Rock Valley College: Learn To Earn Campaign

GrahamSpencer is keenly aware of the importance of a high quality community college in the social fabric of a vibrant community. So, creating the LEARN TO EARN campaign was a labor of love, purpose and respect. The campaign, designed to lend a fresh voice to a beloved institution, was produced 100% in-house at GrahamSpencer and included digital, social, broadcast, cable, radio, outdoor and guerilla elements.

The goal set for GS by school administrators was daunting: stop the bleeding in an environment in which the school had seen declining enrollment for nearly seven consecutive years at almost 5% annually. Needless to say, a lot was at stake.

Launched during the spring of 2015, the campaign quickly exceeded its goals for both the ensuing summer and fall semesters, not only putting an end to enrollment loss, but building new-student enrollment at a rate of nearly 15% since. The initial digital campaign performed extremely well with an average CTR of 1.39% and a Google CTR of 3.39%. The YouTube completion rate averaged an astounding 22%.

GS’s creative process was preceded by an abbreviated yet deep round of GSearch qualitative research and strategic planning that turned on its head the way the school “talked” about its value proposition and place in the community. At this writing in the winter of 2017, the same campaign is still in use and still generating results.