A few weeks ago MarketMotive, the rest of the faculty and I announced a contest to award a scholarship for a MarketMotive certification training. We received several fantastic submissions and it was very difficult to choose a winner. However, Evan Hinkle, “a 20-year-old, high-functioning individual diagnosed on the spectrum of autism” stood out for his wonderful submission that you can read below. Congratulations Evan, and thank you to all those who submitted an entry. I wish I had awards for all of you.

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My name is Evan Hinkle and I would like to be awarded a scholarship for certification for MarketMotive.  I am a 20-year-old, high-functioning individual diagnosed on the spectrum of autism. I would like your consideration in awarding this course so I may continue to study in this field.  I have aspirations of someday employing high-functioning individuals with autism and others, so that all can work together, regardless of any existing disabilities.

Many individuals on the spectrum of autism are extremely smart, focused, detailed oriented and can stick to a tasks like none-others. In fact, Specialisterne , an extremely successful business in Denmark, currently employs software engineers where 75% are diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome (on the high-functioning end of the spectrum).  Their business model reports 27% more efficiencies and accuracy than those engineers that are atypical.

The other hard facts are that even those high-functioning individuals that manage to graduate from college end up unemployed, or, at the very least, holding jobs far beneath their level of competency and understanding.  Compared to adults with disabilities in general who demonstrate a 75% unemployment rate, autistic adults demonstrate a 90% unemployment rate.  This is just too high! With 1 in every 110 families having a child being diagnosed with autism, this challenge is an epidemic.  These children grow up.  I wish to not only help others now, but well into the future as well.

I already have some experience in the social media marketing realm and have just completed the Social Media Marketing University (www.smmu.com) 16 week course of study where I received a certificate for successful completion.  And, I need so much more training to be able to accomplish my goals!   I hold a part-time job working for the International Association for Life Quality (www.ialq.org) a TERI, Inc. initiative (Training, Education and Research Institute, which is a 501 c3 agency helping those with disabilties). I am responsible for converting written training materials into Elearning modules, as well as handle a small amount of technical support for their online university students studying to become Special Needs Life Coaches.  I also manage content for this site, as well as gather, and post content in their research and information section (www.ialq.org/research-infomration/ )

Although I am not a “charity”, I am very hard pressed to be able to afford the master Certification I seek.  Right now I work part time directly for other non-profits (TERI, IALQ, Meals-on Wheels Greater San Diego, Inc.) giving back and would like to continue to expand my knowledge to help these organizations grow and be able to pass along affordable fees in a support and advisory role. I then wish to expand my services by hiring and training other high-functioning individuals.

Awarding a scholarship to me in this area will:

Help me expand my knowledge and expertise

Help other non-profits I currently work for and hope to help them grow

Help employ others that are having difficulties acquiring employment on the spectrum

Improving Conversion Optimization Plan

I plan to use the knowledge I obtain from the scholarship course to improve the conversion rate for IALQ wanting to sign up new students for their Special Needs Life Coaching classes.  Currently IALQ is trying to acquire their customers through PPC campaigns on Facebook offering free webinars.  The ads drive potential customers to a landing page to sign up.  The webinar is presented and then the attendees sign up for the class ($3,500). I know this overall campaign can be improved in many ways.  Currently they have tested 2 campaigns. One test involved 18 different ads and approximately 15 different landing pages, the other campaign tested approximately 15 different ads and one landing page created to the target those markets that responded best on the to their first test.

Here are the areas I would like to learn from the experts on help to improve IALQ’s overall results:

Overall Goal:

Improve Testing, Landing Pages, and Optimization of Copy and Analysis to Increase Sales and, Ultimately, Graduating Students to help those with Autism

Action Items to Achieve Goals

  1. Consider PPC and other ad campaigns on sites other than what is being used currently (Facebook)
  2. Review the conversion rates from past campaigns to gather additional insight
  3. Test other information tools besides webinars (video, research papers, etc.)
  4. Test properly and review results to plan future campaigns that have the best chance for success
  5. Consider other ways to drive people to landing pages (besides ads), such as email campaigns, other partnerships, social mentions, blogs by IALQ leaders, etc.
  6. Find out ways to improve overall conversion rate that would be explained in Improving Conversion Optimization Course – Implement
  7. Understand and develop content and copy for the landing pages that will improve sales – “telling a story that sells”
    1. Review headlines, verbs and overall content and Implement
  8. Analyze how the “hand off” works between leads and sales and if this can be improved in any way with steps outlined in course
  9. Improve credibility factor of IALQ as they are a fairly new association with a new covering and yet they have over 30 years of experience. This will be accomplished though content and advice gathered from class.
  10. Review the www.ialq.org site and landing pages for keywords and identify any additional tools to be able to do proper evaluations and define future action needed
  11. Include testimonials and reviews on the IALQ web site after understanding the principals to be outlined in class

Of course it is difficult to say what other areas I would like to implement for IALQ as I have not learned all the great information that will be offered in this course to be able to put this into a plan.  However, this cause is something I plan on supporting for a long time to come, as well as be able to go on to the other courses to make sure I can help IALQ and others to the very best of my ability.  It’s doing good work, for good people, that do good work.
I appreciate your consideration and hope to hear from you soon as I wish to obtain the same knowledge the analysts that work for Brain Eisenberg already have, continue my work with other non-profits and be able to start a business of my own in this area.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Evan Hinkle

I look forward to seeing what Evan will do with his new knowledge of conversion optimization.

Please share if you think others would benefit.