The team gained valuable insights from internal and external stakeholders, including the leadership team, enrollment team, marketing team, current students, alumni, faculty, and staff. This helped us understand Washington College’s unique identity and how to position it competitively in the higher education landscape. Through these insights, we discovered why students choose to attend Washington College, how to expand into new markets for Washington College, and what prospective students want to know about Washington College.

With this data, we developed strategic drivers to guide the creation of an enrollment strategy. This phase involved leveraging both internal and external research to shape the communication strategy. Our roadmap included content for emails, postcards, and SMS texts, along with a communications calendar and metrics for evaluating success and identifying areas for improvement.

Although regional differences necessitated running three separate campaigns, our “Not that Washington” campaign quickly proved successful. This campaign effectively differentiated Washington College from other institutions with the same namesake and clarified its location in Maryland. Our digital marketing efforts significantly boosted brand awareness, and our email marketing campaign generated a substantial number of qualified inquiries. Following the launch of the campaigns, we built reports within the CRM to enable the Washington College team to easily track the success of each campaign.

By engaging with key stakeholders and developing a comprehensive enrollment strategy—which included list buying, digital marketing recommendations, a communication plan, and CRM optimization—we crafted creative assets and measured the effectiveness of each effort. This holistic approach significantly boosted both brand awareness and qualified leads for Washington College.

An expediated timeline required us to quickly translate the existing brand into a digital space that was both functional and true to the new brand identity, ensuring a cohesive and engaging user experience. Despite changes within the client’s creative team, we successfully elevated the brand through design improvements and increased the overall functionality of their website by implementing a new CMS platform. This update will continue to provide flexibility for the USC Upstate team and provides opportunities for continuous web growth.

The project resulted in significant improvements for both the client and their web users. By streamlining the number of pages, the website has become more manageable for the internal team, while improved search functionality makes the most important information easier to find for incoming students. This process has also enhanced internal web support, making the website a more useful tool for the College. The GMB team was able to implement a custom-built higher education WordPress theme developed internally by the team for this project. Since implementation, the overall amount of time each web user engages with this site has increased significantly.

The new website has successfully met the goals set by USC Upstate, enhancing their brand’s digital presence and improving user experience for prospective students.

Staying Nimble, Adaptable, and Actionable

By leaning into the entrepreneurial aspect of the DFP, we were able to educate our audiences about how much of a head start the DFP can give them in achieving their filmmaking career goals. We also used data gathering to adjust our digital strategy throughout the campaign, effectively maximizing our media spend and objectives to get our message out to the right audience at the right time.

Looking at the Whole Picture

For messaging, we leaned into the fact that the Wake Forest DFP is a “soup to nuts” type of program. Students learn more than the creative side of filmmaking; they graduate with a firm understanding of the business side of the industry, giving them a firm leg up to get their projects produced right after graduation (a big draw for the right-fit students looking to launch their filmmaking career).  

Pivoting and Differentiating

After some time in the market, the Documentary Film Program campaign started disproportionately generating more prospective student leads than the Sports & Media Storytelling Film program. Although students could switch majors once in the program, there was still a need to differentiate the programs from each other so students could make more informed decisions about which program best fit their goals.

Defining the HSU Experience

Pulling insights from internal and external stakeholders, including leadership, the enrollment team, marketing team, current students, alumni, faculty, staff, and even business leaders in the area, we started to gain a better understanding of what makes Hardin-Simmons stand out in a very saturated market. 

We realized all their competitors were similar in look, feel, and messaging (even brand colors). Everyone was saying and doing the same thing, which was very safe. We saw an opportunity for HSU to stand out by doing something different: embracing and proudly owning the Christian heritage and cowboy traditions that were unique to the University.

“We are cowboys.”

That concept became the rallying cry and tagline establishing the true essence of what made Hardin-Simmons the university it is. 

But what are cowboys? Cowboys are hard workers, people who push forward through any challenge that arises. Cowboys stand up for what they believe and finish what they started. They’re responsible. They’re natural born leaders. They have grit and passion for what they do.

Cowboys aren’t defined by the dust on their boots. They’re defined by their character. 

This campaign shows that it doesn’t matter where you’re from or what you do. The cowboy spirit lives in each one of us.

We are Hardin-Simmons University.
We are cowboys.

Leading with Authenticity

Through our brand platform process, we were able to truly capture and align the internal and external stakeholder teams on what makes Westminster unique. As a progressive liberal arts institution located in a primarily conservative state, its inclusive and diverse community provides an experience that students may not typically expect in Utah. Here, you can “come as you are, and graduate as you will be.” A sentiment that became the starting point and inspiration for the campaign.

Permission to Think Different

Higher ed institutions have a reputation for sticking with what’s traditional. Not Westminster. From the beginning of our work together, the Westminster team was open and willing to challenge the norm and think outside of higher ed for creative influence. In a refreshing change of pace, the University’s marketing team welcomed a more playful approach to design and allowed us to push boundaries for results that were authentically true to the Westminster brand.

Making Small Moments

Throughout our work together, we identified a need to separate Westminster’s new student experience from others in the market. It was already a very innovative approach for engaging students: a simple, interactive microsite to inform and excite new students about their time at Westminster. Through collaboration with the Westminster team about what new students would experience, we helped them name the platform (WestX) and create small moments to the design that would keep students engaged and enthralled about their introduction to Westminster.

At the same time, it was important to Northwestern to accurately document and retain student data from their marketing efforts. After losing historical data from previous campaigns, our team helped empower the client to keep and use their own accounts to produce transparent reports that informed their marketing teams, the dean, and program directors.

Over the past three years, we have continued to refine their digital campaign language and audiences to reach a higher quality and engaged student pool. Our team has also led additional projects with Northwestern, including a CRM audit that targeted best practices for tagging and tracking, SEO analysis, and website landing page audits.

The McCormick School of Engineering graduate programs emphasize excellence in education and research, where the students are exceptionally prepared for academic and professional success. From 2023 to 2024, the campaigns yielded consistent results across all programs:

• 27% increase in conversion rate
• 106% increase in click-through rate
• 109% increase in leads year over year

It’s How You Finish

At the center of the brand launch was a website redesign. Improving the site’s information architecture, creating clear navigation paths and a content strategy with a clear audience in mind, led to the biggest benefit: telling the Athens State story in a more compelling and effective way. 

To bring clarity to Athens State’ brand, we created a brand strategy that included a brand platform and a brand identity campaign. The campaign elevated the University’s modern approach to creating career-ready graduates and spoke to its unwavering effort to offer degree options for non-traditional students ready to finish their education.

Leaning into Location

Based on key findings and research, we detected a post-COVID shift in high school students opting to stay in-state for their college education. Leveraging these findings, we crafted a strategy that targeted students and families within a 50-mile radius of Maryville and also pulled in nearby regions that showed searches for the programs the College was promoting.

Support for Staying in State

Numbers don’t lie: Nationwide, 86% of full-time equivalent (FTE) students attended college near their high school and 81% of those in Tennessee chose to stay in-state. With that information, we built a strategy that supported this trend and spoke directly to students who preferred staying closer to home.

Setting Parameters

That’s not to say that we were thinking small. We set parameters for the digital campaign at a 50-mile radius to incorporate out-of-state as well as local interest. We also pulled in Hoover and Birmingham as additional markets and extended our search efforts into most of Tennessee. As we evaluated results, we had the ability to extend or restrict targeting based on the ad response. 

Setting Up for Reporting Success

An additional goal of Maryville was to ensure that the data from its marketing efforts dropped into its tracking program correctly and that the analytics were set up for peak performance. We worked closely with the Maryville team to ensure proper set up and attribution for accurate results, reporting, and analysis for future evaluation.

Engaging with History

Rather than promoting individual resources, our campaign focused on the broader mission of American Battlefield Trust and how educators could be part of a community dedicated to preserving history and shaping future generations.

Through our digital strategy and engagement, we compelled educators to join American Battlefield Trust’s communication flow, keeping the organization top of mind when educators were looking for lesson plans or additional interactive resources to teach these eras of history.

Putting Our Audience in the Forefront

The campaign we created highlighted the pivotal role that history teachers play in shaping their students’ understanding of the past and its relevance to the present and future. Through compelling storytelling and visuals, we positioned educators as heroes who empower students to become critical thinkers, responsible citizens, and history-makers in the making. 

Broadening Digital Horizons

Recognizing the evolving nature of education and the changing needs of educators, we took the proactive approach of broadening American Battlefield Trust’s digital presence and engagement strategies. Leveraging social media platforms, we connected with a vibrant community of educators interested in history education.