Award-Winning Digital Marketing for Enrollment: RNL and Our Campus Partners Receive Five Gold Medals

To break through the noise of digital marketing in 2023, you need to catch the attention of prospective students and drive them to take action. That requires great creative work that really stands out from all the other marketing messages that students see—and it’s what the RNL creative team does with each campaign they undertake for colleges and universities. We work with our campus partners to make sure that our campaigns are engaging and effective for the audience we are targeting at the undergraduate or graduate level.

That’s why we are proud that the Education Digital Marketing Awards (EDMA) have once again honored RNL and our campus partners. We won a total of 33 awards this year for enrollment and fundraising campaigns, including five gold medals in digital marketing for enrollment. We would like to spotlight these five campaigns and share the strategy behind these award-winning efforts.

Des Moines University Doctor of Occupational Therapy: Microsite

For the Doctor of Occupational Therapy program at Des Moines University (DMU), RNL sought to build a microsite that effectively demonstrated how students could impact patients’ lives, advance their careers, and benefit from DMU’s 125+ years of experience as a top medical university. The easy-to-navigate site structure allows audiences to quickly find the information most relevant to them, whether they are a current DMU student, a recent graduate, or a nontraditional student seeking to return to school.

Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: Admissions Microsite

The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has built a global brand on policy. RNL developed a lead-generation campaign for five distinct graduate programs that leveraged their renowned brand and expert-level faculty. The landing pages and ads we created help students visualize their aspirations and take the next steps to become future policy leaders.

Michigan State University Facility for Rare Isotope Beams: Admissions Microsite

A student-centric approach was key for the Michigan State University Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, which offers graduate student research in nuclear physics and astrophysics, nuclear chemistry and radiochemistry, accelerator physics and engineering, and cryogenic engineering. By focusing on graduate students’ primary motivations and concerns, we partnered with MSU to create a winning campaign to attract prospective students to the world-leading nuclear science lab.

Ripon College: Digital Advertising for Application Campaign

Ripon College is an innovative liberal arts school in Wisconsin. RNL partnered with them to create fresh, conversational content that would resonate with high school sophomores and juniors and their parents, including “Explore Every Interest” and “Seize Every Opportunity.” We took a three-pronged approach to engage with this audience:

1. Crafting personalized print pieces for students and families.
2. Sharing targeted emails that told students they’re “Everything but Ordinary.”
3. Creating compelling digital engagement ads across Facebook and Instagram.

Winston-Salem State University: Institutional Website Update and SEO Improvements

Search engine optimization (SEO) is increasingly vital in marketing and recruitment—particularly for academic program pages as students start their college search. In an SEO project executed in 2021 and implemented in 2022, RNL produced content for 50 admissions and academics program pages for HBCU Winston-Salem State University to improve the university’s organic search rankings and to better connect prospective students with academic opportunities.

How can you create winning connections with students? Talk to us today.

RNL can help you create marketing and recruitment campaigns that will engage prospective undergraduate and graduate students, both for traditional and online enrollment. Our creative team has now won more than 100 awards in the last five years, and we can put our strategic insight, compelling communications, and dedication to your success to work for you. Reach out today for a complimentary consultation and we’ll help you see where your great enrollment opportunities are.