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With over 8,500 students, LSE Summer School is not only a fantastic money generator for the University but is also seen as critical for building global reputation and student pipelines for the future. The Summer School had seen a dip in recruitment figures in the previous year and LSE were keen to revise the trend to one of growth. The brief focused on targeting global students to study at LSE’s Summer Schools from a range of international countries including the UK, USA, India, Italy, Germany, France, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia across a range of courses.
The target audience LSE needed to reach were primarily already at university but looking for extra educational study in a Summer School.
The objectives of the Summer School campaign were twofold:
- Increase enquiries and enrolments
- Build longer-term brand awareness
We developed a full funnel strategy however it was CRM that needed the most attention and was an area we worked closely with LSE to improve, mapping the customer journey and each and every touchpoint to ensure that deposits were received. LSE were struggling to follow up on leads, and the volume of leads created through the campaign, so we had to introduce lead management and marketing automation systems to streamline the efficiency and effectiveness of this process. From a CRM point of view, our initial conversion metric was students who completed the application form and paid their £50 but, ultimately, it was those that fully enrolled, so we wanted to further communicate beyond deposit.
It came to light that LSE were sending one generic email to everyone, with no personalisation or thought as to what course they were interested in at the Summer School, or where they had come from.
What we saw from that data was that we needed to apply market segmentation data to our campaign, so it wasn’t just one message for every country, but actually thinking about different copy and different creative for each country, tailoring different propositions to address those motivations and barriers. We worked very closely with LSE on improving and personalising the CRM and creating, designing and uploading new email assets. Then monitoring, and harvesting the subsequent conversions through cost effective technology driven by the ‘Active Campaign Management’ system.

This CRM Automation process ensured that all enquiries, leads and applications received exactly the right (tailored) communication at the right stage of the decision-making process. It also allowed the opportunity to utilise other calls to action to have 1-2-1 conversations with recruitment teams on any specific issues.
Our client-set target was a 5% year-on-year increase in enrolments. Overall, our campaign achieved a 7% uplift YoY – the most successful intake in 30 years. These numbers showed that CRM and lead management are critical to campaign success. Deploying technology such as Active Campaign to respond with personalised messaging to students in a much quicker time frame made a massive difference to outcomes.
Client Testimonial: Thea Cassel, Digital Marketing Manager – Summer School, Executive and International Programmes at LSE “I would highly recommend HL. They have such good education knowledge, and having that expertise is invaluable. They have worked with a range of other universities and having that competitor insight makes you feel very confident that they know what they are talking about. I think the combination of education sector experience and knowledge, strong account management and the digital expertise which we don’t have inhouse, it’s this combination that makes them a really great agency to work with.”
Contact kim.mclellan@hunterlodge.co.uk to discuss how we could supercharge your marketing automation efforts. |