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We Deliver Solutions. Period.

We Help Colleges & Universities Improve
Their Student Experience

As the focus on student success becomes more paramount,
colleges and universities are taking proactive measures to
understand the results of their recruitment and retention efforts in
order to identify ways to grow enrollment and increase retention.
Swim Digital Group offers custom solutions to your unique
challenges and opportunities by immersing ourselves in your
culture to fully understand their potential impact. This approach
allows us to identify with your organizational climate to determine
and recommend solutions that deliver results. Swim specializes in
proven strategies that guide students from their first college inquiry
through their walk across the graduation stage.



Do You Know How

Your Prospects Feel?

Digital Assessment
Secret Shopping

Customer Service Taskforce
Onboarding Process Review

The Student Experience

Digital Assessment

The human factor needed to engage prospects and retain current students
is often an afterthought for educational institutions. For some students,
the online enrollment process and online learning experience are handled
completely in the digital space. Swim works with you to define your students’
actual online experience, develop workflows, and identify paths to entry and
student completion – enabling your college to put the students first.

Secret Shopping

The quality of services provided by your recruiting, admissions, advising,
and enrollment teams directly correlates with enrollment outcomes. Poor
customer service, both internally and externally, affects more than just morale,
it impacts your students’ experience and the reputation of your institution.
Swim executes secret shopping and delivers reports that arm you with data to
review and evaluate current practices in order to identify areas of opportunity.
This service gives you an in-depth understanding of the experiential gap,
defining the perceived path versus the actual student interaction.

Customer Service Taskforce

Enrollment growth requires retaining current students in addition to recruiting
new students. A lack of focus on customer service can negatively impact an
organization, especially if students do not know they are valued and a part of
your college family. The quality of service and support they receive enables
them to achieve their personal and educational goals. Swim defines what
customer service means for your college through taskforce development
and training initiatives, laying the groundwork for a paradigm shift within the
institution. Breaking down silos to achieve cross-departmental efficiencies
and college-wide communication creates a positive environment where
everyone, from groundskeepers to senior vice presidents, is dedicated to
superior customer service.

Onboarding Process Review

Defining a solid onboarding process creates a foundation for current students
so they are off to a smart start. The failure to institute best practices results in
decreased enrollment, retention, persistence, and graduation outcomes.
Swim provides a thorough analysis of your onboarding process, including
current people, processes, and technology. The data uncovers college-wide
opportunities for implementation of scalable and sustainable solutions which
optimize and streamline processes, and allow for technology integration
resulting in improved student success.

Strategic Consulting

Change Management

Undertaking significant projects to shift organizational focus, improve
performance, or address key issues requires management techniques that
address the full impact of change on organizations and their workforce.
To offset potential opposition and prevent catastrophic results, planning
and systematic execution is required for a successful implementation of
strategic initiatives. Swim works with you and your key stakeholders utilizing
change management techniques providing you with the framework and tools
necessary to realize organizational goals.

Taskforce Leadership

Developing taskforces within your institution to implement initiatives ensures
all stakeholders have a voice in the process. This is critical to the success of
projects and produces significantly better results than implementing top-down
changes. Swim leads your team through large undertakings with an unbiased
approach to allow all members to actively contribute while keeping the focus
on the students, not the process.

Technology Integration

The evolution of new technology has changed how institutions conduct
business. From enterprise resource planning (ERP) software to customer
relationship management systems (CRMs), institutions often purchase
software within departments in an effort to solve a short-term issue, leading
to long-term problems for the organization as a whole. Swim maps all
software owned by the organization and defines its capabilities to determine
opportunities for integration and the benefits realized by students, users,
services, processes, systems, and data.

Performance Funding Planning and Reporting

The implementation of performance funding models by State Boards of
Education across the United States has tasked individual colleges with the
onus of interpreting the legislation and metrics by which they are measured.
Correctly understanding the measures and selecting the areas of focus
which have the largest impact are imperative to institutional success.
Swim is well-versed in performance funding measures and will help you
successfully navigate the multi-faceted process of educating stakeholders and
implementing the necessary changes to achieve improved performance and
increased state funding.



Strategic Restructuring
Change Readiness
Staff Onboarding

Organizational Alignment

Strategic Restructuring

A poorly executed restructure can turn a good concept into a catastrophe.
For improved institutional success, a change in job roles or staffing may
be necessary to effectively meet the needs of students. As an impartial
perspective leads to an objective solution, Swim partners with you to identify
the challenges within your marketing, recruiting, admissions, and student
services teams to determine if a strategic restructure is needed. During
a strategic restructure, we walk you through the process, from onset to
conclusion, producing the best possible outcome.

Change Readiness

Prior to the successful implementation of strategic initiatives, a degree of
impending change and impact among all stakeholders needs to be realized in
order to achieve optimal results. Developing and executing communications
which clearly convey the beneficial value of the change allows for increased
buy-in and individual ownership of the shift in direction. Swim will assess
the willingness and ability to accept change, provide recommendations
for communicating impending announcements, and develop pertinent
communications needed to mitigate potential resistance.

Staff Onboarding

In a team environment where student prospecting, recruitment, and enrollment
is at the core of the job, the need for new staff members to have a solid
understanding of social and performance expectations is paramount. Swim
works with department managers, senior leadership, and human resources
to ensure new hires quickly adjust to all aspects of the job and adopt the
knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to function effectively within the
organization.

Process & Communication Reengineering

CRM Consulting & Implementation

A Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system is among the most
strategic pieces of technology an organization institutes. For a successful
implementation, a CRM must complement the abilities of people and processes
connected with it. As a vendor neutral firm, Swim works with key stakeholders
in the selection and deployment process. We provide template design and
backend development, plus implementation of communications plans and
workflows for a successful deployment of a college-wide CRM.

Communication Plans

Collegiate prospects represent multiple types of prospect personas at different
stages in their lives, requiring personalized communications. To attract and
successfully convert leads, it is crucial to engage with prospects at the initial
inquiry stage through graduation. Swim outlines the process and develops
the tools to cultivate authentic relationships where students feel welcome and
a part of the collegiate family. With the execution of strategic communication
plans across multiple channels, we provide you with the framework to leverage
technology and the human-factor to ensure outreach efforts are personal,
timely, and relevant – evoking the actions needed to move students through the
enrollment process.

DDEEFFININEEYOYUOR UPARTHPROCESS

BENCHMARKING/
MEASUREMENT

CHANGE DEVELOPMENT/
MANAGEMENT/ COMMUNICATION
PROCESS MAPPING

STRATEGY PROCESS
DEVELOPMENT REVIEW

RESEARCH/
INTERVIEWS

ASSESSMENT

Welcome to College!

Digital Marketing for Higher Ed

Digital Communication and Marketing

The journey of finding a collegiate home requires prospective students to
navigate the noise found in the digital space where they are bombarded with
college recruitment communications. As their search progresses, there is
a need for strategic communications that deliver useful information, quickly
moving them along the decision making process. Swim creates targeted,
institutionally branded digital and traditional marketing pieces that resonate
with the target audience across multiple platforms.

Web & Landing Page Development

Information, design, navigability, branding, mobile capability, page load speed,
and a myriad of important elements are critical to the success of a site. Poorly
designed or outdated sites harm your online presence and reputation. Swim
develops comprehensive websites and custom landing pages that create
a positive experience to reinforce your institution’s brand. With thorough
planning during the development phase, managed implementation, and
scheduled systematic updates, your institution’s online messaging will
effectively reach your audience.

Digital Viewbooks & Mobile Applications

In our digitally connected society, we are accustomed to having access to
information instantly on our tablets and mobile devices. Institutions that do not
take advantage of current and emerging technologies may miss opportunities
to interact and engage with current and prospective students. Swim develops
digital assets that inform, create a sense of place and community, and
promote student success efforts by providing access to information, campus
maps, student support services, and virtual advising through the creation of
viewbooks and mobile applications.

Digital Advertising

Targeting prospects through a strategic mix of digital advertising across
multiple online platforms is crucial to building an effective advertising
strategy. When institutions fail to create a pipeline for delivering quality leads,
enrollment outcomes can be difficult to track and are adversely affected.
Swim partners with your marketing team to implement a digital media strategy
using targeted messaging to increase inbound traffic and generate more
conversions to meet organizational goals.

Traditional Creative Services

Innovative design and clear messaging is needed to connect students with your brand
through marketing efforts. Colleges that do not have a targeted and focused marketing
plan waste time and resources. Swim understands the complexities of collegiate
communications and maximizes brand standards to produce customized marketing
materials enabling your organization to communicate effectively to prospects, students,
faculty, staff, and stakeholders.

Our Creative Services Include:

Collateral Design
College Viewbook (Print)
Outdoor Signage
Tradeshow Design
Environmental Design
Logo Development
Internal Initiative Branding
Annual Report
Event Planning and Execution
Content Creation/Editing
Print Campaign Development

PRINT

BRAND

LOOKBOOK

REPORTS

MAILOUTDOOR