Year One Success - By The Numbers - Results 2019 vs 2020
160%
Increase in Paid Search Inquiries
580%
Increase in Paid Search Enrollments
16.22%
Increase in Paid Social Inquiries
Year One - Success By The Numbers
160%
Increase in Paid Search Inquiries
580
Increase in Paid Search Enrollments
16.22%
Increase in Paid Social Inquiries
Meet the University of Virginia School of Continuing and Professional Studies
Sextant Marketing provides marketing services to the University of Virginia School of Continuing and Professional Studies (UVA SCPS) through their partnership with Noodle. UVA SCPS is designed for working professionals who are ready to earn credentials from a top-tier institution. Offering degrees and professional certificates on-campus and in a 100% online format, the full or part-time programs help put rigorous, valuable education within reach.
With graduation rates far higher than the national average and affordable tuition, UVA SCPS offers the opportunity for adult learners to achieve their educational goals. Students can transfer up to 60 credits toward finishing a degree they’ve already started. With strong faculty and alumni networks, UVA offers education with a high-level of support and mentorship.
QUICK LOOK
- Serving Adult Learners
- Nationally Ranked University
- Employer-aligned Curriculum
- Accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
QUICK LOOK
- Serving Adult Learners
- Nationally Ranked University
- Employer-aligned Curriculum
- Accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
THE GOAL
The University of Virginia SCPS wanted to increase their online applications and enrollments for their online bachelor's degree completion program and online professional certificates.
THE CHALLENGE
In order to increase online applications and enrollments, UVA SCPS would need to take their regionally dominant brand beyond their home state. UVA also needed to combat a reputation as an expensive, elite school to position themselves as approachable, affordable, and appropriate for working professionals.
THE SOLUTION
Through the results of a thorough media audit, Noodle, Sextant Marketing, and UVA SCPS developed a clear picture of the University’s goals and the actions they needed to take to achieve them. Sextant was tasked with helping UVA SCPS improve their digital presence via paid search, paid social, and other programmatic channels.
THE CHALLENGE
In order to increase online applications and enrollments, UVA SCPS would need to take their regionally dominant brand beyond their home state. UVA also needed to combat a reputation as an expensive, elite school to position themselves as approachable, affordable, and appropriate for working professionals.
THE SOLUTION
Through the results of a thorough media audit, Noodle, Sextant Marketing, and UVA SCPS developed a clear picture of the University’s goals and the actions they needed to take to achieve them. Sextant was tasked with helping UVA SCPS improve their digital presence via paid search, paid social, and other programmatic channels.
How we did it
Sextant Marketing is proud to offer custom solutions and guidance for our partner clients as we help them create and execute successful student recruitment marketing campaigns. To help UVA achieve their goals we developed and executed on custom campaign creative assets, digital assets, landing pages for paid media, lead generation forms for social advertising, and banner ads.
PAY-PER-CLICK (PPC) ENROLLMENT MARKETING SERVICES
- Defined goals and budget for paid search campaigns that aligned with the overall digital marketing strategy.
- Researched competitors and keywords for a carefully planned account structure execution.
- Developed paid search ad text that helped increase quality score, reduce cost per lead, and increase click-through rates.
- Created PPC landing pages that are optimized for conversion. Landing pages were created with the overall UVA brand in mind and to keep messaging and keywords consistent between ads and the landing page.
- Regular optimization of paid search campaigns helped UVA SCPS increase ROI.
- Tested new ad formats like Google Discovery Ads to increase the number of student inquiries.
PAID SOCIAL ENROLLMENT MARKETING SERVICES
Sextant set relevant campaign objectives and utilized LinkedIn’s robust professional database, allowing us to target the right people for UVA SCPS’s program offerings.
- Created LinkedIn InMail ads to reach prospective students’ inboxes.
- Using a multi-product strategy, warming an audience with Sponsored Content before sending them an InMail, Sextant improved click-through rates for message ads.
- Incorporating lead generation forms within LinkedIn ads, we were able to increase the number of student inquiries for UVA SCPS.
- Launched LinkedIn Conversation Ads – UVA SCPS was one of the early adopters of this ad format in the higher education sector. Rolled out in early 2020, Conversation Ads provide the opportunity to have quality conversations with prospective students with a choose-your-own-path experience. Colleges and universities can engage with students via multiple CTAs and landing pages.
- In addition to LinkedIn, Sextant supplemented social media efforts with a retargeting campaign on Facebook to get visitors back to the microsite and convert.
Engagement metrics (open rate, CTR, CPLs) were well above the industry benchmarks.
- Industry Benchmark Open Rate – 35%
- UVA SCPS open rate – 64%
- Industry benchmark average CTR – 3.3%
- UVA SCPS CTR – 6.43%
- Industry benchmark average CPL - $117
- UVA SCPS CPL - $57
The Results
Together, Noodle and Sextant Marketing helped UVA SCPS exceed their goals, enrolling their largest class ever in the BIS program while reducing costs and far exceeding industry benchmarks. Some key strategies helped make this happen.
- Conducted market research to prioritize investment in specific certificates and BIS specializations that presented the highest market opportunities and ROAS.
- Engaged in a full year planning session, mapping out media budget, expected enrollment by program area and by media channel.
- Set specific KPIs for funnel metrics – leads, lead-to-applications, lead-to-enrollments, etc. and tracked actuals against benchmarks on a weekly basis.
- Implemented digital marketing campaigns targeting the student funnel to increase lead to application and application to enrollment.
- Made sure our spend was aligned with the budget for the best possible ROI on all channels.