Record-Breaking Enrollment Through a Student Journey Communications Overhaul

The situation

A new marketing leader had arrived at the University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis and discovered a Slate CRM instance that was barely functioning. There were no formal communication flows. No brand templates. No enrollment strategy documented anywhere. Their staff was piece-mealing everything together while the rest of the team spent more time fighting the system than actually connecting with students.

The institution was recruiting at the undergraduate, PharmD and MPH levels, including a brand-new online MPH program entering its inaugural cycle.

It needed communication infrastructure that could do three things at once: run segmented flows for distinct audiences, elevate the brand and free the team to focus on relationships instead of technical firefighting. In came the student journey overhaul.

The work

Square One partnered with the new marketing leader to rebuild the full enrollment communication system from the inside of Slate out. The work covered strategy, creative and technical execution in a single engagement.

• Built segmented communication flow strategy and content for undergraduate, PharmD and MPH audiences that covered the full funnel from first inquiry through deposit

• Developed branded email templates that elevated the institution's voice and created consistency across every touchpoint

• Implemented advanced Slate tools including liquid markup, content blocks, translation codes and forms/portals to personalize communications at scale

• Created a sophomore inquiry portal to start relationship-building earlier in the pipeline, expanding the recruitment window by nearly two years

• Trained internal staff so the system could be owned and adapted independently after the engagement ended

The results

• Largest incoming undergraduate and pharmacy classes in 10 years

• Met enrollment goal for a brand-new online MPH program in its inaugural cycle

• Counselors freed from manual marketing tasks to focus on student relationships

• Brand consistency established and maintained across every message and channel

In their words

Having a partner who could think strategically, develop a plan that delivered on that strategy and then fully execute every aspect of the plan was the most valuable aspect of this partnership. Not often do you work with someone who can start at 60,000 feet and then operationalize and implement on the ground and troubleshoot really specific issues. Doing this work with Laura versus a larger agency gave us more flexibility, access and overall satisfaction.

— Kelsey Meyer, Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer, University of Health Sciences & Pharmacy in St. Louis

The takeaway

A broken Slate instance isn't a technical problem. It's an enrollment problem. When the CRM isn't doing its job, every downstream communication suffers, and the team carries the weight of manual workarounds that should never have existed in the first place. Rebuilding from strategy through execution, with one partner rather than a handoff between vendors, is what made this turnaround possible in a single cycle.

If your Slate instance needs this kind of work, let's talk. Schedule a conversation at squareoneky.com/marketing.