The full commercial function for a digital arts academy, built and run by one operator against bigger, government-funded competitors.
Flagship class intake
Growth to full capacity
Waiting list in the academy's history
Where I started
Copenhagen Academy of Digital Arts has built a strong reputation for its teaching in 3D digital arts over many years. The commercial side had grown more organically: the brand still carried its earlier name, Truemax, and the tools sat across six separate systems that did not talk to each other. The academy wanted more predictability and a more structured approach to its marketing and commercial function, which meant answering questions the existing setup could not yet surface:
The academy was also competing with larger, government-funded institutions whose budgets and marketing teams were several times the size. Outspending them was never the goal. The opportunity was to run the commercial side sharper and more systematically than far bigger players would.
What I built
Instead of treating it as a set of separate services, I built one engine and put the pieces in place deliberately: get the foundation right, build the funnel that attracts and converts, then grow the audience it produces.
The base everything else depends on.
I led the rename and rebrand from Truemax to Copenhagen Academy of Digital Arts, and the new brand has since been recognised within the industry. I worked out exactly who the academy was for and why a student would choose it over the alternatives. The website was rebuilt from the ground up to match: aligned to the new brand and built to convert, structured around the funnel rather than as a brochure. To get the foundation right, I brought in HubSpot experts to run the migration and build the core of the CRM and the website, with me directing the work, then consolidated the tech stack from six separate tools into one. The website, email, reporting, meeting scheduling, social media scheduling, and the automations that tie them together now run through HubSpot. Once it was live, I onboarded the academy team and set up a drag-and-drop editor so they can make website changes themselves. For the first time we could see the whole funnel, from first touch to enrolment. That gave us a real cost per lead, our actual conversion rates, and a clear sense of how much we could spend to enrol a student, and of who responds to our message in the first place.
The rename and rebrand from Truemax to Copenhagen Academy of Digital Arts, since recognised within the industry.
Exactly who the academy is for, and why a student chooses it over the alternatives.
Six disconnected tools consolidated into one HubSpot system, so the whole funnel is visible from first touch to enrolment.
Getting the right people in, and making every next step easy to take.
The funnel starts with a free online 3D bootcamp. It is the easiest way for someone curious about the field to try the teaching, and it brings the right people onto our email list. From there I move people toward the open house, and then to a meeting with admissions, where most of the real deciding happens.
Booking that final meeting is deliberately frictionless: anyone can pick a time directly through a calendar, with no back-and-forth over email. I have not seen another academy do it this way, and it has become a sales channel of its own. To fill the top of the funnel, I run four channels, all connected to the same system.
I run Google and Meta myself. Because the dashboards show what a lead costs, spend stays tied to results.
I built the strategy and brought in a specialist for the technical work and content, checked by our subject experts.
Rebuilt around the funnel and built to convert, so every visit has a clear next step toward enrolment.
I set the direction and protect the voice; my assistant produces the day-to-day content from my templates, and I approve it.
Getting more from the audience we have already built.
Once someone is on our list, they stay valuable to the academy whether or not they enrolled in the flagship programme. When we launch something new, like a standalone drawing workshop or a sculpting course, I use the list to promote it, both to people who were interested but did not enrol and to students who finished the programme and want to keep learning. Online education fits here too, since it lets us reach people who could never attend in person.
The list promotes new workshops and courses to past leads and graduates, the cheapest channel the academy has.
A marketing student assistant runs the academy's Discord community under my guidance, keeping prospects and students engaged between touchpoints.
The thread
I use AI across the system to speed up the writing, the ad work, the content and the analysis, and it means I need less outside help to keep everything running. It lets me get more done on my own, but the accountability still sits with me.
How I made growth predictable
With everything in one system, we can see how people convert at each stage, from the free bootcamp, to the open house, to enrolling. That turns a goal into arithmetic.
The numbers are illustrative; the method is the point. We know the conversion rate from a free 3D-bootcamp sign-up to an enrolled student, so to land 35 students we work backwards to the roughly 700 people we need at the top of the funnel. Multiply that by what a bootcamp lead costs, and we have the marketing budget required to hit the target, planned instead of guessed.
The result
Flagship class intake
An 84% rise to a sold-out class,and the academy's first waiting list.
We grew the flagship intake from 19 students to 35, the most the programme can take. For the first time the academy had more applicants than seats, and we opened a waiting list.
Search performance · May 2024 – Mar 2026
Lower is better.
Share of voice in AI answers
First among competitors, on a much smaller budget.
Social audience growth · +136% to 13,018
YouTube more than tripled, Instagram more than doubled, Facebook up 67%.
Why it worked
None of this came from having a bigger budget, because we did not have one. It came from having one person responsible for the whole commercial side, who could see how the parts fit together and build them in a sensible order.
01
Because I both planned the work and did it, nothing got lost between the plan and the delivery.
02
When I needed an SEO consultant or a videographer, I hired and directed them myself, so the academy always dealt with one person.
03
Once cost per lead and conversion were visible, effort and spend followed what actually worked.
04
None of it depended on me being a 3D expert. Translating what the academy's experts know into a system that sells it is what carries over to any business.
None of this happened alone. The results came from close collaboration with the team at the academy, who bring the craft, the teaching, and a real understanding of their students. My job is to turn that into a commercial engine and run it. I hold the accountability; the wins are shared.
Get in touch
I take on a small number of clients at a time. If you want growth that does not depend on you pushing every lever, let's talk about whether I am the right person to own it.