Admissions as a Business-to-Business Sale

The Washington Center provides immersive internships and academic seminars in Washington, D.C., to students from hundreds of colleges and universities from across the U.S. and more than twenty-five countries. TWC offers students internship access to more than 600 corporate, government and foundation partners. TWC helps students, who otherwise might not have the opportunity to pursue their interests, experience what a successful career looks like and establish a path toward their professional future.

Few sales problems are simple – particularly for academic institutions pursuing student enrollment. Often, recruiting takes time – lots of time – to close a sale. Institutions must convince students with many different academic tracks and backgrounds, each with their own unique motivations and needs. An internship also must fit into complex course-load requirements for majors and degrees across an array of schools. Also, experiential learning programs such as internships are . . . well . . . expensive.

The stakes are every bit as high for B2B sales; they are characterized by a similar degree of complexity as well.

TWC knew, fundamentally, that their organization had to change. Admissions (sales) to their program were down. Every year, at the height of recruiting season, the entire 90-person staff would hit the road to visit colleges and universities across the nation. They weren’t collecting leads online. Their sales processes were expensive and producing fewer results with every passing year.

TWC had systemic problems. No creative, no media plan was going to fundamentally change their success, without a reinvention of their organization.

Higher Education

Precontemplation to Advocacy

Together we overhauled their marketing and recruiting departments, helping define the various responsibilities between marketing and the recruiters. We collaborated to redefine their recruiting processes, as well as the design of the student experience. Only then did we plug in the tools to fit their new reality, specifically marketing automation technology synced with their CRM system.

Once TWC’s digital assets were in place, we helped plan and execute a series of campaigns, each focused on prospects at different points in the Customer Decision Journey. The results were almost instantaneous.

The most significant result of our engagement with TWC was their adoption of the cognitive marketing model throughout their entire sales and marketing organization. They restructured their organization around the needs of their prospective students, down to hiring decisions.

And while, in the early days, we managed most of their creative production, they eventually built their production team to the point that they now manage all of their own work. And that is something we consider a big win.

“You took us into the 21st century.

The day they flipped the switch, leads literally came in instantaneously. I’d never seen anything like it. It was absolutely incredible!”