Problem:
The College of Liberal Arts prepared to launch multiple new and existing flagship master’s degree programs — the Master of Public Policy in our Political Science department and a Master’s in Geospatial Data Science, and Master’s in Geographic Information Studies in our GIS department. An aggressive digital advertising and retargeting plan was launched for each to build awareness and drive enrollment.
Insights:
Research conducted against comparable programs and amongst key stakeholders revealed various avenues to place advertising. In addition to targeted social campaigns, each campaign individually found success in advertising targeted to relevant publications and websites for each program, including BillyPenn, Generocity, and SmartSource for the MPP program, as well as AAG, TedXPhilly and more for our GIS programs. Continual A/B testing and iterations of creative drive further growth.
Solution:
Enrollment and degree completion continues to grow each year amongst the programs promoted. The inaugural class of of the 2016 MPP program enrolled 17 students, and by 2018 had enrolled more than 50 students in the program. GIS programs continued their growth and as a result has risen in ranks to one of the colleges most sought after degrees.
Custom RFI
Landing Pages
Ads directed prospective students to a concise RFI-focused landing page. Upon submission, our Mailchimp CRM responded with plain-text emails from department representatives to begin the ever important human to human connection that our research showed — drove real results and increased enrollment.