Due to the impacts of Covid-19 and prospective students deciding to join the workforce instead of gaining a higher education through an MBA program, applications to MBA programs have declined by 6.5% in 2022, according to the Graduate Management Admission Council. The decline in prospective students has increased the competition in various MBA programs, which highlights the importance of Western Washington University’s efforts to implement strategies that will put WWU’s MBA program above the competition. This is where Paid Search, also commonly known as PPC (pay-per-click) comes into play!
PPC is a type of online advertising in which an individual can pay a certain amount through PPC Bidding with the goal of having the desired website or campaign as close to the top of Google’s search engine results page as possible, through the use of Google Ads pay-per-click platform. In other words, you pay to rank higher among other competing websites. This marketing strategy can be extremely effective for companies where SEO or organic rankings do not fulfill desired business objectives.
The purpose of WWU implementing a PPC strategy through Google Ads is to increase awareness with the objective of increasing the number of MBA applications received. Western and other colleges have an advantage when implementing a PPC strategy because schools have direct access to prospective students, allowing them to clearly understand their target audience.
Western can also use information regarding their current CBE (College of Business and Economics) students to understand what non-Western students are looking for in an MBA program, further expanding awareness and potential MBA applicants.
PPC Campaign Structure
An effective PPC advertising campaign is made up of three key elements, keywords, ads, and landing pages.
Keywords: Keywords are words and/or phrases that are used to match the search of desired customers. Understanding your desired consumers is an extremely important part of identifying keywords, as they must be relevant and unique to YOUR target market. This is also where Google’s PPC bidding comes into play. You can place a bid on each keyword, which represents the amount of money you are willing to spend for a single click on a given keyword. You can also use keywords to highlight offers that differentiate your business, or in this instance, the MBA program from other MBA programs offered through other schools.
- When directed to Western’s MBA homepage, elements that stick out to me that can be used to differentiate from other MBA programs and can be used as keywords include “Daytime MBA”, “Evening MBA”, and “Weekend MBA”.
- WWU’s MBA program has an AACSB accreditation, which is only achieved by 5% of business programs worldwide. This achievement not only differentiates the program from other competing MBA programs but can also function as a keyword to target potential MBA applicants.
Ads: When users search the keywords you have defined for this campaign, you will then need to create ads that will be displayed when searching those defined keywords. You must also remember to ensure that the ads and keywords are specific to your users to persuade them to click on the advertisement.
- Western’s MBA program’s AACSB accreditation can also work as an inspiration for advertisements. This differentiating factor can entice potential consumers to choose Western’s MBA program over others. Western can also create keyword-specific ads for the three separate MBA sessions Western offers, which accommodate individuals of various lifestyles hoping to pursue an MBA.
Landing Pages: Once the user clicks on the ad they are officially in the marketing funnel, and the landing page is where users become customers through conversions. In this case, applying for the MBA program. Both parents and students rated college websites as the most influential and reliable recruitment resource when selecting a university. Therefore, it is even more important for Western to improve its landing page to provide users with desired and compelling information to entice them to become MBA applicants while making the application process accessible and seamless to the user.
- A potential issue I discovered on WWU’s MBA pages is that the “Apply Now” option is at the bottom of each page, making it less accessible for potential students. In comparison, on Washington State University’s MBA page the “Apply Now” is at the top of the page and stands out in red to potential users. Making it more accessible for prospective MBA students to apply can improve Western’s relevancy ranking.
When using Google Ads another important factor to consider when hoping to improve your search engine ranking beside the keywords, ads, and landing page is your Quality Score. Quality score is based on Google’s algorithm which ranks ads based on relevancy, once again highlighting the importance of knowing your customer! Various factors that influence your Quality score are:
- Click-through Rate (CTR): how many people are clicking through, in relation to how many people are seeing your ad
- Relevance of keywords
- Quality and relevance of landing page
- Historical performance
By ensuring that each of these factors is included in WWU’s MBA PPC strategy, it is guaranteed that WWU’s MBA program will outrank competing MBA programs’ search engine results. This will result in an increase in visibility, while relevant and enticing advertisements and landing pages will increase the number of WWU MBA applicants.