Creating an international impact for The College of Europe

The College of Europe was the world’s first institute of postgraduate studies in European affairs, based in the heart of Bruges. And we were asked to support student recruitment activity and help them shout about their truly unique postgraduate experience.

Our strategy was to improve conversion at every stage of the recruitment journey, from awareness raising right through to enrolment.

Firstly, we wanted to improve their presence on social media. We delivered social media training to help their team better understand everything from audience targeting to content creation and work together to plan an annual social media strategy.

We created and activated a social media campaign, using both paid and organic activity, running a range of content from testimonials to videos, live chats to event promotions, to help prospective students really get a feel for what it’s like to study at the College of Europe. We tracked every piece of content, to allow us to monitor which formats and themes were resonating best with our audience, to inform future content.

Secondly, we dedicated a large percentage of our budget to paid search, to help drive enquiries and applications, from across the globe. The campaign was monitored, reviewed, and optimised throughout, helping us to react to peaks in traffic and ensuring we achieved the greatest ROI.

Finally, to help improve conversion, we worked with the College to develop an email communication plan, delivering emails to those who had started but not completed an application to encourage conversion, and to nurture those who had applied right through to enrolment.

And the College of Europe have been delighted with the results so far, achieving a 13% increase in applications in year one, and a further 25% increase in year two, their highest number of applications in many years.