Client Success: Increasing School Enrollment Through Targeted Family Outreach

To protect their enrollment numbers amid increased schooling options for local families, many school districts rely on ad campaigns targeted to local families who may not be aware of that particular school, and/or its schooling options in general.

Advertising can also help a school improve its outreach to families and community members who come from underserved backgrounds, and strengthen its reputation and visibility throughout pockets of its community where that institution has struggled to set deep roots.

These enrollment challenges and goals were the driving factors behind one school district’s decision to develop a targeted ad campaign in collaboration with Cox Media.

The Goal

While the school district approaching Cox Media was primarily focused on increasing awareness and enrollment for its schools, the district also wanted to focus campaigns on both Hispanic and non-Hispanic households, improving its visibility and enrollment rates among these members of its local community.

To ensure its advertising resources were being properly managed across different ad channels, the school district also needed an ad solution that could deliver trackable, attributable results to prove the ROI for these targeted ad campaigns. This included evidence that the right family audiences were being reached through its segmented campaigns.

The client also wanted to improve its overall social media presence, leveraging social platforms to extend its reach and engagement with local families both now and in the future.

The Solution

Through consultation with the client to align campaigns with the desired goals, Cox Media implemented a multi-screen ad campaign targeting top-of-funnel awareness through video and display advertising. These ads were targeted to parents of school-age children, and were delivered through streamed content, social media platforms, and when browsing the internet.

Audience segmentation allowed the ad campaigns to reach relevant families emphasized in the school district’s ad strategy. Geofenced ad delivery ensured that ads were delivered only to appropriate households and addresses where potential enrollees and their families might live.

The campaign’s aim was to use multiple points of contact with this targeted ad content to move parents down the funnel from awareness to consideration—and, ultimately, to drive a referral to the school website where parents could learn more about the school, and find out how to apply for enrollment.

The Results

After the campaign’s first run, the school district reported the following campaign results:

• More than 200 referrals from ad campaigns to the school website;
• Twenty-four new families enrolled as a direct result of the campaign;
• Successful campaign attribution that measured ROI and proved the value of this campaign in supporting the school’s advertising goals.

With this ROI in-hand, the school district could then plan for future ad campaigns with confidence that those resource investments could deliver a positive return and advantage the district’s goals of increasing its enrollment.

Facing competition for student enrollments in your local area? A digital advertising strategy can help you connect with local audiences and drive interest among both students and their families. Contact Cox Media today to see how we can help.