Driving registrations for the world’s foremost association of graduate business schools
Objectives
The Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) sought Higher Education Marketing’s help to increase awareness of its Executive Assessment (EA) exam, which was less recognized than its more established GMAT exam. GMAC wished to both increase registrations for the EA among prospective business school candidates, and to encourage more widespread adoption of the test in businessschool application processes.
HEM developed and executed a multichannel digital marketing strategy that utilized content development, search engine optimization (SEO), email, social media, and paid advertising on an international scale. The campaign aimed to better establish the EA as a valuable asset for both test takers and admissions officials, promote registration directly to quality leads at every stage of the buyer’s journey, and enhance GMAC’s reputation as a thought leader in the graduate management education community.
Audience
Due to GMAC’s unique dual objectives, HEM’s developed parallel school-facing and student-facing strategies.
The primary student-facing strategy was directed at ambitious professionals looking to attend an Executive MBA or Part-time MBA program in order to improve their career prospects. Resources were also devoted to promoting the EA as a solution for business school officials looking for ways to improve or maintain the quality and reputation of their program’s admissions processes.
This dual approach ensured that the awareness of the EA was being improved on multiple fronts, increasing the chances of success.
The HEM team helped us launch a successful inbound campaign for a program that had a limited online presence and assets. Within a very short space of time, the team led the development of enhancements to the online marketing experience for candidates and schools across key channels. The integrated assets included a new email nurture stream, candidate newsletter, weekly candidate and school blog content, new LinkedIn showcase, Google ads, and landing pages. Since the launch in September, the campaign attracted over 1,000 qualified prospects and 50 registrations from European candidates.
I have truly valued the partnership developed with the HEM team. Having an extended team to be able to brainstorm and test ideas with has been extremely beneficial to helping us meet our targets and in most cases, exceeding them. Their ability to develop excellent original content at a pace and frequency is outstanding. Several other departments in the organization have appointed HEM to work on diverse projects and strategies. This is a testament to the quality of their work and the results I have seen for my projects.
