Robinson College of Business
Driving Enrollment Through Digital Media
The Robinson College of Business (RCB) at Georgia State University is recognized for its academic and professional excellence, with programs designed to provide students with business education and applied opportunities through immersive learning experiences in industry. Despite having strong graduate program offerings, enrollment at RCB started to drop in the Fall of 2016. Employing our Smarter Marketing and Recruitment Playbook, we identified the strongest profiles of students for each program and the key reasons RCB was selected by these students. Our team also determined that a higher quality and quantity of applications would be needed at the top of the application funnel, which had to be achieved with the school’s established budget.
Our recommendation was a shift from traditional media to digital advertising. This strategy would offer greater marketing efficiencies, enable stronger results with the same marketing budget as employed the previous year, and facilitate better customization of messaging content and medium as well as quicker responses to the needs of prospective students. The insight we gained from our playbook process was utilized to create compelling messages delivered to individuals matching the personas for each graduate program. The campaign was continuously monitored and optimized, resulting in breakthrough enrollment numbers:
- 500% increase in visits to graduate program webpages
- 57% increase in submitted applications
- 25% increase in enrolled students
