When the University of Connecticut Masters in Accounting Program wanted to increase visibility, improve their ranking and ensure a steady pipeline of qualified applicants – all on a shoestring budget - we gave them a presence on Facebook.

Not intending to minimize the importance of print advertising – we do believe in its value as part of an overall integrated marketing plan - but using Facebook for reaching prospective students made sense in terms of the right vehicle and medium for reaching our target group. We set up an official Facebook page for the University of Connecticut Masters in Accounting online degree program with links to their website and developed a Facebook advertising campaign which netted tens of thousands of impressions the first month to a select audience of prospects – undergraduate Accounting majors in their junior or senior year of college. Because the program is an online degree we did not restrict our pool of viewers geographically or by university, but we could have.

To verify Facebook’s claims and gain more accurate user-experience data from the program’s website, we installed back-end Google analytics and walked our client through the user-friendly statistics and report generation applications so we can compare notes, talk about website activity and use the information to fine-tune our marketing efforts.

Using multiple methods, we built in search engine optimization to significantly raise their website positioning on google, msn and yahoo-type search engines, and increase their link popularity. At a recent meeting our client reported that student interest and enrollment from outside of the university has increased dramatically and now makes up the majority of new enrollees. Quantitative metrics validate our efforts and give our higher education client the exposure – and students - they want.

What’s so Green about it?
We bypassed traditional print advertising and direct mail efforts, saving on printing, paper, shipping and we didn’t add to landfills. By employing very targeted tactics there is less waste and more economy of efforts and expenditures.

Green marketing for us means more precision. Less broad appeal efforts, more forethought in terms of what makes the most sense in talking to the right people about what’s important to them. That’s what we mean when we say, “Going green makes good business sense.”