Getting Qualified Leads Despite COVID-19

TARGETED DIRECT RESPONSE ENROLLMENT CAMPAIGN

Clicking above and beyond to boost enrollment

Texas A&M University-San Antonio has been one of the fastest-growing Universities in the Texas A&M System in recent years. The university is dedicated to an experiential learning curriculum that allows students to get ahead in their career while still in college. The university needed a digital campaign that would align Texas A&M-San Antonio’s messaging with prospective students’ immediate needs. Right in the middle of the campaign, COVID-19 hit and stakes got higher.

Our assignment

Texas A&M-San Antonio asked Steel to establish an online lead source to improve recruitment, generate immediate leads, and establish new benchmarks for digital marketing performance.

CLIENT:
RESULTS:

62

Reduction in Cost per Lead

Here’s how we did it

Steel created an online ad campaign that drove prospects to a Texas A&M-San Antonio landing page to request information/meeting or apply now. We targeted undergrads, transfer students, military students, and graduate students near the campus.

Applying geographic and demographic targeting, we used Google Ads and programmatic display with re-targeting to get our messaging in front of potential applicants. We collaborated with the client’s web and SEO teams on A/B testing and relevant analytics to optimize across platforms. Finally, we made a big push as we approached enrollment deadlines. Once the clicks settled, we had a great increase in leads at a much lower cost.

Tactics

  • Google paid search

  • Retargeting

  • Paid social

  • YouTube pre-roll

  • Programmatic display

  • A/B testing

  • Landing page design

Results

Over the course of the campaign, the university received 93 qualified leads. The overall conversion rate for the campaign was more than 10%. In the end, the client asked the team to verify the results because there were so many leads – we would call that a success!