Most in marketing and recruiting tell me its not. Many don't even have one. They feel stuck advertising in mediums like TV, radio and newspaper which reach fewer and fewer young people every day. One of my clients that was experiencing this problem was Wayne Community College. They were frustrated not being able to measure ROI with their existing advertising. They were also frustrated that they did not have a system in place that effectively nurtured a person from Prospect to Student. They knew there had to be a better way.
We helped Wayne Community College launch a highly-targeted, highly-measurable digital media campaign that includes:
All traffic generated from the campaign is driven to a landing page that is optimized to convert them into leads and ultimately into prospective students. We are able to measure where the leads are coming from and follow them throughout the pipeline via a marketing automation system called Hatchbuck. We have even automated the process of sending Program-specific emails to these prospective students. Here is a video that illustrates how we are doing this:
We have also figured out how to import data from Wayne's ERP system (Colleague) on a daily-basis so that we can change the status of a lead from Prospect to Applicant to Student and then set them up on email campaigns based on their status. I think it is really exciting stuff!
Please let us know if you are interested in implementing digital advertising and marketing automation into your 16-17 fiscal year budget. We can send you our pricing information right away.
You may also be interested in hearing our podcast on how Linn-Benton Community College developed an enrollment machine utilizing marketing automation.
Learn more about how we can improve the marketing and recruiting funnel at your community college.
Jonathan Medford is founding partner of Inspire. He lives in Whiteville, NC where he is president of the Whiteville Rotary Club and board member of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce & Tourism. Marketing is not just a career for Jonathan, it's a passion. When he has time away from developing results-driven marketing campaigns, he enjoys spending time with his family, and pickin' the guitar.
