Enrollment & Lead Gen
Full-funnel recruitment marketing across search, paid social, programmatic, CTV/OTT and geofencing, engineered around cost-per-inquiry and cost-per-applicant, not vanity reach.
Explore →Industries we serve 03
Fill the class with the right students — and prove every dollar of it.
Enrollment and lead-generation marketing for universities and colleges. We connect the right prospective students to the right programs, then back it with clean attribution your provost, your dean and your board can all read. Strategy informed by a decade in mission-driven higher-ed growth.
Why it's hard 01
The enrollment funnel got harder. The pressure to prove it got worse.
Demographic cliffs, rising tuition skepticism, a melting yield, and a board that wants to see cost-per-enrolled-student, not just impressions. Most campus marketing answers this with more channels and more vendors, which only fragments the picture further.
We do the opposite. One integrated system covering search, social, programmatic, CTV, SEO, web and CRM, pointed at the metrics that actually matter: inquiries, applications, admits and melt. Not just more reach, but reach you can defend in a budget meeting.
How we run the funnel →Bench depth 02
A decade inside higher-ed growth, on the strategy lead's résumé, not borrowed from a deck.
Our strategy lead, Joey Henson, has spent 10+ years in higher-ed and mission-driven growth, steering more than $30M a year in media for institutions that answer to deans, faculty senates and trustees. That means we already speak the language of recruitment cycles, program-level positioning, financial-aid messaging and shared governance, and we build to it.
10+ yrs · higher-ed growth
What we do 03
From first impression to enrolled: the whole journey, one team.
Engage one piece or the whole system. Either way, senior people do the work: the same hands that have run multimillion-dollar national lead-gen campaigns.
Brand & Program Positioning
Institutional brand strategy and program-level positioning: naming, visual systems and messaging that hold up across colleges, departments and donor audiences alike.
Explore →Web & Digital Experience
Program pages, RFI forms and microsites built to convert. Fast, ADA/WCAG 2.1 AA accessible, and wired to your CRM so no inquiry leaks out of the funnel.
Explore →SEO & Content
Technical and semantic SEO plus brand journalism, so the programs you want to grow are the ones prospective students (and their parents) actually find first.
Explore →CRM & Nurture
Lead scoring and lifecycle nurture from inquiry through deposit, using Slate, Marketo and the rest, so the right message reaches the right student at the right moment.
Explore →Analytics & Attribution
GA4, dashboards and multi-touch attribution that translate the funnel into the numbers leadership cares about: cost-per-enrolled, channel ROI, term over term.
Explore →The enrollment funnel 03b
One funnel, built program by program, from a stranger to a deposited student.
Enrollment isn't one campaign. It's a sequence, and every program runs its own. A nursing prospect, a part-time MBA and a transfer student enter at different points, weigh different things and convert on different timelines. We build the funnel as five connected stages so spend follows the students most likely to actually enroll, not the cheapest click.
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01
Target by program, not by campus
We segment audiences down to the program: stage of life, intended major, geography, transfer vs. first-year, even financial-aid sensitivity. Search intent, programmatic and paid social are each pointed at the specific student a specific program needs, so a nursing dollar never gets spent chasing an MBA.
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02
Reach: the channel mix the moment calls for
Paid search to catch active program shoppers; programmatic and CTV/OTT to build awareness in a prospect's feed and living room; geofencing around feeder high schools, community colleges and college fairs. One integrated plan, not six vendors each optimizing their own slice.
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03
Convert: program pages wired to inquire
Every click lands on a fast, accessible program page built to do one thing: turn interest into an RFI. Forms post straight into your CRM with the source, program and campaign attached, so no inquiry arrives anonymous and nothing leaks out of the funnel.
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04
Nurture: inquiry to application to deposit
Lead scoring and lifecycle nurture in Slate or Marketo carry the right message to the right student at the right moment, through application, admit and the long melt season, instead of letting warm inquiries go cold between term deadlines.
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05
Measure: back to cost-per-enrolled
Every stage reports in the same currency leadership cares about: cost-per-inquiry, cost-per-applicant and ultimately cost-per-enrolled, by program and by channel. The funnel tells you where to spend the next dollar, and where to stop.
Inquiry → applicant → enrolled
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years our strategy lead has spent in higher-ed growth
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in annual media our principals have led for institutions
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integrated disciplines pointed at one enrollment funnel
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qualified leads delivered on a comparable certification campaign
Institutions 04
Real higher-ed work our team has led, plus the marquee programs we've competed to win.
A straight answer on attribution: the campuses below are engagements our founders and senior team have led (several during prior agency tenures), plus competitive bids we've put senior strategy behind. We present them as credentials, the experience you'd be hiring, not as logos on a wall.
Michigan campuses, in the work
Enrollment, brand and digital work led for institutions across Michigan, including Grand Valley State University, Wayne State University, Central Michigan University and Grand Rapids Community College. Public regionals, urban research universities and two-year colleges each recruit differently; we've built for all three.
National programs we've competed for
When marquee institutions open a search, we show up with senior strategy, including competitive bids for UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, UC Davis and Miami University (Ohio). It's a measure of the altitude we play at: the same caliber of program that hires national firms.
How we work 05
Built for shared governance, tight budgets, and accountable reporting.
Higher-ed marketing lives or dies on credibility with cabinets, faculty and families. Here's what that looks like in practice.
Funnel-first, not channel-first
We start at cost-per-enrolled and work backward to channels, so spend follows yield, not the loudest vendor.
Accessible by default
Every page and asset is built to WCAG 2.1 AA. Non-negotiable for public institutions, table stakes for us.
Program-level segmentation
A nursing prospect and an MBA prospect are different people. We segment, message and measure them that way.
CRM-connected from day one
Slate, Marketo and your SIS, wired so inquiries flow cleanly from first click to deposit, with no leaks.
Reporting your board can read
Live dashboards in plain language: inquiries, applications, admits, melt. Not a 40-slide impressions dump.
Built to survive procurement
We know RFPs, compliance and the public-scrutiny bar, and we write, scope and deliver to it from the start.
Cost-per-enrolled, by program
Attribution 05b
The whole point: a number your board can trust, down to the program.
Most enrollment reporting stops at impressions and clicks, then hand-waves at applications. We close the loop. A GA4 and server-side measurement layer captures every RFI and form start; those events join ad-platform spend and, where the CRM allows, application and deposit data, so a single dashboard can answer the question a provost actually asks: what did it cost to enroll this student, in this program, from this channel?
Multi-touch, not last-click
A campus search ad, a CTV impression and an RFI email all get credit for the same enrollment, so you stop defunding the channels that start the journey.
Program-level P&L
Nursing, the MBA and the online certificate each get their own cost-per-applicant and yield, because they earn their budgets differently.
CRM-stitched
Slate and Marketo data flow back into the dashboard, so reporting follows the student from first click to deposit, not just to the form.
Term over term
Every figure trends across recruitment cycles, so a yield dip shows up in week three, not in next year's post-mortem.
Adjacent proof 06
The lead-gen engine we'd bring to your funnel, proven next door.
Enrollment is, at its core, high-consideration lead generation against a tight cost target. That's exactly the discipline behind the CFP Board "Future CFP Pro" campaign our team led. Same playbook, pointed at applications instead of certifications.
Read the CFP Board case →
High-consideration lead gen650% lower cost-per-lead, YoY
6,000+qualified leads against a 3–4K goal, on similar spend
Read the case →
Let's talk 07
Let's fill the class and defend the spend.
Tell us your enrollment goals and the programs that need to grow. We'll tell you honestly whether we're the right partner, and if we are, exactly how we'd build the funnel and prove it.