The Challenge
The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC)—now Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine—faced a major challenge. The institution was preparing to launch a new Master of Biomedical Sciences (MBS) program at its newly established satellite campus in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. This was the first time TCMC had expanded its MBS offering beyond its main campus in Scranton, and the stakes were high. With only four months to generate awareness and applications, the school had no established digital marketing infrastructure in place. Historically, TCMC’s advertising budget had been devoted almost entirely to traditional channels such as newspaper ads, direct mail, radio, TV, and billboards.
Adding to the challenge, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) had recently enacted a policy restricting access to MCAT data for marketing use, severely limiting the school's ability to leverage historical audience targeting. TCMC not only needed to fill a brand-new class—it needed to build awareness from the ground up in a brand-new market, with limited data and a modest $33,000 marketing budget. The enrollment goal was ambitious: 12 students enrolled in 120 days or less.
The Strategy
LSEO.com was brought in to architect and execute a comprehensive, integrated digital marketing strategy to meet TCMC’s aggressive goals. The initiative began in January 2016 and had to produce results by the start of the inaugural class in April.
LSEO’s approach combined search engine marketing (Google Ads), paid social media campaigns (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram), SEO, email outreach, organic social content, direct mail, newspaper placements, and in-person/virtual open houses. This multichannel strategy was carefully designed to align traditional tactics with digital campaigns, driving prospective students down a finely defined sales funnel.
With audience data restricted, LSEO built lookalike audiences using internal insights and demographic profiles of existing MBS students. Highly targeted campaigns were launched across platforms, focusing on key conversion milestones:
Drive interest and open house attendance.
Encourage application submission.
Nurture prospects through the admissions process.
Convert accepted applicants into enrolled students.
Specific ad creatives were mapped to each stage of the funnel, ensuring timely and relevant calls to action. For example, users who attended open houses were retargeted with messaging prompting them to apply, while accepted students saw ads encouraging enrollment deposits.
This full-funnel, cross-channel strategy not only captured interest but shepherded leads through the entire enrollment journey.
