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Excellence in Marketing: Vanderbilt School of Engineering Online Program Launch

April 2023 – June 2023

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Top Strategic Marketing Priorities

  • Complete:
    • Develop revised marketing strategy
    • Launch new website
    • Develop an ad strategy
    • Develop an email strategy
    • Develop HubSpot CRM strategy

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  • In Progress:
    • Develop an SEO strategy

To level set, we’ve only been at this 3 months. All new assets managed through ODE launched as of April 2023.

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Campaign Goal, Target Audience and KPI’s

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  • Campaign Goal: The Vanderbilt School of Engineering has set a goal to develop the most selective and highest reputation online programs in the country. The School recognizes the importance of offering top-quality, accessible education to students across the globe and is dedicated to providing the highest level of academic excellence in the field of engineering. To achieve this goal, the School is focused on maintaining the rigorous standards and demanding curriculum of its on-campus programs, while leveraging the latest technology and instructional design methodologies to deliver content online.

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  • Target Audience: A talented and experienced student body – all candidates must have a STEM degree, but for Eng. Management, we are requiring at least 3 years of professional experience. In computer science, students are expected to have strong programming experience and significant experience in both computer science and programming.

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  • KPIs: Although revenue is commonly thought of as the main rationale for online programs, the focus must be on reputation, selectivity, and recruiting the highest caliber students.

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Marketing Performance and Enrollment

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Marketing Wins

Increase in Web Traffic

Generated 23,130 web sessions April-June

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Resulted in 1,033 new contacts from paid social and search

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Strong RMI form performance (Eng. Management has seen 14,909 views, 618 form submissions.  CS has seen 12,805 views, 519 form submissions.)

Strong Digital Ad Performance

30 open applications interacted with digital advertising, which resulted in 5 admits

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14 total ad campaigns, 33,542 clicks, $1,74 cost-per-click, 1,322 RMI form submissions.

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Bottom funnel impact #s should continue to improve over time:

- 10 contacts from ads to generate 1 new inquiry

- 44 contacts from ads to generate 1 started app

- 120 contacts from ads to generate 1 new applicant

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Strong Email Performance

EM:  37.56% average open rate and 3.5% average click through rate across all emails

CS:  43.6% average open rate and 4.23% average click through rate across all emails

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Organic Traffic & SEO Growth

Ranking competitively for both branded and non-branded keywords.

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We're ranked #1 for the following keywords: Vanderbilt computer science courses, Vanderbilt engineering online, masters in engineering business management. 

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Organic search traffic is the 4th highest source of web traffic, which is impressive for a newly created website. Organic search accounted for 818 web sessions.

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Impact of Marketing on Enrollment

*This number is combined for both programs and while it is low, remember two things – 1) we have only been in market since April and 2) we are aiming to be selective with our admissions to create a really strong cohort

1,365 Total Submissions

49 applicants

25 Summer Admits

High awareness and consideration for new campaign in market, and in middle of recruitment cycle

60% were influenced by content marketing

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Nurture Email Performance

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Total Eng. Management Performance

Open Rate Goal

Open Rate

CTR Goal

CTR Actual

EMOL RMI

28.5%

28.7%

2%

2.5%

EMOL Open App

28.5%

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48%

2%

3%

EMOL App Submit

28.5%

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26%

4%

5%

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With the goal of developing selective and highly reputable programs, we are already seeing prospects open emails for both programs and click through these at a higher rate than our established goal. The below are results for three key pipeline emails for each program:

Total Computer Science Performance

Open Rate Goal

Open Rate Actual

CTR Goal

CTR Actual

CSOL RMI

28.5%

39%

2%

5%

CSOL Open App

28.5%

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48%

2%

3.8%

CSOL App Submit

28.5%

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43.9%

4%

3.9%

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Creative Examples

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Click here to view the redesigned website in your browser in full.

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Since launch, the website has seen over 36,000 views, 23,130 sessions, and generated 1,365 submissions

VUSE Marketing Examples

Website

Revised Home Page

New programmatic pages

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Click here to view this email in your browser

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KPIs

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VUSE Marketing Examples

Nurture Email Ex: 5 Reasons You Belong at Vanderbilt

Metric

Computer Science

Eng. Management

Open Rate

61.76%

70%

CTR

19.05%

14.3%

Click Rate

11.76%

10%

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Click here to view this email in your browser

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KPI’s

VUSE Marketing Examples

Nurture Email Ex: Plan for a future at Vanderbilt – apply for Financial Aid!

Metric

Computer Science

Eng. Management

Open Rate

64.71%

81%

CTR

22.73%

44.44%

Click Rate

14.71%

20%

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Click here to view this email in your browser

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This email was sent specifically to prospects who started an application and had an open rate of 47.14% for Computer Science prospects and 30.56% for Eng. Management Prospects.

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VUSE Marketing Examples

Nurture Email Ex: Ready to take your career to the next level?

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VUSE Marketing Examples

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Ex: Facebook Ads

In total, FB ads generated 3M impressions, 33,000 clicks and 637 prospects.

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