GLOBAL RECRUITMENT

Objective

WSU Global Campus needed to increase headcount by 2,000 students over a three year time period. They enlisted the help of Gibson Media to help drive awareness, inquiries, and ultimately applications. 

Strategy

In order to drive their application inquiries at desired levels, we conducted market data analysis on competing institutions, their media spend, online traffic flow, and the budget necessary to fill the lead funnel.

Analyzing similar online education initiatives in the market provided our team with benchmark “activity” levels needed on the website per month in order to yield the desired response rate. 

Evaluating competitor presence in the media helped us identify industry media trends. It also gave us the opportunity to carve out a media niche to strengthen the WSU Global Campus position in the market.

Our hub strategy (integrating digital and traditional media tactics) enabled us to dominate the digital space while also having a solid presence in city centers — where we reached the bulk of working people in market for online education. 

We also built a social, display, and digital video strategy in the online space that drove people directly to the key KPI pages on the WSU Global Campus Site.

ONLINE MARKETING

ESTABLISHING KPI's

Gibson Media helped establish the Key Performance Indicators for baseline campaign measurement. By placing pixels on key landing pages and implementing click to call measurement, we were able to directly track Apply Now Conversions along with other important activities.

SEM & DIGITAL DISPLAY RESULTS

The consistent advertising campaign we recommended for WSU Global Campus drove strong increasing quality scores for both graduate and undergraduate campaigns as target keywords became more positively associated with the WSU Global Campus brand.

Directly resulting from higher quality scores, the cost for winning bids against relevant keywords decreased over time, allowing for a greater reach of WSU’s paid search advertising efforts.

Overall conversions steadily rose January through May as potential students were researching program opportunities with WSU’s Global Campus. “Apply Now” conversions peaked in April correlating with their April Admissions deadline.