AMERICAN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

Digital PR Case Study

GIST OF THE STORY

How implementing a digital PR strategy helped AU’s school of education to reach more students by boosting visibility and rankings, generating organic traffic, and helping to amplify the school and faculty’s brand awareness and thought leadership.

In 2017, American University partnered with Noodle Partners to guide their design, development, marketing and launch of their online two online master’s degree programs in the school of education. As a trusted Noodle marketing partner, Circa Interactive was brought into the project to create and execute an innovative digital PR strategy in order to help with the new online programs’ visibility, rankings, organic traffic, brand awareness, and thought leadership.

THE PROBLEM

  • Making the school of education stand out in a very saturated and competitive market
  • Reaching prospective students organically
  • Helping the new school of education’s microsite rank for relevant, student-generating keywords

THE SOLUTION

Leverage faculty/stakeholder knowledge and expertise to secure high-quality media placements that will further establish thought leadership, expand brand awareness, define program differentiators, and build quality backlinks for SEO that influence search rankings and act as vital trust signals for Google.

Implementing a digital PR strategy will contribute to the following end-goals and benefits:

  • Expand brand awareness
  • Build on thought leadership
  • Faculty engagement/buy-in
  • Increase organic traffic to the site
  • Generate high-quality backlinks to the site
Education Marketing Tactics Graphic
seo
digital-pr
social-media
brand-content-dev
analytics
paid-media
program-feasibility
web-dev
lead-nurturing
ai-chat

THE RESULT

Over 40 media placements, including features in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Huffington Post, The Hill, IEEE, The Conversation, Education Week, Salon, Psychology Today, Education Dive, Chicago Tribune, and more.

108472

Total earned media value

ORGANIC TRAFFIC

1,226 / mo

Organic Traffic Graph

NOTABLE PR PLACEMENTS SECURED ON BEHALF OF AU FACULTY:

Forbes Logo

Take Fake News by the Reins

Ad value: $10,098.90

30 million UVPM

Entrepreneur Logo

Looking for a Brand
Ambassador? Hire a Teacher

Ad value: $3,737.88

16 million UVPM

The Hill Logo

The New Healthcare Bill Could Worsen
the Stigma of Special Education

$9,562.38

12 million UVPM

Psychology Today Logo

How and Why the Arts Support
Language Learning and Cognition

Ad value: $5,450.78

13.7 million UVPM

IEEE Logo

How to Get More Girls
Interested in STEM Fields

Ad value: $1,156.77

5.03 UVPM

The Conversation Logo

Why Parents Should Check Twice
Before Offering Holiday Sweets

Ad Value: $211.65

920k UVPM

HuffPost Logo

Why STEM Toys Should be on
Your List for the Holidays

Ad value: $18,496.43

23 million UVPM

Education Week Logo

After Parkland, Where
Do We Go from Here?

Ad value: $506.82

1.1 million UVPM

Salon Logo

Arming Teachers Won’t Help
Our Educator Shortage

Ad value: $19,249.18

23.9 million UVPM

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