Melbourne-based digital marketing agency Social Garden has announced two major wins, securing a significant new government client, Study Melbourne, the Victorian Government’s international education marketing brand, while also announcing its further expansion into New Zealand with an appointment to the government’s panel of preferred marketing agencies.
Social Garden’s continued work across New Zealand has culminated in the agency’s appointment to the government’s panel of marketing and advertising companies, permitting each to work with more than 300+ government bodies, which extends to universities, polytechnics and councils, as well as other regular departments including tourism.
Social Garden’s work on the New Zealand contract is primarily advertising and design services, the likes of which have driven successes like a 64 percent uptick in applications year-on-year for Australian National University’s Crawford School of Public Policy, a 42.86 percent increase in applications for Southern Cross University, and a 31.92 percent increase in student registrations year-on-year at Builders Academy Australia.
Social Garden’s founders, Michael Bird and George Glover, both hail from New Zealand; the pair has an office operating in Auckland, and has previously worked with the likes of the University of Wellington on its marketing automation and implementation.
“We see New Zealand as a really important next step for us, and we’re excited to expand more into our home country – we are seeking to bring on at least six new NZ clients this year, primarily across content creation, advertising and marketing automation.
“We created Student Garden as a way of providing universities and TAFEs with access to student content, targeted specifically at the prospective students who will one day attend their campuses – we have seen some incredible results in Australia, and we are looking forward to replicating those in New Zealand.
“More and more government bodies and companies are realising the power of organic user-generated content in advertising – social media marketing is constantly changing, and we’re finding that an increasing number of users really resonate with user-generated content, as opposed to other content which can be over-curated and highly edited,” says Glover.