Client Success: Building Brand Awareness for a Regional Technical College

Competition for student admissions is an ongoing challenge for post-secondary educational institutions. To build its brand awareness among local college applicants, a technical school in the Providence & New Bedford Designated Market Area (DMA) approached Cox Media in 2020 with the goal of broadening its ad strategy, with a particular focus on digital ad campaigns.

As part of this renewed advertising effort, the school was interested in scaling back its linear TV ad placements and reallocating these ad budgets to digital elements of an ad portfolio. With this commitment to a new ad strategy secured, Cox Media was able to work with the client to set goals and develop campaigns that targeted tangible ROI for the school.

THE GOAL

For this particular advertising campaign, the client’s primary advertising goal was to build awareness of its school and the degree programs offered through that institution. The client’s primary area of focus was residents within the Providence & New Bedford DMA, with ads being targeted to local residents between the ages of 18 and 34—especially individuals in that age group with a demonstrated interest in higher education and/or technical schools.

The client’s ad strategy was also targeted to local high school students considering their post-secondary education options.

THE CAMPAIGN

Once the clients’ advertising goals were defined, Cox Media worked with the client to build a multi-channel ad strategy that leveraged digital opportunities to target and engage the school’s target audience. To maximize brand visibility based on the media consumption trends of this target audience, Cox Media developed an integrated ad campaign that featured three core ad elements:

• A digital TV Everywhere campaign across various video-on-demand, cable TV and streaming video services;
• Addressable Geofenced ads, targeted by location and delivered through smart TVs and mobile devices;
• A digital audio campaign running across podcasting apps and other digital audio platforms

THE RESULTS

Over the course of the 2020 calendar year, the technical school’s digital ad campaign generated more than 12 million impressions among its target audience, with ad completion rates reaching as high as 98 percent across several digital media platforms.

These results included more than 3.3 million TV Everywhere impressions; more than 1.8 million Addressable Geofence impressions; and more than 7.1 million impressions via digital audio platforms. Based on the strength of these results, an evaluation of this campaign recommended that the technical school continue with all three components of this digital ad campaign to continue building awareness among its target audience. In addition, the evaluation recommended adding a social media campaign to drive more direct ad referrals to the school’s website.

By aligning the ad strategy and channels with the client’s goals, Cox Media was able to deliver performance results that fulfilled the clients’ needs, providing new opportunities to attract students, grow revenue, and strengthen the reputation of its educational institution.

Find out how Cox Media can help you achieve similar results for your school or business—contact us today to learn more about our process.