Case study
How Scopic Studios Helped America’s Oldest Educational Consultancy Expand Into International Markets, and Drive 9.8x Organic Traffic
Decades of expertise, one missing piece: the digital marketing to take it global.
The Rundown
McMillan Education is the oldest and foremost educational consultancy in the United States, with over 70 years of experience. But the demand for educational consulting was growing internationally as well, and they planned to expand globally to reach families and students across four continents. That planned expansion brought them to Scopic Studios, finding them through an online search and choosing them as their partner for international market entry.
As a full-service global marketing agency that helps businesses enter and grow in international markets, Scopic Studios built McMillan Education International’s entire global digital presence from the ground up, covering every effort required to compete across multiple countries, from website redesign and content strategy to social media, email marketing, link building, SEO, and GEO. The outcome was a sustainable international acquisition channel that brought qualified inbound leads from families across multiple continents.
Key results over 6 months:
30+ countries
reached through organic search
978%
growth in mobile organic traffic
815%
growth in desktop organic traffic
In the Words of the PM
Petra Brankovska
Marketing Project Manager at Scopic Studios
This project had a lot of moving pieces running at the same time — website, content, social, email, outreach. What made it work was bringing all of that together as one international digital marketing strategy. McMillan trusted us with their entire global market entry and we built something that actually brings them real clients from around the world.
The Challenge
Global Market Entry With No Digital Baseline
The decision to expand internationally meant McMillan Education International was entering multiple markets with no digital history, no domain authority, and no established presence in any region. And that demanded building the full digital marketing infrastructure from the ground up, across multiple countries, all at once.
No Digital Foundation
Competing in international markets through organic search requires technical infrastructure and content architecture built for it from the start. McMillan had neither, and every market they wanted to enter had competitors who did.
A Long and Complex Buyer Journey
Families researching international education options begin years before making contact. Building international reach meant developing content that met them at every stage of that journey, across multiple regions simultaneously.
Competing Across Multiple Markets at Once
North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania each carry different search behavior, different competitive landscapes, and different content needs. Each market needed its own strategy.
The Solution
A Full-Service Strategy Built for International Market Expansion
Entering international markets through digital marketing requires more than one thing done well. It requires everything working together. Scopic Studios approached McMillan’s global market entry as a connected, full-service strategy built across four pillars running in parallel.
Here’s how we made it happen:
Website Rebuild and Technical Foundation
Before McMillan could compete in any international market, the infrastructure had to support it. We rebuilt the WordPress site from the ground up, implementing technical SEO improvements, building service pages and landing pages designed for multi-market discoverability.
Every market McMillan wanted to enter had an established competitor set. A technically sound foundation was the entry requirement.
International Content Strategy and Topical Authority
Reaching families across the huge markets, including the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and the Middle East through organic search means building content that answers what those families are actually searching for, in each market, at every stage of a research journey that often begins years before they contact anyone.
We developed editorial calendars, organized content into topic clusters, and built educational planning resources that established McMillan as an authoritative source across multiple international markets simultaneously.
International SEO and GEO
We studied the search behavior of families and students in each priority market before building any content or page structure, conducting keyword research that covered both traditional SEO terms and LLM-specific queries for each country.
Alongside that, GEO strategy optimized McMillan’s content for AI-driven search across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and other LLMs, ensuring McMillan gets discovered wherever international families are searching.
Full-Service Supporting Channels
Global market entry requires every digital channel working in the same direction. We delivered everything McMillan needed alongside the core SEO and content work, including social media, email marketing, digital advertising, link building, and outreach, ensuring that no part of their international digital presence was left unaddressed.
Every channel reinforced the others, building the domain credibility and audience reach that sustainable international organic growth depends on.
Services Involved
Website Development
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)
Copywriting
Social Media Marketing
Email Marketing
Digital Advertising
Lead Generation
Drum Roll Please…
The Results
Starting from zero digital presence, McMillan Education International now ranks across four continents, receives qualified international leads, and has built a sustainable organic acquisition channel that continues to grow.
SEO and GEO Results:
30+
countries reached through organic search across four continents
978%
growth in mobile organic traffic
815%
growth in desktop organic traffic
51.8%
improvement in average keyword positions
58.9%
increase in click-through rate
7.1
average keyword position, consistently ranking on page #1
Email Marketing Results:
59.0%
peak open rate, up from 23.9%
78.5%
increase in click engagement month over month
Social Media Marketing Results:
178x
growth in impressions
156x
increase in average reach
96.3%
increase in engagement rate
