Overview
Ferris State University's Marketing Department wants to increase the amount of students enrolled in their five programs: Marketing, Public Relations, Graphic Media Management, Design, and Business Data Analytics. To inform students about the opportunities at Ferris, we created a postcard campaign and poster series targeted toward high schoolers.
Photography
The campagin needed new, program-specific imagery for the postcards and posters. We directed numerous photoshoots using prepared shot lists, diverse models, and accurate locations. This allowed us to gather a sizeable collection of photography going forward.
Campaign 1: Prospective Students
The first campaign went out to prospective high school students, specifically upper-classmen. The goal was to inform students about the Marketing department at Ferris, and direct them to the program website. These postcards went out in Fall 2021, which is a prime moment for students to look at colleges.
Campaign 2: Applied Students
Campaign 2 was directed towards the same group as the first, but it was delivered in Spring 2022. The goal of this one was to establish communication and dialouge to reaffirm the decision of applied and accepted students. We want to show what sets Ferris apart from other schools.
Campaign 3: Faculty
The final campaign was sent out late 2021 to high school business teachers and counselors. The point of this one was to get educators talking about Ferris Marketing in the classrooms. These teachers have the potential to heavily influence students based on their knowledge of different schools. Informing the teachers will hopefully lead to them telling their students.
Results
In Spring 2021, we were able to see the impact of the campaign in terms of the increase in applied/accepted students. Below, you can see an increase of 54.% from Fall 2021 to Fall 2022.
Poster Series
The poster campaign was another way to inform students about Ferris Marketing by showing them five different programs that may appeal to them. We wanted students to be able to visualize their future self in these images.
Upon the completion of the design, we began the production of 5,500 posters, which were sent out to over 1,000 high schools around the country.