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Enrollment Marketing & Slate Strategy
Built for Humans.
Enrollment communication built around send frequency and open rates will always underperform — because the humans on the other side of your campaigns have emotions, anxieties, and concerns that no metric can accurately predict or calculate. Your communication will only resonate if it treats them as humans first.
That's where Square One Consulting comes in. Strategy and Slate campaigns built from a genuine understanding of who you're talking to — researched, listened to, and known before a single subject line gets written.
~20
YEARS IN HIGHER ED ENROLLMENT & MARKETING
8 yrs
SLATE CAPTAIN - DELIVER & CAMPAIGNS
Full funnel
INQUIRY - YIELD & MELT PREVENTION
All audiences
UNDERGRAD, GRAD, HEALTH PROFESSIONS & NONPROFIT
Speaking human means understanding who you're talking to. Not assumed. Not guessed. Actually known — through research, listening, and the kind of audience insight that tells you what a prospective student is really afraid of at 2 a.m. when they're staring at their financial aid letter.
My background is in marketing and consumer behavior. That means before a strategy gets built, before a campaign gets written, before anything goes into Slate — I want to understand your audiences' perceptions, preferences, and psychographics. What they believe about your institution. What they're afraid of. What would make them say yes, and what's quietly making them say nothing at all.
That understanding comes from surveys, listening sessions, and audience insight work conducted with your prospective students, enrolled students, families, and counselors. People will tell you exactly what they need if you stop and ask. Most institutions don't ask.
Then — and only then — the strategy. The content. The Slate campaigns that deliver it. Connection, understanding, transparency. Communication that's actually human.
What "Strategy to Slate" Means
You've probably inherited communication that was built around send frequency and content volume — or around what the office was comfortable saying rather than what the student needed to hear at that moment. You already know that's not working. The question is how to rebuild it in a way that holds.
Every engagement starts with research. Not a kick-off deck — actual listening. Audience insight surveys, psychographic work, perception research with your prospective students, enrolled students, families, and counselors. The goal is to understand who you're talking to before deciding what to say. Most institutions skip that step. Most institutions wonder why their open rates are flat.
The strategy follows from what the research surfaces. The content follows from the strategy. And then Slate — where the same person who did the listening builds and deploys the campaign. No hand-off. No translation layer between the plan and the platform. What was designed is what gets built.
Where Enrollment Communication Typically Breaks Down
You don't need a list of best practices. You need someone who can look at your communication and tell you specifically what's not working and why — in the same language you'd use to describe it yourself.
THE GAP
Strategy that never makes it into the campaign
The strategy was solid. The intent was right. But by the time it passed through a technical team, or waited three weeks for someone to have capacity, something got lost. The nuance. The sequencing logic. The specific language that was supposed to land differently for a first-gen student than for a continuing-generation one.
When strategy and execution live in two different places, you always lose something in translation. Strategy to Slate closes that gap — the person who built the strategy is the one inside your Slate instance building the campaign.
The hand-off problem
THE GAP
Communication built for the institution, not the audience
Your campaigns say what your office is comfortable saying. Your yield communication celebrates the admission rather than addressing the decision the student is still in the middle of. Your family communication is a forwarded version of the student email. Your first-gen outreach uses the same aspirational register as everything else — which lands as noise for a student who needs transparency, not motivation.
Building from the recipient's perspective requires knowing who the recipient is. That's the research layer — and it changes what gets written.
The perspective problem
THE GAP
Audiences treated as one population
The segmentation problem
A first-gen student, a transfer student, a parent, a high school counselor, and an admitted student weighing two offers are not the same audience. They are in different emotional states, carrying different questions, and making different kinds of decisions. Communication that treats them as a single population — or that differentiates by program interest alone — is leaving yield on the table.
Every audience segment gets its own strategy, its own voice, and its own Slate deployment. That precision is what the research makes possible.
THE GAP
Strategy that never makes it into the campaign
You inherited it. Nobody documented it. The campaigns are running but nobody is sure what's actually in them, who's receiving what, or whether the populations are still accurate. The rules haven't been audited. The content blocks haven't been updated. And nobody on the current team has the Slate depth to rebuild it — or the time to learn while also doing everything else the role requires.
Eight years as a Slate Captain means walking into that instance and knowing what to look for — and how to rebuild it without disrupting what's currently in flight.
The hand-off problem
What CMOs and Enrollment Leaders Say
"Laura integrated herself into our team as we built our communication flows from the ground up, making the process seamless. Her ability to strategize from 60,000 feet and then immediately operationalize and implement the most granular details was exactly what we needed. We feel confident in our enrollment communication strategy because of the knowledge and support Laura has given us."
Kelsey Meyer
Assistant Vice President of Marketing and Chief Marketing Officer
University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis
The student journey marketing implementation resulted in UHSP having the largest incoming undergraduate and pharmacy classes in the past 10 years.
"Laura stepped in and immediately brought the strategic clarity, technical skill, and executional depth the role demanded. She owned the entire student journey, both high-level strategy and hands-on Slate execution. What made her indispensable was the rare combination she brought: deep enrollment expertise paired with real marketing knowledge. After she left, we split the role between multiple team members just to cover the same ground."
Julie Sams
Director of Admissions, Transylvania University
Fractional Leadership Partner
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions enrollment and marketing leaders often ask before starting a conversation.
What is "Strategy to Slate"?
Strategy to Slate is the end-to-end enrollment marketing approach practiced by Square One Consulting — where the consultant who develops the communication strategy is the same person who writes it, builds and deploys it inside Technolutions Slate. The strategic intent arrives in the campaign exactly as it was designed, without translation, hand-off, or delay between the plan and the platform.
What is a student journey communication strategy?
A student journey communication strategy maps the full arc of a prospective student's experience — from first awareness through inquiry, application, admission, yield, and enrollment — and designs purposeful, audience-specific communication for each stage. Different students have different needs at different moments, and effective strategy reflects that complexity rather than broadcasting one message to everyone.
Why does parent and family communication need its own strategy?
Parents and families are often the primary decision-maker, financial authority, and confidence-builder in an enrollment decision — particularly for first-generation and traditionally underrepresented students. They are asking entirely different questions than the student: about cost, safety, career outcomes, and institutional reliability. A student-facing campaign won't reach them. Effective family communication is designed from scratch for a distinct audience with distinct concerns.
How does Square One Consulting approach enrollment campaign strategy differently?
Every campaign starts with listening — audience insight surveys, enrolled student research, counselor conversations — to understand what the humans on the other side of the message actually need before anything gets written. Then strategy. Then content. Then Slate. The same person, start to finish — which means no gap between what was intended and what gets deployed.
Does Square One Consulting build Slate campaigns as part of this work?
Yes. With eight years as a Slate Captain, Laura Rudolph builds and deploys enrollment marketing campaigns directly inside client Slate instances — populations, rules, content blocks, Deliver configuration, email and SMS deployment. Strategy and execution come from the same person.
What types of institutions does Square One serve?
Square One serves any institution that has a need! Most often it's small-but-mighty colleges or small regional publics, but we've also known to lend a hand to large research universities, liberal arts institutions, professional health programs, graduate schools, and nonprofits. Clients range from institutions seeking stronger brand awareness to programs needing a complete Slate Campaign rebuild to teams that want to think and operate more strategically.
How does Square One Consulting price its services?
It depends on the work. Some engagements are project-based — a defined scope with a defined deliverable and a flat project fee. Others, particularly fractional leadership and ongoing consulting work, are time-based. Every engagement is scoped individually, because the right structure depends on what you actually need, not a standard package applied regardless of fit. The first conversation is about understanding your situation — pricing follows from that.
How does an engagement with Square One begin?
Every engagement starts with a conversation, not a pitch. Laura wants to understand your institution, your team, your goals, and what success actually looks like before talking about what she can do. Next, we'll prepare a proposal for your team, and if approved, move into contracting! The process can be quick or slow depending on your institutions procurement and processing.
Institutions and Non-Profits I've Served & Supported
All trademarks belong to their respective institutions. Logos used for identification only.
Let's start talking more human.
Are you ready to put your audience first? Our first conversation is about people — who they are, what they need, and what your current communication is and isn't doing to reach them as humans.
Connection. Understanding. Transparency. That's what enrollment communication should be built around. Let's build it that way.