Education Marketing

The Crawford team has proven experience in education marketing that is both deep and diverse. We’ve worked with technical schools, colleges, small private universities, and large state universities to elevate their brands and drive applications and enrollments.

Our education marketing strategies encompass brand development and re-positioning, as well as program promotion through traditional media and digital marketing. We have helped our education partners to increase student applications and lead generation for both on campus and online degree programs.

Our approach to marketing for colleges and universities starts with an understanding of the decision-making process, needs, and motivations of students and influencers. This foundation drives the media selection, audience targeting, and creative messaging used in custom education marketing strategies. That’s how we trigger action and grow enrollment.

University of West Georgia

Crawford partnered with UWG in early 2021 to support the university’s enrollment goals through a unified brand positioning that targeted prospective students, alumni, faculty and staff, and local communities. The mission was to develop a campaign to attract, nurture, and convert prospective students into enrolled students.

Our approach had three strategic aspects. First, we defined the UWG student: They’re fiercely confident, ambitious, self-aware, and know their purpose in life. Then we identified the UWG differentiators, which described the university as student-focused, outcomes-based, and supportive. The communications challenge was that those who weren’t as familiar with UWG felt it was a second-choice school when considering where to earn an education.

The I am WEST campaign focuses on the students, their attitudes, and their goals in a way that prospective students can now see themselves at UWG. The multimedia campaign included high-impact digital OOH, digital media, paid social, digital video/radio, and print.

The campaign has been embraced as a rallying cry for pride for UWG. I am WEST signage and displays can be seen across the campus and apparel emblazoned with the campaign line is a bestseller in the bookstore. In a challenging environment for higher education, the campaign was a major driver in the year’s successful performance on applications and other metrics.