Education New Zealand (ENZ) is responsible for marketing New Zealand’s international education industry to the world and attracting potential international students. But while international education is New Zealand's fourth largest export industry, earning NZ $5.1 billion annually in foreign currency, it is under threat with competition from other English-speaking countries accelerating.

To protect and grow New Zealand's modest 3% global market share, ENZ shifted its strategic marketing focus from volume to value.

A successful global campaign to start attracting higher-quality students from more countries was launched. But with a tiny budget in global terms, ENZ needed to dramatically boost conversion, a historical weak point. It has been relatively difficult for students to find their perfect study option here. ENZ's challenge was to make New Zealand a much easier destination to shop for quality education.

To achieve this, they built an entire database marketing ecosystem, from scratch, in just two years. They connected a vast array of information on hundreds of thousands of potential students, sixty thousand individual study options, student visa applications, education expo registrations, course enquiries, digital/social/web activity, email communications and more. A monumental task indeed!

Then they used smart models and algorithms to power a personalised digital experience that helps prospective students quickly decide on a study option in New Zealand, before looking elsewhere. It delivered nearly $29 million in student value at a cost of just $1.5 million. A nineteen-fold ROI.

With arguably the most sophisticated, integrated, data-driven approach to international education on the planet, New Zealand is now truly punching above its weight.