At Williams Randall, we love providing tangible results for our clients. For Ivy Tech, Indiana’s statewide community college network, that looks like increased enrollment. In 2023, we helped deliver that result and then some.

Laying the Ground

We began working with Ivy Tech in late 2021 on a brand evolution and website redesign.

The project was very research-driven and took into account the opinions and needs of various stakeholders including prospective students, current students, faculty, staff, and employer partners. Read more about the brand evolution here.

Since the completion of the website redesign and brand refresh in 2022, our work with the college’s primary marketing office has continued with the expressed purpose of growing student enrollment across the Ivy Tech Community College network as a whole.

The Media Strategy

The higher ed market is complex and the enrollment process is multi-step. Most prospective students need to explore offerings before they are ready to apply. Some request info or want to talk with an admissions counselor before acting. Then, after they’re admitted, they need to register for classes. Taking all of this into account, our media strategy utilized a full-funnel approach to deliver the right messages to the right audience at the right time in the student journey. As you can imagine, there were multiple creative messages to drive specific actions along the way.

Awareness
Awareness tactics were at the top of the funnel and included a mix of traditional and digital tactics. Traditional tactics were the foundation for generating high awareness across all audiences and included TV, radio, and outdoor.

Digital awareness tactics were used at all levels of the funnel and played an important role in reaching audiences at the right time in the customer journey. Using a variety of targeting methods and tactics, including Over-The-Top/Connected TV (OTT/CTV) and audio streaming, brought new, qualified prospects to the funnel.

Engagement
Creating engagement with our audience was crucial for progressing through the funnel. We used tactics like social media, digital display, and OTT display remarketing to drive engagement. We leveraged the robust targeting capabilities within these platforms to encourage users to interact with our ads and move forward in their selection process.

Conversion and Optimization
All of these tactics led to conversion at the bottom of the funnel. Here, we used Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and frequent optimization. Williams Randall places media in-house so we optimized Ivy Tech’s campaigns weekly to monitor spend pacing and metrics. This enabled us to make shifts and adjustments to improve performance and incorporate learnings throughout this campaign.

The Numbers

The brand evolution and subsequent campaign launched in the Summer of 2022. By the Fall 2023 semester, Ivy Tech enrollment had increased 6.88% over the previous year. Tracking that year showed that 31% of total applications were influenced by the campaign’s ads.

These metrics demonstrate a continual improvement over time. Breaking down those numbers by term, June 2023 enrollment was up 11.5%, August 2023 enrollment was up 7.4%, and applications were up 25% for January 2024.

Through our statewide campaign, Williams Randall doubled the percentage of web applications influenced YoY and produced 77% more applications. The cost per application (CPApp) dropped more than 85%, while the cost per mille (CPM) went down 13%. Plus, the click-through rate (CTR) improved by 130%. In 2023, we also ran several campaigns for individual Ivy Tech campuses, which brought in increased applications and click-through rates. Check out more results by campus:

• Anderson: 75% increase in CTR
• Terre Haute: 60% increase in CTR, 28% decrease in cost per click (CPC)
• Richmond: Applications are up 46%
• Madison: Applications are up 97%
• Fort Wayne: 127% increase in CTR and a 478% increase in applications

We’re so proud of all the work our team has done to produce these results for our client and look forward to seeing what results 2024 brings them.