A Story of an
Expanding Partnership
Competing in a Crowded Market Place
EducationDynamics was initially brought in to help the university build awareness and grow enrollments in a crowded marketplace, where they compete with many schools offering similar online programs to the Adult undergraduate audience. The initial scope of work was narrowly defined – focused on digital media campaigns in paid search and social, lead acquisition management, and support in general awareness efforts.
As the relationship grew, and EDDY’s efforts began to produce consistent and sustained growth for the undergraduate adult programs, the school recognized the value in EDDY’s work and the opportunity for further collaboration. The school now sees EDDY as “part of the team”, understanding their operations, goals, strategic initiatives, and culture. EDDY now serves as the school’s agency of record, providing Marketing Agency, Prospect Nurturing, and Market Research support – along with general strategic consulting.
Over the past four academic years, enrollment starts have grown an average of 23% per year. The end result? A 126% increase in enrollments since the start of our partnership.
Today, EducationDynamics supports all levels of the school’s enrollment management efforts, from demand generation to start, including traditional on-campus programs, career-focused adult undergraduate programs, career-focused online and campus graduate programs, and undergraduate and graduate programs geared to military personnel. Marketing efforts include general awareness campaigns as well as targeted program and market-segment-specific campaigns.
Integrating Solutions for Success
EDDY’s strategic integration into multi-channel marketing and enrollment management operations at the school has led to optimization opportunities to drive strong enrollment growth. During the 2019-2020 academic year, EDDY undertook an optimization project that analyzed marketing spend within and across our marketing channels, with a focus on opportunities to redirect resources to deliver optimal cost-per-enrollment for the school. EDDY’s data nerds jumped into the data and analyzed each platform’s performance, then dug into individual platforms, campaigns, and even geographic targeting. The result? Compounding positive results that redirect budget and resources to the best delivering platforms and optimize each platform for the most efficient use of resources. The outcomes would not have been possible without four prior years of consistently excellent results, access/management of all channels, transparent communication between the teams, and a relationship built on trust.
Our strategic approach has led us to implement the following solutions:
Digital marketing: including paid search and paid social, and landing pages to support conversion optimization
Content marketing: including the creation and management of blog posts, ebooks, infographics and other digital content
Organic social media management: including support of the school’s internal team on managing student and alumni groups, prospect engagement, and community messaging
Website management and SEO: including the management of the school’s main website, technical SEO, conversion rate optimization and user experience optimization
Lead acquisition: relationship management and optimization
Traditional media management: including creative services and ad buys for print, radio (online and terrestrial), TV, display, and OTT and streaming services
Creative Services: to support all marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as support of brand management creative services managed by other creative shops
Prospect and lead nurturing: through email, ringless voicemail, text, and direct mailing efforts
Market research: including competitive program and market analysis
The EDDY Difference
Growing Enrollments. Improving Cost Per Start
EDDY’s relationship with the school has steadily grown since our initial engagement, with steadily improving results to mirror that growth. Over the past four academic years, enrollment starts have grown an average of 23% per year and 126% since the start of the engagement. Our year-over-year performance in Academic Year 2019-2020 showed significant growth in new student starts every semester, while also gaining improved performance in the average cost-per-start for new students. EDDY’s ability to identify new opportunities for optimization means the school has more students without increasing the marketing budget, leaving new revenue to invest into other parts of the university and resulting in better service to the students.