Alongside our friends at Emerson College, our Director of Operations and Project Management, Amelia Morrill, organized an engaging presentation at the UPCEA Marketing, Enrollment Management, and Student Success (MEMS) conference in Philadelphia back in December.
Their talk focused on identifying and amplifying niche audiences to successfully launch new higher education programs. Using real-time in-market data, our team at 5 Horizons was able to help Emerson find success with a challenging new program.
The Challenge
Picture this: you’re handed a new program, it has a lot of eyes on it, and you’ve got to figure out how to market it on the fly. What do you do? That was the challenge that the Emerson team brought to 5 Horizons in 2022.
Emerson College is a small, private institution in Boston known for its communications, arts, and liberal arts programs. Building off a successful undergraduate program of the same name, Emerson launched their first-ever graduate business program, enrolling starting Fall 2022. The program was positioned as an MBA-alternative for creative professionals.
Initial ad messaging and targeting positioned the new program as an “MBA-Alternative.” This approach led to high advertising costs and a mismatched audience––we knew right away it wasn’t hitting the mark.
The Solution
To reflect the audience’s aspirations to become creative leaders rather than business executives, we removed MBA-related keywords and refined the messaging. This helped us better identify the audience we needed to target and our live market data reinforced our approach with lower ad costs and hotter leads.
After refining messaging, placements, and audience targeting, program applications grew steadily. The first cohort enrolled 19 students, just short of our goal of 20.
In the second year, the program budget was reduced by 45%––however, with strategy optimization, correct messaging, and a specific audience to target, the program continued to meet the set enrollment goals.
