Background

Seattle University reached out to RHB in late 2021 with a desire to communicate the distinctive nature of its offerings in a more compelling way to prospective students.

Challenge

Seattle University had fallen into the trap that many colleges fall into: trying to appeal to as many students as possible, which had the counterproductive effect of making it less distinguishable from their chief competitors. This, in turn, led to a dip in enrollment from some of its core markets of students in Jesuit and other Catholic schools.

Seattle U had to find out the truth about who they were in this crucial moment in their institution’s history–and express that truth in strategic ways.

Solution

The RHB team began our engagement with discovery, conducting Circles of Influence with current Seattle University students. Circles is a proprietary qualitative research methodology that enables us to speak intimately with students, faculty and staff to reveal the specific experiences, opportunities and language that define an institution.

Our Circles of Influence research unearthed messaging that enabled Seattle University to get back in touch with the powerful truth of who they are: an inclusive, progressive Jesuit university in one of the most vibrant metropolitan markets in the United States.

Findings from Circles informed our second engagement: a Coherence Inventory that measured Seattle University’s current communication efforts against what we heard during our qualitative research. Were the distinctive messages revealed during Circles being communicated to prospective students across Seattle U’s current communications? If not, how could the University revise their communications–and their strategy–to ensure that they were telling an authentic and distinctive story?

The Coherence Inventory recommendations, coupled with messaging identified during Circles, informed the development of a comprehensive 36-month communication plan. This plan focused on strategic campaigns for prospective students throughout the funnel, segmenting into specific populations based on institutional needs and goals.

This high-level strategic view of communications gave Seattle U the opportunity to:

• Identify their top priorities
• Develop a plan to leverage RHB’s resources and expertise to create and deploy specific campaigns
• Commit internal resources to fill the gaps

As a result of this work, a strong focus on student search emerged. RHB and Seattle University launched sophomore and junior search, focusing on three main components:

1. Name licensing
2. Campaign development
3. Reporting

Beginning with name licensing, RHB’s Enrollment Management practice triangulated historical enrollment data, an understanding of institutional goals and priorities and the deep expertise of our Slate and Related Technology colleagues to identify and shape a more refined licensing strategy that focused both on new and historically high-performing markets.

Next, utilizing the themes and nuances that were discovered in Circles of Influence and the Coherence Inventory, RHB created a multi-channel campaign for sophomores and juniors that included emails and a multi-view portal experience. The result was a highly personalized communication strategy that was authentic to Seattle U that drew students in and cultivated an interest to learn more and apply.

Sophomore Junior Search Emails

Sophomore Junior Search Portal

While we built out the campaign and provided counsel on name licensing, RHB simultaneously created reports that could be generated in real time to understand performance and engagement with prospective students. These multi-level reports gave the Seattle U team the opportunity to understand the nuances of student engagement with their campaign and drill down to specific geographic and demographic segments to understand message performance. Access to real-time data meant that Seattle U could make changes immediately if the campaign wasn’t performing as anticipated–including licensing more student names or updating message and portal content.

Results

RHB Search brought Seattle U a sophomore junior search campaign that not only felt more authentic to the Seattle U experience, but also increased prospective student engagement and gave them the opportunity to own and understand the data as students moved through the funnel.

James Miller, associate provost for enrollment management and dean of admissions at Seattle University, described their engagements with RHB beautifully: “The brutally competitive landscape we all compete in incentivizes risk aversion. In turn, risk-averse marketing creates a feeling of sameness and a desire to blend in. We engaged with RHB because we had lost our way in communicating our uniqueness. While our goal was of course to revolutionize our marketing efforts in order to drive better outcomes; the goal behind the goal was to get back to communicating to the mind, the body and the spirit. To create a feeling of nostalgia for a possible future as a Seattle U student and a sense of belonging in our innovative and progressive, Jesuit and Catholic community situated in the best neighborhood in the best city on earth. Our RHB team called us into coherence and to excellence at the confluence of CRM technology and the human experience. Their support, guidance, and innovative thinking has already transformed the way we approach enrollment marketing and recruitment.”

As we look to the future, Seattle U is utilizing RHB Search to create a campaign targeting seniors and to build out yearly engagement to optimize their sophomore and junior campaign that includes counsel on name licensing, creative updates and campaign maintenance in Slate. Beyond RHB Search, Seattle U is also leveraging the expertise of RHB in other ways, including the realm of student success.