success stories
University of Maryland
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Compared to other providers, PBJ has more expert knowledge on how to use various social media marketing tools. We had similar ad budgets for Facebook, Twitter, and a variety of other areas. We found that the volume and the quality of the leads exceeded that of any of the other 3 providers. Maybe a lot of people can figure out how to manage a Facebook campaign, but they may not necessarily have the level of expertise. PBJ has a superior level of familiarity and expertise. I think they have a data-driven mentality of what we’re doing and where we’re doing it. They’ve also exceeded my expectations as far as their technical acumen on the web design as far as how to use tracking codes and integrate a lot of the technical pieces to make the data manageable. The other agencies were creative in the context that they could use Photoshop, but I didn’t really get the sense that they understood as much of the data and analytics.
They balance being data-driven but also being highly attentive and responsive. Although we have some scheduled time together periodically, if we do have a question or a concern, if something looks broken, or if we feel like we broke something accidentally, we reach out to them and get a quick response. We use LuckyOrange for the general site traffic management. We use ActiveCampaign for our content marketing and broadcast emails. We use Funnel.io as our reporting system to track our performance on the different media channels.
We typically enroll a class of 30 and do 2 intakes per year. In the year that PBJ’s been with us, we probably have 30 graduate students that we might not have had otherwise. We offer a $20,000 program, so that translates to $600,000 in added revenue. When I look at the sophistication of our marketing campaigns, I know my cost-per-lead, what we’re spending, what the results are, what the path of a student is to us, how we’re doing our lead management of these students, and why we’re doing all these things. I think that we are the most effective team on campus for doing that. A lot of university marketing is still very traditional. Many departments on campus are still doing billboards and radio. When we’re in meetings with other groups on campus and discussing our marketing activities, we get a lot of blank stares. I think it’s to PBJ’s credit that they stay current on some of the latest strategies and techniques for branding and marketing something traditional like a degree in an innovative space and a cost-effective way.