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HIGHER EDUCATION MARKETING CONSULTING
Higher ed marketing that speaks human
Square One Consulting is a higher education marketing consultant specializing in enrollment marketing strategy for colleges and universities. We help institutions improve student recruitment, increase yield, and build audience-first, student-centered communication strategies.
About Square One
HIGHER EDUCATION ENROLLMENT MARKETING STRATEGY CONSULTANT & SLATE CAPTAIN
Hi! I'm Laura Rudolph, M.S.
Before I became a consultant, I spent nearly 20 years doing this work inside higher education enrollment teams. I know what it feels like to balance ambitious goals, lean staffing, tangled systems and a communications calendar that always seems to need one more thing.
Today, I help colleges bring more strategy and humanity to that work. My sweet spot is where enrollment strategy, marketing, communications and Slate all meet. I help teams understand what students and families actually need, build communication journeys that make sense and create systems their staff can sustain long after our work together ends.
Because every email, text, website click, portal page and campus visit shapes how someone experiences your institution. My work starts with listening: to students and families, to what they’re experiencing, what they’re worried about and what may be making the college process harder than it needs to be. Those insights become the strategy.
And that’s how higher education marketing starts sounding human.
WHO I OFTEN WORK WITH
Sound familiar?
The work is real, the pressure is constant, and the resources never quite match the ask. I've spent nearly two decades inside higher education enrollment and marketing — which means I've probably seen exactly what you're dealing with right now. I work with higher education marketing and enrollment teams navigating complex enrollment and communication challenges and identifying where strategy, structure, and messaging need to change.
LEADERSHIP TRANSITION
You're new to your leadership role and discovering what you inherited.
You stepped into your VP of enrollment or marketing role ready to move. Then you started pulling back the curtain. There's no yield campaign. The student communication strategy is held together with duct tape. The templates are dated and there's no intentional recruitment marketing to speak of. You're not behind — you just inherited a starting point that was further back than anyone told you.
LIMITED BUDGET, HIGH PRESSURE
Your budget doesn't have room for a big agency, but you still need real enrollment marketing support.
You've probably already done the math. An agency retainer isn't realistic. But that doesn't mean you don't need someone who can actually think through the strategy with you and then execute it — without layers of account managers, six-week onboarding timelines, or a scope of work built for an institution three times your size. You need a partner who shows up, does the work, and doesn't make you feel small for not having a bigger budget.
STALLED ENROLLMENT STRATEGY
You know what needs to change. You just don't have the time, people or bandwidth to change it.
You're not in the dark. You can see the gaps clearly: the campaigns that need rebuilding, the communications that aren't landing, the strategy that exists only in someone's head. The problem isn't awareness. It's capacity. And the longer it sits on the list, the further behind you feel. That's where I come in — not to consult from a distance, but to do the work alongside you so it stops being the thing you never get to.
UNEXPECTED ENROLLMENT RESPONSIBILITY
Recruitment landed on your plate and nobody handed you a playbook.
Maybe you lead an academic program, graduate program, or health professions department. Somewhere along the way, finding and enrolling students became your responsibility on top of everything else you do. You're not sure who your best-fit student is. You're not sure what you should be saying to them or where. And you're definitely not sure where to start.
HOW WE PARTNER
How I support your strategy
No matter where you're starting from, there’s a path forward. I work with colleges and universities to strengthen enrollment marketing strategy, improve student recruitment, and bring clarity to how teams communicate and execute.
Your students are hearing from a lot of institutions right now. The ones that cut through aren't necessarily the biggest, they're the ones that sound human, show up consistently, and say the right thing at the right moment. I help institutions build enrollment marketing strategies and student communication campaigns that guide prospective students from first inquiry through deposit.
Your campus visit is one of the most important enrollment marketing tools you have. I review the full experience from the outside in, from registration and pre-visit communication through the on-campus experience, follow-up and yield handoff, so you can see where families are building confidence, where momentum may be slipping and what to improve first.
Most academic programs and departments don't have a dedicated enrollment or recruitment team. They have faculty, a coordinator who's already stretched thin, and a genuine desire to grow — but no clear picture of who their best-fit student is or how to reach them. I help programs build a recruitment strategy that fits how they're actually structured, from audience clarity and messaging to outreach and funnel design.
Sometimes you don't need a full project. You need someone to think alongside you, review what you're building, or step in and lead for a season while your team finds its footing. I embed with colleges and universities as a fractional enrollment marketing consultant, bringing strategy, structure and hands-on support without the cost or commitment of a full-time hire.
Parents and families aren't just along for the ride, they're driving the car (literally and figuratively). They're up at night Googling you, forwarding your emails, and forming opinions long before their student makes a decision. I help institutions improve communication with parents, families, and school counselors — critical audiences in the student decision-making process.
Slate Campaign Creation & Deployment
Slate can do extraordinary things for your enrollment communications, but only if someone actually knows how to build inside it. A lot of institutions have the platform and not the bandwidth or the expertise to make it work the way it should. I build and launch complete enrollment campaigns inside Slate — emails, rules, segmented flows, content blocks and more — so your team isn't leaving capability on the table.
Your admissions and marketing team is working hard. But working hard and working strategically aren't always the same thing. Higher ed is flooded with data, platforms and competing priorities — what teams actually need is the ability to slow down, think clearly and build habits that hold up when things get busy. My workshops are hands-on, practical and built specifically for professionals who need more than another slide deck.
Have a need you don't see here?
Let's talk.
CASE STUDIES
Three institutions, three starting points
Every engagement below started with a conversation. What follows is what came after.
CASE STUDY
Largest classes in 10 years
University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis
A new marketing leader inherited a Slate instance barely holding together. We rebuilt the full student journey.
CASE STUDY
21.7% deposit growth, YoY
Regional Public University, First-Generation Serving
No admitted or deposited student campaign — just silence after the yes. We built one grounded in belonging.
CASE STUDY
120+ silent students back in the funnel
Regional Public University, Southeast
An agency's campaign stopped. Students went quiet for months. We designed the campaign no one had.
TESTIMONIALS
In their own words
Podcast features
EPISODE 110
What College Parents Actually Need From Your Website, and What Higher Ed Is Getting Wrong
#1
EPISODE OF 2025
