The George Washington University

Media Planning and Buying

Challenge

George Washington University (GW) faced declining graduate enrollments, a trend compounded by a nationwide sector decline, and the D.C. market was highly saturated, with local, regional, and national institutions fiercely competing for students. Internally, each GW school managed its own independent media budget, which led to siloed marketing efforts and missed opportunities for cohesive cross-program synergy.

LMO and the central marketing team also lacked real-time enrollment data from individual schools and programs. This data gap made it difficult to accurately correlate marketing leads with final enrollment outcomes. Ensuring consistent access to performance data and aligning on shared key performance indicators (KPI) presented an ongoing operational challenge across multiple internal stakeholders.

Objective

The campaigns aimed to generate qualified leads across multiple graduate schools and programs while strengthening GW’s visibility and reputation in the Washington D.C. market.

  • Apply performance learnings from previous fiscal years to optimize media strategies for both new and established programs.

  • Drive qualified traffic to dedicated school landing pages where prospective students could easily request graduate program information.

  • Implement media strategies to assist with lead nurturing efforts to drive applicants from the consideration stage to enrollment.

  • Provide individual school stakeholders with real-time performance data and actionable insights to inform ongoing and future marketing decisions.

Solution

To help GW address enrollment challenges, LMO implemented comprehensive marketing strategies focused on performance, brand visibility and data access. Combining targeted media tactics with real-time reporting and campaign optimization drove quality leads while supporting brand growth and stakeholder alignment.

Digital & Social Media Optimization: LMO partnered with 14 individual schools to support recruitment efforts for over 60 graduate programs. Our experts tailored each campaign using audience media consumption insights to align channel selection and messaging with prospective student behavior. Digital channels provided the flexibility to optimize efficiency and lead quality of each campaign. LMO also launched targeted lead nurture campaigns on social platforms to re-engage users who had not yet applied, keeping prospects moving through the funnel.

Brand Awareness Campaign: In a strategic expansion of its graduate marketing efforts, GW launched its first university-wide brand awareness campaign in recent history. This initiative complemented the ongoing school-based campaigns by enhancing visibility for GW’s graduate programs across the competitive D.C. market. While building brand awareness was the primary objective, the campaign also supported lead generation goals. It leveraged a range of tactics, blending digital with traditional media types to maximize reach and frequency.

Performance Monitoring & Dashboard: LMO maintained campaign efficiency and effectiveness through continuous monitoring, real-time optimizations, and bi-weekly performance check-ins, leading to sustained improvements where most campaigns surpassed their cost per lead goals. LMO also developed a custom dashboard visualizer for GW, providing each school with a personalized link to monitor real-time performance metrics. This tool streamlined communication, improved data transparency, and empowered stakeholders with easy-to-access insights for informed decision-making.

LMO ran over 60 campaigns across 14 schools from July 2023 to June 2024.

Results

87K

Qualified Leads Generated Throughout the Fiscal Year

89%

Of Campaigns Exceeded CPL Goals

51.5M

Total Impressions