Since 1970, Specs Howard School of Media Arts has offered hands-on experience and project-oriented learning in the media arts. They offer three premier programs of study including Broadcast Media Arts, Graphic Design and Digital Media Arts. They’re well known in the greater Detroit area and many students are referred by word of mouth. Buzz generated from recruitment events and lead inquiries on the school’s website were increasing in 2012 but overall enrollment for their certificate programs was down.
The marketing department was piecing together a variety of tools but struggled to track their overall effectiveness. They were using Constant Contact to send out email blasts but this process was both manual and time-consuming because they had to export lists from their campus management software. They also had Hootsuite for social media and Google Analytics for website performance monitoring but none of these tools integrated or spoke with each other.
This lack of integration made it very difficult to track the performance of their marketing campaigns. “These individual tools worked well enough on their own but with a small department we would have needed multiple individuals to gather all of the information and compare in order to accurately evaluate campaigns,” shared Kathryn Stickley, Marketing Manager at Specs Howard.
Reduced enrollment numbers led the marketing department to take a hard look at their ecosystem of tools and processes to figure out what needed to change in order to get more applicants enrolled into their programs for 2013.
Kathryn recollects, "We were charged to look into marketing automation software as we came to the realization that with a small department and many large goals to achieve, we could not increase our lead to applicant numbers as needed."
Applying Inbound Marketing at Specs HowardLike many schools, Specs Howard had previously focused solely on traditional outbound marketing initiatives. They had become familiar with inbound marketing and HubSpot through it’s blog content and free educational resources.
Kathryn mentioned, “The free content that HubSpot provides helped reinforce that the inbound methodology is what separates HubSpot from another marketing automation software companies. The emphasis on educating marketers on inbound methodology instead of simply being a software provider really impressed many employees of the company.”
The marketing team at Specs Howard knew an inbound approach would help them to attract and educate the right type of student; students who were committed and motivated to get their start in the media industry. This shift in strategy was solidified when they read HubSpot case study examples that spanned different levels of educational institutions, demonstrating the powerful scalability of the platform. “HubSpot is what you make it,” says Kathryn, “ they have a solution for everyone.”
After a custom demonstration, Specs decided to purchase HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing platform and consulting in order to support their lead and enrollment goals for the upcoming school year.
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