Edwards Strategies delivers two breakout sessions at the 2019 CECU annual conference

This year’s CECU annual convention in New Orleans was a very encouraging one for the industry at large.  Plenty of activity, engagement, collaboration and information sharing amongst the constituents.    Edwards Strategies (ES) was pleased to have the opportunity to be part of the discussion and be part of two presentations.

Each of our sessions covered two very different topics.  The first was on how our partnership with Porter and Chester Institute has evolved and specific marketing tactics we have rolled out to improve their overall effectiveness while also gaining efficiency.  Some of the specific takeaways included:

  • Ensuring that we are aligned around the expectation of the current education seekers journey. Everything from the search path to ensuring the right amount of content and information available as we conduct our research.
  • How we have reinvested/adjusted our marketing mix and spend. Much more investment and emphasis in organic strategies such as content marketing and CRO efforts.  Less reliance on affiliate marketing.  Steady growth in paid social as a category with tremendous success.  Increased activity centered around reputation and overall awareness, including more blog posts, emphasis on growing reviews and social activities.
  • The importance of investing in analytics and measurement. We outlined the steps we have taken to gain more visibility into the overall enrollment metrics, how they work together and what metrics need to be part of the consideration set as we further optimize our strategies and campaigns.

Our second session was with Centura College and focused on how we partnered together to help define the short and long-term opportunities and strategies for each of the Centura markets/locations.  We discussed the overall approach ES took towards evaluating each of their campuses and outlined the specific implications and actions each campus took based on the research conducted.  As part of the session we reviewed:

  • Analysis of current student segmentation. We reviewed active students with demographic info outcome/program mix and what the implications were based on their student population.
  • We conducted an overall market assessment including things such as a competitive review, the overall market itself (demographics, growth, etc.) as well as job demand and employment projections.
  • We also completed a program viability assessment for both current and new programs for consideration. As part of this we evaluated the items listed above but also weighed national, regional and local program health to reach final recommendations.

The overall involvement and response to our sessions and to the event overall was tremendous and ES is privileged to be part of it.  If you have any questions or would like more information around the sessions themselves, please reach out to Aaron Edwards at aarone@edwardsstrategies.com.

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