THE GOAL
Eliminate wasted marketing budget
THE CLIENT
A leader in career training institutions with 16 campuses nationwide.
THE CHALLENGE
The national career college was frustrated by spending a substantial amount of advertising dollars on inquiries from prospective students who were applying to programs that didn’t exist in their regions, or didn’t meet their enrollment requirements. Marketing budget was going to waste on unqualified leads, and opportunities were being missed to fill highly desired classroom seats. To drive more enrollments, the college needed to greatly refine their targeting, both by geography and program offering.
THE STRATEGY
Statwax needed to identify the most damaging sources of lost budget. If you’re interested in how we got started, feel free to connect with us to learn more. Our top priority was to stop wasting budget on connecting with prospective students who wouldn’t qualify for programs.
First, campaigns were redesigned to match the college’s national campus structure. Irrelevant school seekers were no longer targeted, and ad budgets were prioritized by campus goals, so budget could go to the regions that admissions were most concerned about as start dates approached.
Next, we put our higher ed know-how to use in refining program keywords, excluding searches – and wasted costs along with them – tied to programs the institution didn’t offer. Interestingly, we found that up to 15% of ad clicks had been associated with programs not offered.
Finally, we worked closely with the college’s IT department to add more sophisticated inquiry tracking to campaigns, ensuring every conversion we counted had value not only in the ad platform, but with our partners in the admissions and marketing department. By customizing inquiry strategy for the institution’s unique programs, we were able to help them drive 18.6% more leads YoY, which increased student starts by 11%.
THE TAKEAWAY
More often than not, by simply identifying and eliminating wasteful marketing spend, and integrating more sophisticated campaign tracking, higher ed organizations can experience huge improvements to their scrub rates, cost-per-starts, and total inquiries without having to increase their advertising spends.
If this situation sounds familiar, let’s talk about the easiest ways to start trimming wasteful spending from your marketing plan.
