A digital marketing proposal I, along with members of student government, proposed to the administration of the City College of New York in order to help them with their budget cuts.

1. CCNY 2015-16 Marketing
Plan
Objective: reach the tuition target for the next academic
year and create a new digital marketing system for CCNY.

2. The problem:
multiple budget
cuts.
➔ State Funding Reduction
($4.2M)
➔ CUNY Funding Reduction
($1.7M)
➔ CUNY Tuition target
adjustment ($3.3M)
➔ CCNY Increased costs
($5.4M)
➔ Total Impact was $14.6M
$1.7M $3.3M $5.4M$4.2M

3. The solution
Use $20K of our $120k annual
marketing budget to invest in a
digital marketing system that
gets us back at least 30-40% of
the $3.3M loss from our tuition
target adjustment.
High Schoolers, transfer
students, graduate
students, and parents need
a way to be targeted online
to increase tuition goals .

4. Step 1: Build Targeting

5. Who is the market?
Highschool Students
High School seniors who will
be graduating this school
year. Our primary target for
this year should be students
in the Tri-state area.
Transfer Students
College students mainly
enrolled in two year colleges
that are going to finish their
associate's degree. Also,
SUNY students who come
back after their 1st year.
Parents
Parents of low income
households to help drive the
majority of students who
need financial aid to our
college. Telling them about
our affordable education.
CCNY Graduates
Targeting recent alumni,
which is the easiest segment
to hit. This is another market
we need so we can gain
more revenue.

6. Step 2:
Measure Ads + Selling

7. The tactics & tools we will be using are:
Tools
Platforms
● Buffer*
● SEMRush
● Ritetag/Social Mention
● Google Analytics*
● Google Adwords
● Facebook Ads/Pages
● Instagram Ads
● Twitter Ads
● Trello
Instagram Google
Adwords
TwitterFacebook
Snapchat

8. Buffer (Post Scheduling & A/B Testing)
Buffer enables us to:
● Schedule posts (Facebook does not favor these posts, however Twitter &
LinkedIn does).
● Analyze post reach and engagement.
● Mainly convenient for late night posts: 11:30pm-3:00am (prime time for
targeting).

11. SEMRush (For Keywords)
Keyword Research and targeting users through Google:
● Most tools allow you to infer what your intended customer is searching for
on Google search engines.
● This SEMRush enables us to research and track competitive SEO.
● Giving us insights into which keywords we should be bidding for to have a
leg up on our competition.

15. Google Adwords
Everyone uses Google to search for useful information.
Targeting keywords such as colleges in nyc, best colleges, when to apply to
college, CUNY colleges, etc will give us a chance to show up Google’s search
page if we bid for affordable ones that bring use the most ROI based on web
traffic.

17. RiteTag/Social Mention (For Hashtags)
Social Mention allows you to track tags that are producing content that we can
curate.
RiteTag allows us to see (using metrics) which hashtags we can utilize to
optimize our organic campaigns.
The key idea to consider is: how do we use both tools to keep our organic
content in competition with every other college’s?

20. Google Analytics (Tracking Conversions)
The most important part of this presentation...
Analytics allow you to:
● Track how users come to your site (referral traffic).
● How they travel through the site (event tracking).
● If they are actually complete the intended task you have for them (tracking
conversions).
● How long they stay at the landing page you send them to (bounce rate).

22. Facebook Ads & Pages (Selling Content)
Facebook Ads
Allows us to specifically target
students & parents that are interested
in our competition. In this context we
can consider that to be CUNY &
SUNY schools.
We can target based on several
factors. For an example see your
handout.
Facebook Pages
Allows the target audience to connect
with the college. We can share event
pictures and videos, student stories,
professor documentaries, etc.
The more we connect, the more they
become interested.
We can use Boost posts mainly for
registration deadlines & tour dates.

23. Facebook Ad Examples

24. Example of Parent Targeting

25. Twitter Ads (Selling Content)
A powerful ad platform similar to Facebook however we would only be
targeting college students and parents here (high schoolers don’t care about
Twitter).
You can even target specific people...specifically users who interact with our
social media platforms (we can use tools such as Discover.ly to see if they use
Twitter).

32. Instagram Ads (Selling Content)* & Snapchat competitions
*Note that the college does have to apply to use the ad platform on both Instagram & Snapchat. You
can do so at Business.Instagram.com & directly contacting Snapchat.
Snapchat tactics:
Photo competitions
Campus life documentaries
Interviews
Instagram tactics:
Follow users based on hashtag and geo location
searches of high schools and community/SUNY
college.
Then engage with the content they are providing
while you post your own college revolving
CCNY’s brand.

33. Trello (Tracking Progress)
Trello enables us to keep track of delegated tasks based on top level priority
and KPIs (Key performance indicators).
We can use this tool in order to help see our overall progress and pivot our
goals as our plans need to adapt to customer needs.

35. Step 3:
Learning Analytics

36. Why now?
+92% teens
regularly use
social media
daily.
Source: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-2015/

37. Source:
Sprout
Social

38. Source:
Sprout
Social

39. Source:
Sprout
Social

40. Budget Model
Priority
Spending

41. Marketing Expenditures from $12,000 total
High school students
4-5 years
CLV is primary.
Bring most value
financially to the
college.
Total budget: $6,000
Transfers/Grads
2-3 years
CLV is secondary.
Brings less revenue
into the school.
Parents
Nodes
Promote the brand.
We target for
impressions only.
Note that percentages were based on highest expected customer lifetime value. We need the retention rate data for each group to see if the CLV
changes.
Total budget: $5,000 Total budget: $1,000

42. Milestones/Goals
Nov. 2015
Apply for instagram ads and
create specific audience ads for
FB & Twitter. Google analytics
is installed on the website.
Dec.-Feb. 2016
Ads are running & content is
being A/B tested weekly.
March 2016
Tracking data is being reported
on to see how our ads are
doing.
April-May 2016
We compare our expected
enrollment data to the current
year.

43. Why us?
Kenny Soto, President
Provides data analysis,
user behavior, target
system, and A/B testing.
Tammie David, VP of Public Affairs
Helps with student outreach
to see why current students
enjoy our college, this is to
help develop content.
Safiyyah Acosta, Senator
Creates headlines, call-to-
action and approves of final
campaigns before each
launch.

44. Conclusion:
We need to market on the platforms that matter the most to
our customers...that platform is the internet.
All our team asks for from the $20K budget proposal for
this plan is $8K service fee w/ a $6K retainer to implement
it.

45. Thank You
The Undergraduate Student Government