design from seven or eight years earlier, which we overhauled completely. Its visuals had leaned strongly towards students and felt somewhat dated to send to companies. After the renewal, its tone conveys credibility and track record. The strengths of the events, the benefits of using them and the record of support are set out systematically, and it has evolved into a site the sales team can present with confidence.

4. Branding that makes the organisation’s “thinking” visible

In addition, in light of a change of representative director and changes in the organisation, we set down their mission, vision and values in writing. We created a place from which they can communicate, inside and outside the company, “what the company is thinking as it runs the business” and “what we are here for and what value we deliver”.
We also added a new employee introduction page, making “the thinking of the people inside” visible, which has strengthened the foundation for organisational branding and is helping to change the mindset of both candidates and existing employees.

Results: a stable acquisition base, and evolution into a data-driven organisation

Through this series of support, DEiBA Company has begun to see steady change both in its “acquisition system” and in “how decisions are made”.

1. A stable acquisition channel established

Continually optimising the Google Ads delivery design and keyword strategy steadily increased traffic. Continually reviewing the delivery design, refining keywords and optimising the bidding strategy brought them to a state in which results are produced reliably.
Beyond simply increasing the “numbers”, data has built up on things such as “which search intent is closest to conversion” and “which message resonates with students”, and Google Ads is now established as “a main acquisition channel that can be used strategically”.

2. Building a “common language” for making decisions based on data

There was a significant change internally too. Decisions on acquisition policy, which used to rely on instinct and rules of thumb, are now made on the basis of objective data.
They can now discuss quantitatively “where the bottleneck is” and “which channel to invest in”, and the repeatability of their marketing has risen dramatically.

3. “External trust” and “a change of mindset internally” brought by the site renewal

The renewed websites have begun to work on many fronts. After the corporate site was renewed, the number of enquiries also increased.

• External results
  The appeal of the events now comes across visually, and enquiries increased after the corporate site was renewed. Its role as a sales and recruitment tool has been greatly strengthened.
  
• Internal results
  By setting down and communicating their mission, vision and values (MVV), employees have turned their attention to the essential question of “what value we deliver as an organisation”. Their approach to communication has also become more positive. There has been a response from candidates and companies too, and clear results are appearing on the branding side as well.

As a result, the website has become not just a place to hold information, but a foundation for communicating DEiBA Company’s thinking powerfully inside and outside the company. NowVillage continues to work with them today, not as a mere outsourcer but as a partner that supplements “part of their marketing function”.

A comment from Mr Shimura, Representative Director of DEiBA Company Inc.

“I felt they understood the staffing industry very deeply. Without our having to explain everything from start to finish, we can talk on a shared footing, along the lines of ‘this is what the new graduate market is like now, isn’t it?’ and ‘this is how students are behaving, isn’t it?’. I think that speed is of great value.

What particularly impressed me is that they make proposals that take in the business as a whole, not just superficial improvements to the numbers. They go beyond metrics such as advertising CPA and click-through rate, to questions like ‘Can this acquisition structure really grow over the medium to long term?’ and ‘How should roles be divided with other channels?’. That is why awareness of marketing as strategy has risen inside the company too.

Running Google Ads goes without saying, but I’m also grateful that they give their view on the fundamental question of ‘whether we should really be doing this at all’. They tell us clearly what is worth doing and what isn’t. I see them not as just an agency running campaigns, but as a business partner we can turn to straight away when we’re stuck.”

The partner behind their acquisition success: NowVillage Inc.

NowVillage Inc. is a marketing partner that supports you end to end, from designing marketing strategy through running each activity to analysing the numbers and making improvements.
Our strength is supporting you across the digital field, from advertising, SEO and content planning to data analysis and building CS operations, and we specialise in putting the “systems”, “structure” and “operations” in place to fit each company’s challenges.

This case involved a recruitment agency, but the essentials of building awareness and generating leads are the same in any industry.

“We want to build a marketing foundation from scratch”
“We’re struggling because we have no know-how in-house”

If that sounds like your company, please feel free to get in touch.
We can work alongside you from strategy through to day-to-day operation on the ground.
If you are facing challenges with your marketing set-up or customer acquisition, please feel free to talk to us.

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