Thomas Jefferson Independent Day School
Metric x Finalsite:
Our Partnership, Your School Advantage
Meet Our Schools
William Penn Charter School
A historic, well-established independent school with strong enrollment.
Their goal was not to fix an enrollment gap but modernize their digital strategy to maintain mindshare, stay competitive in a changing market, and deliver a digital experience that matched their prestige and legacy.
Read more about our campaign development with Penn Charter here.
Harrow International School New York
A globally recognized brand launching a new campus stateside.
They faced the challenge of building an entire enrollment program from the ground up, which required both foundational platform setup and a guiding strategy that would unify their ambitious admissions and marketing goals. With a new team and no existing workflows or data, Harrow required comprehensive platform architecture and a guiding strategy to jump-start their marketing and admissions efforts toward ambitious enrollment targets.
Their Challenges
Both schools shared common pain points that hindered efficiency and growth:
- Outdated or Inefficient Email Systems: Relying on manual communications at all key admissions touchpoints consumed valuable time for staff.
- Disconnected Website Experiences: As is often the case for schools, application paths through the website included some inefficient and complex forms, creating friction for users and potentially hampering admissions leads.
- Limited Use of Platform Capabilities: Advanced Finalsite features such as segmentation, EMS to CMS integration, and automation were not being fully leveraged, meaning opportunities for driving momentum and key admissions actions were left off the table.
- Stretched Teams: Admissions and marketing teams were consistently stretched thin, lacking the time to explore or implement new, powerful platform features.
- Data Gaps: Like many schools, Penn Charter and Harrow’s digital workflows featured a mix of strategic and ad hoc solutions that made gathering and understanding actionable insights – and therefore ROI – a challenge.
The Finalsite Strategy
Our collaborative approach meets you where you are. We partner with you to develop customized strategies that address your unique goals, challenges, assets, and expertise.
We don’t sell you software. We find the untapped potential in the software you have and leverage it to unlock enrollment growth.
For Penn Charter and Harrow, our approach began with an audit wherein our experts identified how each school was (and was not) using their current platforms. Then, we developed strategies to align their tech and capabilities with their marketing and enrollment objectives.
We strategically leveraged Finalsite’s tools:
- Data Segmentation: We designed web forms for each school to convert and segment interested users. This approach simplified data collection for the Harrow and Penn Charter teams, enabling granular list-building and personalized communications.
- Nurturing Automation: We configured each school’s email program to seamlessly nurture families across the admissions life cycle – from initial lead generation to inquiry, application start, and application completion.
- Personalized Communications: We implemented behavior-based triggers that automatically send personalized, relevant communications based on a family’s admissions status, grade, or program interests.
- Pipeline Alignment: We integrated Finalsite Enrollment (EMS) and Finalsite Constituent Manager (CMS), providing the Penn Charter and Harrow teams with a live-updated database of inquiries and applicants available for marketing.
We unlocked Finalsite’s full potential to work smarter for each school’s overarching enrollment strategy.
The Execution
Penn Charter
While auditing Penn Charter’s existing communications strategy, we identified that admissions staff were extremely effective at supporting families through the admissions process. Reach outs happened quickly after action or inaction had taken place, communications were highly personalized, and it was clear families felt supported by their admissions associate.
However, with no automated systems in place, a great deal of manual effort was required to make it work. Additionally, the team felt their current communications mix was more transactional than relational, resulting in missed opportunities to build engagement with their pool of prospective families.
We took the following steps:
- Recommended Finalsite Enrollment: Penn Charter was considering a new EMS to replace their existing system. We recommended Finalsite Enrollment as the solution to solve their admissions pain points, provide new marketing opportunities, and augment the features available with their existing Finalsite Composer website.
- Directed EMS → CMS: We worked with the Finalsite Integration team to sync inquiry and applicant records from Finalsite Enrollment to Finalsite Constituent Manager in order to leverage Finalsite Workflows for automated nurturing.
- Implemented Automated Email Sequences: We rolled out sophisticated email sequences through Finalsite Workflows, including automated drip campaigns that targeted leads, inquiries, and applicants (synced over from the EMS), ensuring communications were always timely and relevant.
Examples:
- Enrolling new leads from our ad campaign into a welcome series that introduced the school’s differentiators and encouraged formal inquiry or event attendance. (Leads were automatically removed once they had taken action.)
- Enrolling new EMS inquiries into a drip series segmented by grade to offer specific student stories, parent perspectives, and the school’s commitment to DEIB while encouraging event registration and application. (Users were automatically removed once they become an applicant.)
- Enrolling applicants into a nurture series to maintain momentum and encourage application completion. (Applicants were automatically removed once they completed their application.)
- Refreshed Messaging: We evolved and aligned messaging across all digital platforms to deliver a consistent, personal, and differentiated digital experience that reinforced the school’s prestige.
- Streamlined Ad Campaign ROI Reporting: In conjunction with Finalsite’s Leadflow form feature, we established a live-updating view of ad campaign success that was available for the Penn Charter team to monitor in Finalsite Enrollment. There, the team could see in real time how many campaign leads resulted in formal inquiries, applicants, and enrollments, helping to establish a quantifiable and up-to-date return on investment.
Harrow
We partnered closely with Harrow from day one, working with their team to build their entire Finalsite Enrollment and Finalsite Workflows communication setup. We also helped create data- and objectives-aligned communication workflows.
Our solutions included the following:
- Enrollment Architecture: We designed and built Harrow’s complete marketing platform foundation. This included optimizing custom user paths from the website to the admissions workflow in Finalsite Enrollment, developing the admissions communication strategy, and building marketing reporting dashboards.
- Supported the EMS → CMS Integration: We worked with the Finalsite Integration team to sync inquiry and applicant records to Finalsite Constituent Manager, facilitating entry into automated email workflows.
- Launched Automated Email Sequences: We deployed targeted, multi-stage email campaigns using Finalsite Workflows to ensure all automated outreach was context-specific, timely, and highly relevant to individual needs at each admissions step.
- Segmentation Strategy: We developed detailed segmentation strategies to target prospects by admissions status, and we built out dynamically growing segmented communication lists that provided invaluable clarity for marketing efforts.
- Optimized Messaging: We designed and automated emails that powerfully reinforced the distinct Harrow brand at each stage of the admissions process.
- Increased Visibility of Performance Tracking: Through Finalsite’s Leadflow feature, we established transparent, real-time reporting that was accessible to the Harrow team via Finalsite Enrollment. This allowed them to measure the number of web-generated leads that became inquiries, applicants, and enrolled students in order to meaningfully assess the financial return on all their marketing efforts.
The Results
Marketing and admissions teams at Penn Charter and Harrow experienced significant benefits as a result of
our partnerships:
- Streamlined Workflows: With our work in place, their admissions workflows were optimized and streamlined, greatly reducing their administrative burden and freeing up staff for higher-value work – including, perhaps most importantly, face time with the families they serve.
- Strengthened Engagement: Families received timely, personalized communications, which dramatically strengthened engagement and the value of the school experience.
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- Harrow average marketing email open rate: 60% (industry average: 51%)
- Harrow average marketing email click rate: 12% (industry average: 5–6%)
- Harrow average email workflow conversion rate: 8%
- Penn Charter average marketing email open rate: 80%
- Penn Charter average marketing email click rate: 11%
- Penn Charter average email workflow conversion rate: 12%
- Improved Data Tracking: The improved data tracking and reporting we delivered led to better alignment and transparency between marketing and admissions teams. Admissions had a direct line of sight into how many of their leads, inquiries, and applicants came directly from marketing’s efforts – with reporting from Finalsite Enrollment, Finalsite Workflows, and Google Analytics all rolled into holistic reports.
- Proactive Teams: Both schools’ teams gained greater visibility into how their enrollment funnels were working, empowering them to proactively identify new opportunities and address potential bottlenecks.
- Communities: Newly enrolled families entered their schools with the information they needed to feel confident in their decisions and already connected with their new community.
Technology alone doesn’t solve enrollment challenges — strategic implementation does.
As a trusted Finalsite partner, Metric Marketing works with your team and your software to deliver expert solutions that connect you
with the right-fit families you need to grow.
Read more of our success stories, learn more about the services we offer, or use the contact form below to get in touch with our team.
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