Antonelli College faced declining enrollments of 11% between 2014 and 2015 due to regulatory changes negatively impacting the for-profit college sector. They brought their marketing efforts in-house but were dissatisfied with the results of their pay-per-lead campaigns, which had low conversion rates. Antonelli then partnered with High Intent Marketing, who specialized in direct response radio advertising, and saw their lead conversion rates triple and their cost per student start drop from $4,000 to $1,000. The increased enrollments allowed Antonelli to double the size of their online admissions team. The case study demonstrates how optimizing a school's marketing mix through offline and online channels can help increase enrollments in the challenging post-

1. Post-Regulatory Success Story:
How shifting marketing mix doubled
enrollments
Jarad Held
January 20, 2016
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2. BACKGROUND
Optimizing a school’s marketing mix is integral in the current post-regulatory
environment. According to the National Student Clearinghouse, “enrollment at for-
profit colleges has fallen by 26 percent since the peak in 2010”. For-profit colleges1
that cultivate high-performing channels more often than not face scalability challenges
with these channels that further inhibit achieving enrollment goals. The channels most
affected by scalability are organic (SEO), due to algorithm changes, search engine
marketing (SEM), caused by declining search volume and increased click prices and
offline television (TV), due to a “crowding out effect” by traditional brand advertisers.
Antonelli College, a mid-size proprietary college with online and campus based
programs faced the exact dilemma. According to their Director of Marketing Nicole
Alarid, Antonelli witnessed superior performance in their SEM, SEO, and TV but
enrollments in 2014 were down 11% versus 2015. Antonelli’s challenge was to find a
source that would meet their cost per start goals and provide scalability.
Most proprietary colleges’ mid-level marketing staff is comprised of millennials that are
digital natives. Millennials have keen insight into social media and search but often
overlook offline channels, particularly radio. Direct response radio is an art; as the
metrics that drive success are a combination of creative, frequency, reach, and cost
per call.
Antonelli found High Intent Marketing by hearing a radio advertisement. Initially,
Antonelli was skeptical, mainly due to their previous lack of success with the channel.
High Intent Marketing explained the merits of radio, which include the ability to geo
target, the ability to target demographic and psychographic profiles, the ability to scale
and most importantly, the ability to drive inbound responders that behave and perform
Retrieved 21 January 2016 from http://www.aacrao.org/resources/resources-detail-view/for-profit-colleges-1
may-be-down--but-don-t-count-them-out
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3. similarly organic search. Any skeptical notions were erased as the campaign exceeded
their expectations.
According to Ms. Alarid, “Prior to working with High Intent Marketing, our pay per lead
(PPL) campaigns, both in-house and through our former agency, had always been the
lowest performing. We rarely saw a start conversion above 1.6%. We actually paused
all PPL campaigns due to non-performance. However, I came across High Intent
Marketing’s radio campaign which resonated with our students and was impressed
with their strong campaign message. After learning how they generated their leads, I
elected to restart PPL campaigns exclusively through them. Our conversion numbers
were on par with (PPC, SEO, etc.). I’ve never seen a PPL vendor deliver such quality
leads that convert at a great cost-per-start price point. Instead of shrinking like other
colleges we were actually able to double our online admissions team.”
The goal of this white paper is to make believers out of skeptics and to demonstrate
how leveraging offline and high-performing online channels, a school can increase
enrollments in this challenging post-regulatory environment.
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4. Enrollment Declines
Across all dimensions of higher education, student enrollments continue to decline.
The decline has been fueled by a combination of regulations by the Department of
Education and the improving national employment rate. According to Jason Dewitt of
the National Student Clearing Research Center "The main story is enrollment has gone
down for four straight years. It peaked in 2011, and since spring 2011 colleges have
lost over 1 million enrollments." The segment with the largest decline was,2
unfortunately, students over age twenty four ; which comprise the majority of student
enrollments at for-profit schools.
From a marketing perspective, a key challenge for colleges is the lack of scalability.
Schools with over 25,000 students typically have a national reach, however, schools
with less than 7,500 students often are confined to a geographical footprint that
requires local targeting. This feature inhibits scalability. When the unemployment rate
was over 6.5% many colleges relied upon call verified leads from job boards. The
sheer volume of job seekers allowed call verified lead providers to geo target and send
leads to schools with geographic constraints. The improving employment rate in 2013,
2014, and 2015 reduced the number of job seekers which in turn created a supply and
demand imbalance and nullified the cost effective feature of this channel.
Mission critical for colleges is to secure high-performing channels that can scale. The
upcoming pages will illustrate how Antonelli College overcame the challenge of
increasing enrollments in a declining enrollment environment.
Retrieved 21 January 2016 from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-is-college-enrollment-declining/2
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5. In-House vs. Agency?
Antonelli first had to decide between conducting marketing in-house or hiring an
outside agency to manage their marketing operations. There are pros and cons to
both options with the decision determining the future state of affairs of a college. A
correct decision will lead to enrollment growth; an erroneous decision will negatively
impact all functions of the college and potentially setback the college with additional
years to recover.
In-House Pros
• Complete control and accountability of all marketing decisions
• Negotiate offline and online media contracts with added value
• Develop and manage website design and search optimization in real-time
• Direct relationships with lead providers to gain insights into performance
• Real-time management of SEM campaigns with no additional fees
• Marketing team comprised of direct employees vested in one college
• Complete understanding of the college to send the correct message
In-House Cons
• Employing the optimal number of staff to manage all channels
• Employee expertise is either expensive or hard to find
• Managing external relationships is time consuming and resource intensive.
Agency Pros
• Past success with other schools may lead to success for college
• All channels and campaigns managed for college
• A plethora of resources with deep industry knowledge
• Key education industry relationships
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6. Agency Cons
• Agency fees can be up to 25% or more of the marketing spend
• College must rely on agency to produce promised deliverables
• Agency employees work with multiple schools; priority given to the largest
spenders
• No direct contact with any vendors or account managers to develop
relationships
• Requested changes by college are not done in real-time and can take days to
be completed
• Lack of transparency and constant inspection of how lead providers are
operating
Despite the pros and cons of in-house versus agency, Antonelli College decided to
take things in-house and work directly with providers. In Antonelli’s case, the ability
to have direct insight into marketing activities and incorporate learning into
admissions processes outweighed the negatives of in-house marketing.
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7. Results
After bringing marketing activities in-house, Antonelli examined their channel mix and
realized their PPL (Pay Per Lead) source was causing a significant drain on their
enrollment mix. The average start rate was .08% and the average cost per start was
$4323. Internal debate ensued whether to conduct all PPL operations in-house, to exit
the channel or to relieve their current agency and find another agency to manage PPL.
The school decided on an alternative, to work directly with one PPL provider that
focused on scalable, high-converting sources.
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Marketing shifting to HIM

8. In July 2014, Antonelli decided to test High Intent Marketing (HIM) to verify if their
claims of creating high-converting leads on par with SEM, PPC and SEO were valid.
The data is listed above in Table 3. The key thing about their radio traffic was, unlike
the call verified channel, the advertisements generate inbound calls. Antonelli's
student mix and geographic locations are located in predominately inner city and rural
locales. Unlike most PPL providers, HIM understood the psychographic of Antonelli's
student population and aligned their marketing message to motivate this student group
to respond. "The thing most digital marketing firms do not understand is that you are
marketing to people, not channels or images" said Daniel Holley, Creative Director of
High Intent Marketing. Radio not only created an increase in organic searchers, but the
most motivated prospects responded by inbound calls, which created high-enrolling
warm transfer opportunities.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STARTS
As Table 4 illustrates, the shift to HIM resulted in starts tripling versus prior campaigns.
More importantly, the cost per start for PPL, as indicated by Table 2 dropped from an
average of $4,000 to $1000. This shift enabled Antonelli to hire additional online
admissions representatives to process leads from existing channels.
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9. Conclusion
Enrollments have declined year over year since 2010 at all colleges. Increased
regulations from the Department of Education have negatively impacted the for profit,
proprietary college sector. Regulations, coupled with the improving job market, have
reduced the number of online searches for schools and jobs. The reduced search has
directly impacted the pressures on traditional call verified leads. In the post regulatory
environment, optimizing marketing mix is essential for schools to grow enrollments.
An essential decision for any school is how their marketing will be managed; whether
to have in-house marketing teams or work with an outside agency. There are pros and
cons to each choice, which we discussed earlier. Many schools are skeptical of
working with new lead provider. Building relationships take time and the majority of
lead providers cannot back up their promises. Determining the best choice is not easy;
however, the wrong decision can be catastrophic. Antonelli had to make a decisive
decision which path was best for them.
The bold move by Antonelli to overcome skepticism has resulted in improved financial
viability of the college. Decision makers facing the same challenges can have solace in
the fact that HIM can play a critical role in increasing enrollments while decreasing
costs. Antonelli has since doubled their online admissions team, which has doubled
the enrollments.
The goal of this whitepaper is to make skeptics into believers through facts and proven
data. Each of the tables shows the value proposition of leveraging offline media and
high-performing online channels. Antonelli made the tough call and now is a believer.
Are you going to be a shrinking skeptic or a growing believer?
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