Background
Kaplan, a leading provider of educational services, sought to enhance its CRM lifecycle marketing strategies to effectively engage with collegiate students across various stages of their academic journey. This included prospects exploring educational opportunities, current students seeking support, graduates considering further education, and alumni looking for continued engagement.
Challenge
Kaplan faced the challenge of managing and maintaining a comprehensive CRM database encompassing the diverse needs of collegiate students. They required a solution that could streamline communications, personalize outreach efforts, and provide actionable insights to drive engagement and retention.
Solution
During their tenure at Kaplan, our marketing team led the charge in transforming the CRM lifecycle marketing approach for higher education clients. We implemented the following strategies to address the challenges:
Database Management
We meticulously managed and maintained a CRM lifecycle marketing database covering all collegiate students, from prospects to graduates and re-enrollments into graduate programs. This involved executing seasonal updates to ensure data accuracy and relevance.
Email Campaign Execution
Leveraging platforms like Salesforce Marketing Cloud and Pardot (Salesforce Account Engagement), we oversaw all manual deployments of email campaigns. Our goal was to ensure seamless execution and delivery of personalized communications tailored to the specific needs of students, prospective students, and alumni.
Email Journey Optimization
We shifted our focus towards managing ongoing email journeys tailored to the unique requirements of higher education clients. This included crafting personalized recruitment emails, making HTML/CSS/AMPscript edits, and ensuring the accuracy of messaging to drive engagement and enrollment.
Reporting and Analytics
 We conducted comprehensive quarterly reporting for stakeholders, presenting key metrics such as unique click rate and unique open rate in easily digestible narratives for upper management. This provided valuable insights into campaign performance and guided strategic decision-making.
Onboarding and Engagement Initiatives
We spearheaded the onboarding of a significant number of subscribers into top-of-funnel engagements within a new Pardot instance. This involved database optimization, Winback campaigns, and Welcome Journey implementations to foster engagement and retention.
Results
Through our efforts, Kaplan achieved remarkable results in optimizing CRM lifecycle marketing for higher education clients:
- Enhanced engagement and retention rates among collegiate students.
- Improved accuracy and relevance of communications through personalized email journeys.
- Actionable insights derived from comprehensive reporting and analytics, driving strategic decision-making.
- Successful onboarding of a large number of subscribers into top-of-funnel engagements, fostering long-term relationships with higher education clients.
Conclusion
By leveraging innovative CRM lifecycle marketing strategies, Kaplan was able to effectively engage with collegiate students at every stage of their academic journey. The successful execution of personalized email campaigns, coupled with robust reporting and analytics, enabled Kaplan to drive engagement, retention, and enrollment among higher education clients.
Used for managing all journeys, data extensions, ad hoc email sends, and reporting.
All top-of-funnel activities. Dynamic lists, automation rules, and notification tasks within Engagements.
Email deployments for prospective student journeys. Lead management for government campaigns.
Connected app to Pardot installation. Route all webinar subscribers to webinar campaigns.
Task and project management application for catching all assigned creative briefs.
Each team's go-to for document creation. All briefs created and shared through the Google business suite.