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Enrollment Marketing for Schools & Colleges

Fill the class.
Fund the mission.

Enrollment marketing built like an investment, not an expense. We run digital campaigns that turn ad spend into applications, applications into enrolled students, and enrolled students into tuition revenue you can measure — for private K-12 schools and regional colleges alike.

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Who we serve
Private K-12 schools & regional colleges
What we measure
Applications, yield, cost per enrolled student
Where we work
Virginia & the eastern U.S.
The Approach
Every enrollment dollar should be able to answer one question: how many students and families did it bring through the door?

Most school marketing is judged on impressions, likes, and "awareness" — numbers that feel good and prove nothing. We judge enrollment marketing the way an admissions director and a CFO judge it: by applications generated, the cost to generate each one, the yield from inquiry to enrolled, and the tuition revenue that follows.

That discipline matters more in education than almost anywhere else. One enrolled college student can mean $100,000+ in tuition over four years. A single enrolled K-12 family can represent $60,000–$150,000+ in lifetime tuition across their years at your school. When the lifetime value is that high, a marketing program that reliably produces enrolled students isn't a cost — it's one of the highest-return investments the institution can make.

We build toward that. Not a one-off burst of ads, but a system that compounds: a campaign that fills this year's class, and a marketing engine that makes next year's easier.

$100k+
Lifetime tuition per enrolled student
A K-12 family across their enrolled years, or a college student across four. One enrollment can pay back an entire campaign.
Cost / enrolled
The number we optimize
Not cost per click. Cost per family who actually enrolls and pays tuition.
Compounding
This year and next
Brand, search authority, and a warm prospect list that make every future cycle cheaper.
How We Build a Campaign

Built in stages,
for maximum return.

We don't spend your full budget on day one. We build in stages so every dollar is informed by data from the last — the highest-ROI way to run enrollment marketing.

01Foundation
Audience & Message

Before a dollar goes to ads, we define exactly who we're trying to reach — the parents and students most likely to apply and enroll — and the message that moves them. We map your distinctive value (faith, academics, community, outcomes) against what families in your area are actually searching for and worried about. The tracking foundation goes in here too, so every inquiry from here forward is attributable.

Why first: targeting the wrong families is the most expensive mistake in enrollment marketing.
02Capture Demand
Search & High-Intent Ads

We start where intent is highest: families already searching for "private schools near me," "Christian school [your city]," or your school by name. Google Search ads and local SEO capture these families at the exact moment they're looking. This is the fastest path to inquiries, which is why we activate it first — early wins fund and justify the rest of the program.

Measured by: inquiries generated & cost per inquiry.
03Generate Demand
Awareness & Social Campaigns

Once high-intent demand is captured, we expand to families who aren't searching yet but fit the profile — through Meta (Facebook/Instagram) and YouTube campaigns targeted by location, parent status, and interests. Open house promotions, student stories, and tour invitations build the top of the funnel and feed retargeting pools.

Measured by: reach in-market, tour sign-ups, retargeting growth.
04Convert & Nurture
Email Nurturing & Retargeting

Most families don't apply on first contact — the enrollment decision takes weeks or months. We build email nurture sequences and retargeting ads that keep your school in front of interested families through the entire decision window: from first inquiry, to tour, to open house, to application, to enrollment deposit. This stage is where inquiries become enrolled students.

Measured by: inquiry-to-application rate & application-to-enrolled yield.
05Compound
Optimize & Scale

With a full cycle of data, we double down on what produced enrolled families and cut what didn't. The brand, website, and search authority built along the way keep working between campaigns — so next year's enrollment marketing starts from a stronger, cheaper position. This is the difference between renting enrollment and owning an enrollment engine.

Measured by: cost per enrolled student, year over year.
What We Do for Schools & Colleges

Everything an enrollment
program needs.

From the campaign that fills next year's class to the brand and website that make every future cycle easier. One partner, one accountable team.

01
Enrollment Marketing
Digital Ads · SEO
Multi-channel digital ad campaigns — Google Search, Meta, YouTube — plus local SEO so your school is found when families search. Engineered around applications and enrolled students, not clicks. The core engine that fills the class.
02
Branding & Website Design
Identity · Build
A school's website is its real front door — most families visit it long before they visit campus. We design and build sites that reflect the quality of the education and convert visitors into inquiries, with the brand identity to match.
03
Brand Messaging & Tagline
Positioning · Voice
What makes your school different from the public option down the road — and the other private school across town? We develop the positioning, messaging, and tagline that make your distinct value impossible to miss and easy to remember.
04
Email Nurturing Campaigns
Inquiry → Enrolled
The enrollment decision takes time. Automated, personal email sequences keep your school in front of interested families from first inquiry through enrollment deposit — turning curious prospects into committed families without manual follow-up.
05
Prospect & Pricing Research
Data · Strategy
Decisions about tuition, positioning, and target families shouldn't be guesses. We run prospect research that tells you how real families respond — including studies on how pricing changes affect willingness to consider and enroll.
Prospect Research in Action
Case Snapshot · Private College
"Before you reset tuition, you should know how families will actually respond — not how you hope they will."

A private college was weighing a massive tuition price reset — a decision with enormous revenue and enrollment stakes. Partnering with a branding firm, we ran a prospect research study to answer the question directly: how would the price change affect parents' and prospective students' willingness to consider the school? Rather than guess, we gathered direct data from the exact audiences the decision would affect.

The same engagement included brand and message development. We built and tested a new tagline against three alternatives, measuring which resonated most with prospective families before anything was finalized — the same evidence-based discipline we brought to the pricing question.

Matthew presented the findings directly to the college's board to inform the price-reset decision — grounding a high-stakes institutional choice in real audience data instead of assumption. This is the depth of strategic partnership we bring beyond the ad campaign: when the stakes are highest, we help you decide with evidence.

Two Kinds of Institution, One Discipline

Built for both ends
of the journey.

A K-12 school filling next year's kindergarten class and a college defending its incoming class share the same core problem — reaching the right families and proving the spend worked. We serve both, and the experience in each makes us sharper in the other.

Regional Colleges & Universities

Higher Education Enrollment

Regional private colleges compete in one of the hardest markets in the country — declining numbers of college-age students, rising price sensitivity, and families scrutinizing the return on a six-figure decision. We've worked inside that pressure with regional private colleges and universities.

Inquiry & Application Campaigns

Digital ad campaigns built to drive qualified inquiries and completed applications — measured against cost per enrolled student, not vanity metrics.

Prospect & Pricing Research

Board-level research that tells you how prospective students and families will actually respond to tuition, positioning, and program decisions before you make them.

Brand, Message & Yield

Positioning and tagline development, plus nurture campaigns that move admitted students from acceptance to deposit.

Private & Faith-Based K-12 Schools

K-12 Enrollment Growth

Private and faith-based K-12 schools compete for a specific, local audience: families within driving distance who want something the public schools don't offer. That's a marketing problem with a clear, winnable shape. Whether you have an immediate need — open house season, a yield push before the deposit deadline, a class that needs filling now — or you're ready to build sustained enrollment growth year over year, we can start where you are and grow into a long-term partnership.

Local Digital Ad Campaigns

Google and social ads targeted to families in your specific area — by neighborhood, parent status, and the values that draw them to a private or Christian education. Built to drive tours, inquiries, and applications.

General School Awareness

Keep your school top-of-mind across your community all year — so when a family becomes ready to leave their current school, yours is the name they already know and trust.

Email Marketing & Nurturing

Turn open-house attendees and website inquiries into enrolled families with email sequences that guide them from interested to applied to enrolled — automatically, in your school's voice.

Talk About Your Enrollment Goals
The Team

Every school works
directly with us.

The people who plan your enrollment strategy are the people who execute it — and the people who answer when you call.

Matthew Shaughnessy, Founder and Lead Strategist at Colo Media
Matthew Shaughnessy
Founder & Lead Strategist

More than a decade of marketing experience across Virginia and the eastern United States — including roles in university athletics and at a regional advertising agency — before building Colo Media. Matthew has led enrollment and prospect-research work for regional colleges including Roanoke College, Wartburg College, and Emory & Henry University. His strength is strategy: reading an audience and a market, then building the channel mix that actually works — and measuring exactly what each dollar returns.

Rene Ramlow, Director of Client Performance at Colo Media
Rene Ramlow
Director of Client Performance

Rene leads campaign execution across paid search, SEO, and email. She brings experience from a leading Washington, DC think tank, where she managed digital campaigns and audience growth across email and paid channels. She pairs sharp analytical instincts with hands-on execution — the person making sure campaigns stay optimized, nurture sequences convert, and reporting actually means something to the people reading it.

Let's fill your next class.

Whether you have an enrollment target to hit this season or you're ready to build a marketing engine for the years ahead, we'd like to hear what you're working toward.

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