01The challenge
A top-ranked college of nursing, a national nursing shortage, and recruiting competition as intense as any market in higher education. The college had strong programs and U.S. News top-20 rankings behind them, but no lifecycle infrastructure: no CRM, no segmentation, no way to treat a working nurse pursuing a graduate degree differently from a traditional undergraduate or a career-changer entering nursing.
02The strategy
Build the plumbing first. I spearheaded the college’s first CRM implementation, the foundational infrastructure for segmentation, prospective student journeys, and personalized outreach across undergraduate, graduate, and professional audiences spanning more than 30 specialty programs. In parallel, I overhauled the agency partnership and paid media strategy: restructured buying, creative, and measurement, owning the college’s paid media budget end to end, to close the gap between what we spent and what we could prove.
Then I made the numbers mean something. I built an in-depth reporting structure that went beyond vanity metrics, tying leads to applicants and applicants to enrollments, so every campaign was judged on the outcome the college actually cared about, not clicks. That full-funnel view required a close partnership with admissions, and I built it, working side by side on how leads were handled, nurtured, and converted.
I also partnered closely with the university’s central marketing and communications department to make sure the college’s campaigns were amplified across university channels, extending our reach far beyond what the college’s own budget could buy. Each audience got a journey tuned to its reality: traditional undergraduates, working nurses pursuing graduate degrees, and career-changers entering nursing.
03The work
04The results
inquiry and applicant volume across the program portfolio
CRM in the college’s history, now core recruiting infrastructure
cost per inquiry and inquiry-to-applicant conversion
This worked because we built the plumbing before turning up the volume. The CRM gave every audience its own journey, the rebuilt media program made every dollar accountable, and record inquiries followed. The record made headlines; the infrastructure made it repeatable.