Post-OPM Strategy: Align Marketing Strategies
Preface: The OPM landscape is shifting, and it is not my intention to cast OPMs or the decision to partner with them as good or bad. The purpose of this article is to present neutral information senior-level leaders may want to consider when making decisions regarding their online strategy.
My first article provided an overview of 7 Key Elements to Guide a Post-OPM Strategy. This is the fifth part in the series where we discuss aligning marketing strategies" after insourcing online services.
When we decided to insource our online program operations after ending an OPM partnership, we knew maintaining our digital ad presence would be critical. Our online growth momentum depended on continuing to attract quality student leads and projecting a cohesive brand presence.
However, we quickly realized that our traditional marketing approaches were not suited for the competitive, data-driven world of online student recruitment. We needed a comprehensive digital strategy to effectively reach our target audiences of adult non-traditional, online learners.
Our first priority was securing an expert marketing partner that specialized in recruiting adult, online students. We selected Validated Insights based on their deep higher ed experience and expertise in pay-per-click advertising, content marketing, and conversion rate optimization.
Working together we crafted our new digital marketing strategy - from the messaging and creative concepts we developed to the channels, platforms, and advertising avenues we prioritized. Our goal was to establish a truly integrated brand experience that aligned with the institution and spoke directly to our prospective students.
VI helped us align our new online recruitment tactics with our overarching institutional brand positioning and guidelines. While our campaigns needed to resonate with online audiences, we didn't want to sacrifice brand consistency or stray from our university's core mission and values.
The agency's creative team worked closely with our internal marketers and leadership to fuse the best of both worlds - the digital, online recruitment strategies with our established brand identity. This allowed us to authentically tell our story to a new audience.
On the performance marketing front, VI enabled us to deploy a modern paid media strategy which spanned digital advertising across search, social media, programmatic display, and more. The data-driven paid media strategy is designed to drive quality traffic towards a unified, high-conversion online microsite experience.
We also invested in revamping our online presence - developing a new microsite which optimized our program pages to ensure a smooth user journey from ad-click through lead generation. Our new tech stack connected linear data across the entire funnel, allowing us to iterate and optimize campaigns based on cost-per-lead and enrollment metrics.
Fairly quickly the new strategy started paying off as our online inquiries, applications and enrollments started growing. As volume increased, VI and our internal team continually refined campaigns based on connection rates. Our close collaboration was key to converting those digital "leads" into enrolled students.
We found our online marketing strategy was an iterative journey of continuous testing, learning and adjusting. By owning our marketing spend data we could analyze campaign performance comprehensively and adjust quickly.
For any institution weighing the decision to insource after an OPM partnership, I cannot stress enough the importance of owning your own marketing spend data. Yes, there is a significant investment in time and money but the benefits far outweigh the costs. Be sure to align those marketing efforts with your brand identity and overall recruitment initiatives. Seek experienced agency partners, own your data, build tight-knit collaboration - and you'll position your online programs for long-term success.
So where are you on your OPM-journey? I would love to hear from similar institutions.
Let’s connect, I promise I’ll pick up the phone (or zoom call). jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com