How Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business Optimized their Digital Strategy to Increase Applications | StudentBridge

Taking the next step for great admissions marketing

Like many business and graduate schools, Virginia Tech's Pamplin College of Business had a few specific challenges keeping them from reaching the potential applicants they wanted to reach. Instead of continuing to fall short on their application goals, they dug down and discovered their biggest issues. They identified the following challenges:

• Difficulty engaging out-of-state prospects, especially compared to their competition
• A lack of data to test the effectiveness of current admissions marketing strategies
• A need for a better platform to display student testimonial videos. No engaging video content for other parts of the College
• Major lack of bandwidth and resources because recruiters can only do so much

Streamlined Goals

Once they realized what was hindering their admissions efforts, the College was able to set a list of straightforward, attainable goals. They decided to:

• Increase focus on digital recruiting
• Attract more applications from out-of-state students in places like Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Iowa, and Indiana
• Differentiate themselves from the competition
• Improve their video strategy
• Track and measure performance and diversity data

The Leap to Better Application Numbers

Once the College laid out their goals, they recognized the need for outside guidance.

With a video viewbook from StudentBridge, they took control of their digital brand and create a more welcoming, interactive video experience for prospective students. With a custom-branded microsite and targeted marketing, Pamplin increased traffic. Once they had the traffic, they used email marketing to follow up with and convert more prospective applicants. Basically, they're better equipped themselves to capture leads, follow up with these leads, and encourage more conversions.

Pamplin knew that simply creating a microsite was not enough to generate additional applications, so they built up their marketing strategy around sending traffic to the site, turning traffic into conversions, and nurturing conversions into leads.

The Results Are In

With these minor improvements to their admissions marketing strategy, the College saw huge results. Their new digital experience brought in a whopping 11,561 visitors. Better yet, they increased their conversion rate with these visitors to 10%.

Takeaways Are Key

This case study is important because it shows the need to create a marketing strategy that specifically addresses your school's unique goals while accounting for your current challenges. In order to do this, you might have to find internal and external partners who truly understand your goals; ones that can help you create a viable and effective marketing strategy.

Setting goals is a great place to start, but ignoring current challenges makes it unnecessarily difficult to reach them. Luckily, StudentBridge is here for you! Learn more about how we can be instrumental in improving your application numbers.