In late 2021, the College of Western Idaho (CWI) needed to address a consistent enrollment decline and improve student retention. With an ambitious vision to improve and optimize its technological infrastructure and student outreach, CWI sought to build a best-in-class system to enhance student engagement and elevate enrollment strategies. To ensure that data and technology were aligned with CWI’s growth objectives, the college partnered with Collegis Education to analyze their combined impact. Were its data and tech aligned for impact, or were gaps hindering progress and creating unnecessary burdens across the team?

Key Takeaways

• Six consecutive terms of YoY enrollment growth
• Experienced the highest YoY increase in persistence in history of the college from Fall 2022 to Fall 2023
• Consistent improvement in term-over-term retention

CHALLENGES:

• Declining enrollment
• No established retention strategy
• Lack of CRM
• Underutilized LMS
• Siloed technology and data systems

SOLUTIONS:

• Connected Core®
• Advanced analytics + business intelligence
• LMS support
• Website optimization
• Data-driven outreach and support for students identified as at-risk

Strategy

Collegis Education and CWI began collaborating on building a best-in-class student journey from the point of initial inquiry through graduation.

A comprehensive evaluation of existing CWI systems allowed Collegis to assess the college’s digital readiness, technology infrastructure, and enrollment ecosystem to understand how they aligned with its growth objectives. The partnership quickly proceeded from consultation to implementation.

Collegis prescribed a set of solutions to enhance student engagement from first contact and elevate the school’s enrollment strategies:

• Connected Core® to unite siloed systems, data sets, and other enrollment technologies, providing more accurate, actionable, unified institutional intelligence with clear visualizations to support data-enabled decision-making at all levels.
• Website optimization to improve conversion and deliver a student-centric digital experience that supports the objectives, goals, and mission.
• Prospective student nurturing campaigns with a messaging protocol designed to drive conversion and prospective student engagement with CWI.

Collaborating closely with CWI, Collegis developed a well-defined student retention strategy that established meaningful student-advisor relationships early on, ensuring students felt supported from their first interaction onward.

• Enrollment conversation training gave student-facing staff the tools to drive positive experiences for CWI learners while embracing a liaison approach to student engagement.
• Collegis student success coaches conducted proactive outreach to engage students while leveraging an at-risk alert system to drive intervention. This early alert system flags students needing support based on learning management system (LMS) data on attendance, current grades, and assignment completion.

Results: Average YoY growth each semester since our partnership began has averaged 5%

By working with Collegis, CWI could focus on its student journey and how it could better use data and technology to deliver superior student engagements and reach its growth targets. This has helped not only stop, but reverse historical enrollment declines. In 2024, CWI projected year-over-year growth for the sixth consecutive academic term. The school has achieved an average year-over-year term growth of 5%, with a trendline for fall 2024 of over 9% growth.

Value-based conversations with prospective students have resulted in increased applications. Further, pre-start engagement from the advising and student success coaching teams has increased registrations from admitted students.

By fostering a culture of meaningful interaction and support for students, CWI paved the way for improved student retention. The LMS-based at-risk model has driven 19,000+ proactive student engagements and interventions in one academic year.

Within just one year of implementing these targeted strategies, CWI witnessed a remarkable increase in retention rates, all while alleviating the workload on faculty and staff.  Similar retention strategies deployed by other Collegis partner institutions have yielded term-over-term retention rates exceeding 90%, underscoring the effectiveness of our approach.

With a proven retention strategy and access to a proactive model, CWI can now build out its internal retention capabilities and plans to take over the student success coaching function.

The Future

CWI’s commitment to embracing change and being agile is demonstrated by the school’s evolving partnership with Collegis to exceed industry best practices and realize sustained growth. Ongoing services and incremental work are targeting LMS initiatives to stabilize, standardize, optimize, and transform CWI’s instance of Blackboard Learn and redesign its new student orientation, among other things.

Institution Type:
Community College

Location:
Treasure Valley, Idaho

Total Enrollment:
30,000+

Celebrating expertise with creative digital campaign

In 2023, Saint Louis University’s (SLU) School for Professional Studies (SPS) celebrated its 60th anniversary. This offered a unique opportunity to highlight the school’s six decades of leadership and innovation in adult and online education — an area most schools have only recently entered. SLU partnered with Collegis to develop an integrated creative and digital campaign to bring this new messaging to market.

Challenge: Highlighting expertise in adult and online education

SLU has a storied history and expertise in online and adult education — a key advantage for aspiring adult learners. Collegis was challenged with bringing this message to market in an impactful way, which was achieved through an awareness media campaign centered on newly produced brand video content.

Solution: Authentic video storytelling and strategic media placement

The videos amplify the authentic voices of real SLU students, showcasing diverse narratives about educational experiences and outcomes. Going beyond campus, the production captured moments at students’ homes and workplaces. These personal glimpses help viewers identify with the subjects and build trust in the brand, illustrating SLU’s understanding of adult learners’ wants and needs.

Collegis then developed a paid media strategy that included connected TV (CTV) and cross-device video to maximize impact through multiple touchpoints. The campaign’s primary objective was driving awareness, which was measured by video completion rate, brand lift, and brand search impact.

Example campaign video

Results: Increased brand awareness and conversions

The 60th anniversary campaign was successful in raising awareness of SLU’s School for Professional Studies. The data supports that the awareness media contributed significantly to both brand health and revenue goals. The results were as follows:

287% return on ad spend for the campaign

5.9 million CTV and cross-device video impressions throughout Missouri and Illinois

89% video completion rate

10.7% lift in brand awareness, 3.5% ad recall lift, and 4.2% lift in consideration

541% increase in brand PPC spend while reducing cost per conversion by 44%

1,050% increase in brand PPC conversions YoY

About Saint Louis University

Institution Type:
Catholic, Jesuit institution

Location:
St. Louis, Missouri

Student Enrollment:
13,500

Services:

• Unique campaign and brand messaging
• Video planning, production, and editing
• Creative direction and execution
• Paid media strategy and implementation
• Performance metrics for all assets

Key Results:

• 10.7% lift in brand awareness
• 1,050% increase in PPC brand conversions
• 287% return on ad spend