Building Awareness and Driving Enrollment

Challenge:

SUNY Empire State College (now University) sought to significantly increase both awareness and enrollment for its undergraduate and graduate programs.

The initial hurdle was to quickly drive attention to its flexible offerings, such as the Fall Express 2 program, and then strategically scale media investment to achieve consistent, year-over-year growth in a competitive higher education landscape. The eventual need to reflect the institution’s name change from “College” to “University” and simultaneously accelerate enrollment growth—all while focusing on nontraditional adult learners—added layers of complexity to the required media strategy.

Strategy:

Miller began by developing and executing a comprehensive media strategy and investment plan, starting in September 2021.

The initial focus was on a broad mix of traffic-driving and awareness tactics, including Search, Social Media, Audio, and Streaming TV. As success was demonstrated in the Fall 2021 campaign, the strategy quickly evolved and scaled:

Rapid Scaling: The budget increased for the Dec ‘21 – June ‘22 period, shifting the focus to high-impact lead generation initiatives like the March Forward program.

Integrated Digital Focus: Recognizing the need for efficiency and trackability, subsequent media assignments prioritized a digital, trackable delivery model.

Brand Update: The 2023/24 campaign was specifically developed to support the institution’s name change to Empire State University while continuing to aggressively drive enrollment growth for diverse audiences, including nontraditional adult learners seeking bachelor’s and graduate degrees.

Sustained Investment: Based on consistently strong results, an increased media investment continued to scale into the 2024/25 period, targeting diverse adult learners.

Results:

The integrated media partnership led to significant and continuous enrollment growth and key performance indicator (KPI) trends:

Impression Volume: The Dec ‘21 – June ‘22 campaign garnered significant impressions across all platforms.

Conversion and Traffic: SUNY Empire saw a continuous upward trend in conversion rates and sustained year-over-year increases in website traffic.

Enrollment Surge: The 2023/24 campaign was highly successful, driving an overall enrollment increase across semesters.

Application Growth: The spring terms saw an increase in applications compared to the previous year, alongside an increase in credits taken by students.

The campaign’s success led to continuous scaling of the multi-million dollar media investment, proving the strategy’s effectiveness in reaching core enrollment goals and building brand awareness.