Growing Law School Enrollment with Marketing and Enrollment Management Solutions
Growing Online Enrollment for a Law School’s New Programs
The graduate school of law is an ABA-accredited law school located downtown in its respective state. The school of law offers students a holistic legal education with part-time and full-time learning options. It offers graduate programs for a Master of Jurisprudence (MJur) and a Master of Laws (LL.M.). At the school of law, students have the opportunity to engage in specific courses of study.
Although the university is a large, nationally-recognized institution, its graduate school of law was not as well known. In addition, the graduate school of law recently launched a new online suite of programs, which was identified as an opportunity for growth. To grow their graduate school of law online enrollments, the school’s leadership knew that it needed to increase overall program awareness as well as nurture and support prospective students throughout the enrollment lifecycle. The graduate school of law needed an industry partner that not only understood both higher education marketing and enrollment management, but also the online education space.
The Objective
- Develop and execute a comprehensive full-funnel marketing strategy to achieve enrollment growth for the graduate school of law
- Increase awareness for the new online programs
- Secure enrollment management services to assist in the application completion process on behalf of the university
The Solution
In late 2019, the university’s school of law selected EducationDynamics (EDDY) as its strategic partner to provide a comprehensive enrollment growth strategy leveraging awareness marketing, digital media, and enrollment management.
The digital marketing and contact center teams at EDDY collaborated and launched a full-funnel strategy that consisted of generating high-intent and high-volume inquiries, initiating outreach on all digital marketing and organic inquiries, and acting on behalf of the university to assist in the application completion process.
EDDY’s higher education marketing professionals implemented a two-phase digital strategy to increase awareness for the graduate school of law. Phase one allocated majority of its budget towards paid social and the remaining towards paid search to increase engagement and capture high-intent prospects. EDDY’s expert advisors’ proactive “speed to lead” outreach yielded a strong start. As organic inquiry volume grew, the strategy shifted budget allocation to optimize for enrollment of high intent prospective students ahead of the university’s fall 2020 start.
During each digital marketing phase, EDDY continuously refined the audience targeting and improved ad messaging to drive optimal enrollments driving overall growth in awareness and enrollments year over year.
In the first year of the partnership, EDDY was able to exceed enrollment expectations by 40% and the school saw improvements in cost-per-inquiry, cost-per-application and cost-per-nurture:
- 6% improvement in cost-per-inquiry
- 54% improvement in cost-per-application
- 49% improvement in cost-per-nurture
As the partnership matured in year 3, the school saw a notable shift in inquiry volume, enrollment volume and improvement in melt rate.
- 54% increase in inquiry volume (year 2 over year 3)
- 22% increase in enrollment volume (year 2 over year 3)
- 8.4% improvement in melt rate (year 2 over year 3)
The EDDY Difference
Rather than a set-it-and-leave-it approach, EducationDynamics performed an ongoing process of optimization across several phases of digital marketing strategies with a focus on increasing program awareness and driving enrollments for the university’s graduate school of law. With each new start term, EDDY collected and analyzed the university’s enrollment trends, from quantitative marketing metrics to qualitative prospect feedback. The strategic changes made from ongoing optimization helped improve holistic enrollment performance start-over-start.
EDDY’s team of over 270 marketing and enrollment management professionals, paired with its deep understanding of online academic programs and student behavior, allowed EDDY to execute a dynamic mix of strategies to maximize efficiencies and grow enrollment numbers for the Graduate School of Law.
Since partnering with EDDY, the American Bar Association reports that the Graduate School of Law is now ranked as the third-largest non-JD program in the country. It is also forecasted to be the fastest-growing program, with an anticipated 650% growth over the next five years.
EDDY’s approach to marketing and enrollment management applies both expertise and a focus on continuous improvement which is why many leading colleges and universities trust EducationDynamics with its brand.