A Proposal for the WWU MBA Program

The Western MBA program has a good reputation, but with an increasingly competitive landscape, it is getting harder and harder to stay relevant and reach prospective students. One way to do this is by using paid social media to increase awareness and drive applications to the program.

Objective

The primary objective of this proposal is to increase awareness, generate interest, and increase applications to the Western MBA program. Specifically, the proposal aims to achieve the following goals, that align with the strengths of paid social:

1. Increase awareness of the Western MBA program through targeted paid social media advertising.
2. Increase engagement with potential applicants through social media platforms by prioritizing focused targeting.
3. Improve the conversion rate of potential applicants through a strategic advertising campaign.

KPI's

The KPI's of this social campaign will be

1. impressions & reach
2. CTR (Click-Through-Rate)
3. Conversions (applications to the program)

These KPI's will allow us to measure the effectiveness of each ad, allowing for A/B Testing, as well as assess our targeting. Ultimately, the number conversions will tell us the effectiveness of the campaign, though increasing awareness will be harder to quantify without more in-depth research.

Targeting

The target audience for this advertising campaign would be people who are at an inflection point in their lives. This would include recent graduates who are looking to further their education, mid-career professionals who are seeking career advancement, and international students who are interested in studying in the pacific northwest. Anyone close to a major life decision, that could be interested in school as an option, is a potential applicant.

Strategy

Paid Social

To achieve these objectives, A comprehensive social media strategy will be implemented, with the lynchpin of the paid social aspect being an influencer marketing program. This program will leverage the programs core competency of relationship building with alumni to promote further applications.

1. Targeted Advertising: A paid social campaign will be targeted to reach the program's key audience segments. This includes demographic targeting, as well as interest targeting based on keywords related to MBA education and career advancement.
2. Engaging Content: All published content will be focused around providing value to the target audience, such as career tips, and will often showcase the benefits of pursuing an MBA degree.
3. Retargeting: Once a potential applicant has engaged with the program's content, retargeting ads will be used to encourage them to take the next step and apply for the program.
4. A/B Testing: To improve the effectiveness of the campaign, A/B testing will be conducted on different ad creative, targeting, and messaging strategies.

Influencer Marketing

In addition to the paid social campaign, an influencer marketing campaign will work in conjunction with the paid social to further increase awareness, and help drive more conversions. This requires a few aspects, those being:

• Influencers: These will be alumni of the program, who are well-connected to people in our target audience, and generally seen as successful.
• An established public connection: A partnership with the chosen influencers might include sponsored content, guest posts, social media takeovers, or other ideas. This will establish a relationship with both the influencer, and their followers.
• Creating further content: To engage with the influencers' followers, more in-depth and valuable content will be created that showcases the benefits and unique aspects of the program.
• Amplify reach: To maximize the effectiveness of the campaign, paid social can be used to promote the influencer's content and amplify its reach to a wider audience.
• Measurement: We can measure the success of our influencer marketing campaign through the same KPI's, as well as employing similar optimization strategies.