Growing in the educational field is not an easy task. Expanding also has its obstacles, but Thanks to technology, a Córdoba institution managed to overcome barriers and in recent years it has not stopped increasing its reach, both in terms of students and teaching areas. To do this, it used a strategic alliance in the last year with one of the technological giants: Google.
One of the keys of the Santo Domingo Educational Center – an institution in the city of Córdoba with more than 38 years of experience in the training and education of people – was the implementation of strategies through Google Ads and of Artificial intelligence.
A path of constant growth
The voice spoke with Sergio LogaresAcademic Director of the Santo Domingo Group; Alexander RomanoCommercial Director of the Santo Domingo Educational Group; and Virginia Pedulladirector of Google Customer Solutions for Latin America.
The three agree that the challenge is to continue growing and take “more leaps”, in a collaborative alliance in which experimental “trial-error” and bets are essential to reach new levels.
Since its beginnings in 1986 offering computer and trade courses, Santo Domingo has continually evolved, incorporating tertiary courses, courses, diplomas and even primary and secondary education.
Today, it has more than 6,000 students who are trained annually at the institution, an incredible leap that occurred especially in 2023 and this 2024. How did that leap come about? and Why were Google tools key?were some of the questions that arose in the talk.
Students, even in Antarctica
“For a quarter of a century now, Since 1999 we started with non-traditional classes and today 85% of our students are in other provinces or localities,” said Alejandro Romano at the beginning of the talk. It was precisely in 2009 when they began advertising with Google Ads “and that made it possible to have national reach.”
As a curiosity, they have had students on the “white continent”, oil bases and even on a ship, for example.
“We even had students in Antarctica. One student in a technical profession even took classes from a boat,” Sergio Logares recalled.
Santo Domingo leverages Google information sources to understand the demand for courses in different areas of the country and the needs of the labor market to adjust its budgets and strategy with the aim of providing courses with immediate job placement.
In that context Take advantage of Google’s AI to find student audiences in a “quick, efficient and precise” way, highlights Virginia Pedulla. Google was the main source of acquisition of these new students.
2023, the big leap
If we look back a bit, Santo Domingo already had gymnastics incorporated with “non-traditional” and remote classes. As Logares rightly points out, the institution went through the pandemic almost “as if it had never happened.” In fact, it allowed them to grow in equipment and connectivity to already think about the new steps to follow.
After an executive resolution, it was decided to “take the leap” and that was when the possibility of working together with Google Argentina appeared.
“In 2023 we began to join a Google program for SMEs for ‘business acceleration’ and we began to have excellent results, with a focus on the tertiary level”Romano explained.
The growth of the student body was exponential: + 83%. The institution already has 600 students in primary school and about 5,500 between tertiary and academy.
“Despite the crisis, we have had tremendous growth,” Logares points out. This also meant growing our staff (communitydesigners and even a call center of 15 people) and in having a teaching staff “remotely” with “well-equipped” classrooms that respond to the needs of the students, who follow the streaming via YouTube.
The next step will be to reach other Spanish-speaking countries.
What Google highlights
Pedulla highlights Google Argentina’s support for SMEs from different areas and the commitment to leave Buenos Aires to “accompany many companies that are in the provinces more closely with presence.” “That’s why we visited Santo Domingo to be able to understand in depth and have a hand-in-hand experience with what the institution was looking for and how we could help them with a genuine understanding of their business and not just seeing the campaigns.”
Google Ads is a self-managed platform and any company or person can access it to find potential clients.
What stands out about the case of Santo Domingo was its “opening the business”the “transparency” and the decision of “Take risks”On that point, he says that the institution had a “clear direction” and Google helped find a formula for growth.
Some of the keys: “Reinvent yourself, know how to adapt. Invest and make the team grow”.
“We detected that there was an opportunity for this acceleration to be accompanied, to be assertive and direct those advertising efforts,” he indicated.
This allowed the opening of new courses and careers in 2023 and 2024 thanks to the incorporation of Performance Max, for Google’s high-performance campaigns.
“It was that openness to show us their business, their structure and their mission (…) it was a very specific 90-day job, but then it was a constant follow-up,” he said.
And what was AI used for?
Artificial Intelligence, which Google already uses in its programs and tools, can be applied in three key actions: targeting in adsthe Detecting the best platform to send ads and the enhance these through text, video or graphics.
“There was also analysis of performance, of metrics as a whole, and the insights “These are discoveries that we can make to detect potential clients who are not on the radar,” adds Pedulla.
About the future, the director of Google Customer Solutions believes that AI will be incorporated into everyday activities on a daily basis, generating benefits for people or companies in order to be “more efficient”.
Alejandro Romano highlights that AI “simplified the preparation of advertisements” since “before everything was very manual and today the system only adapts the message.” “We are assertive in the message and that is why Google is a key ally.”
Logares concludes that “an acceleration of new technologies” is coming from AI. “We have to train the professionals who are going to teach that and on the other hand train the citizens who are going to use it (AI) so that they are aware of what the risks are and how roles change.” He maintains that what is coming will be a “very big revolution” with new and disruptive implementations for which they are already preparing.
Precisely, the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence in the educational group, allowed the opening of new educational chapters (such as the official Artificial Intelligence career) on-line and in person; in addition to expanding the structure of the institution.
From those beginnings in 1986, the institution now faces a new stage that will continue to incorporate avant-garde pedagogical methodologies with a focus on programming, robotics and computer specialization.
