Growing Inland Achievement (GIA) is a California-based nonprofit organization aimed at helping low-income and disadvantaged populations enter higher education. Their goal is to create a vibrant, diversified workforce and thriving economic communities in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. GIA is a successful nonprofit and is proud to be one of six intermediary organizations selected by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to lead postsecondary transformation efforts at more than 250 U.S. colleges and universities. When a massive new hurdle arose in front of its community and mission, GIA reached out to Echo-Factory.
The Looming New FAFSA Challenge
When Congress and the U.S. Department of Education made sweeping changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) process for 2024-25 – with the admirable intent to streamline the application process – the changes inadvertently introduced major delays. While the changes affected all 17 million students who typically apply each year, the delays significantly impacted low-income and underrepresented students.
To address the delays, the Department of Education issued a FAFSA College Support Strategy that earmarked $50M in federal funding for nonprofit groups specializing in financial aid support and services. When GIA was awarded a College Support Strategy grant – one of just 74 organizations in the country – GIA turned to Echo-Factory to help it create an easier, more informative website with a fast-acting marketing plan that could ensure success.
Emergency Speed Required
Echo-Factory took on the task at the end of May, giving us just the month of June to create and implement a FAFSA College Support Strategy for GIA. The speedy two-month campaign launched on July 1 and ended on August 31. To get a winning start off on the right foot, Echo-Factory did a deep dive into research and local data to identify the most effective target audience and strategy for success. We learned that students often seek advice from parents and educators regarding educational attainment. Based on all of our findings, we developed a marketing plan that identified five distinct audiences to guide our strategy:
- High School Students
- Current College Students
- Working Adults Who Are Also Seeking a College Education
- Parents
- Educators
This breakdown lets GIA engage more specifically with recent high school graduates, adults, parents, and educators about how to apply for financial aid via FAFSA – or for CADAA, which is for undocumented and AB 540-eligible students in California. Applying for FAFSA or CADAA opens doors for grants, scholarships, work-study, and low-interest federal loans, especially for low-income and underrepresented students.
Website Transformation with an Integrated Marketing Plan
Next, we created an integrated marketing campaign that included nine distinct components designed to work seamlessly together for maximum effect:
- New User Experience: We transformed the original website created at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic into a goal-driven experience for each audience: Inland Empire Success. We also deployed the website in English and Spanish to serve the needs of Hispanic households.
- Content Marketing: We worked with GIA to generate unique content for each audience, adding 60 new information-rich pages. Plus, we added high-value journey-specific content on applying for FAFSA and CADAA to help students prepare for filing, complete the application, and understand what happens after completing the application.
- Digital Advertising: We created a two-month awareness campaign targeting select audiences in the Inland Empire with programmatic advertising, streaming radio ads on Spotify, and social media advertising, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
- Podcasts: GIA operates several podcasts on education, and our campaign leverages these podcasts to maximize audience reach.
- Public Relations: A public relations campaign was also created to leverage community-based organizations in the Inland Empire to help spread the word about the value of applying for FAFSA and CADAA.
- Events & Workshops: For in-person marketing and support services, GIA lined up integrated events and workshops, including hiring student interns to support these activities.
- Organic Search: To take advantage of organic search, our plan included website optimizations to obtain top rankings and drive awareness on Google for Inland Empire Colleges from interested students, working adults, and parents.
- Social Media: Our target audiences are heavy social media users, so our plan calls for promoting the website on social media to help people discover the opportunities behind applying for the FAFSA and CADAA.
- Customer Relationship Management: We simultaneously deployed a CRM to ensure that all marketing efforts continue building relationships with audiences for future campaigns and improved customer service.
Driving Educational Attainment
In the Inland Empire, postsecondary educational attainment lags behind other regions of California. To make things more challenging, enrollment dropped after the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to completely rebound. When the U.S. Department of Education delayed the application process, it significantly impacted low-income and underrepresented students, especially those in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. We are thrilled that Growing Inland Achievement chose Echo-Factory to revamp its Inland Empire Success website, making it easier for students and their families to apply for financial aid and help create a stronger community with broader economic vitality.
Help us spread the word throughout the Inland Empire – if you read this before August 31, 2024, students can still apply for financial aid!
If you liked the work we delivered for Growing Inland Achievement, we could help your not-for-profit organization. Echo-Factory has collaborated with several organizations focused on improving social conditions for their audiences through marketing and advertising services. Complete our contact form to schedule a conversation.
