OUR RESULTS
Our results speak for themselves
At Swim Digital Group, we are committed to driving innovation in education. Our mission and vision reflect our dedication to transforming access to learning and creating lasting, positive change. Through our fundamental behaviors, we lead the way in revolutionizing the educational experience and ensuring higher education is accessible to all.
Austin Community College
Challenge: ACC faced challenges in solidifying processes and communications for students from the point of interest through the first day of class. The college had systems in place but were not aligned with the student in mind.

Approach: Swim built a series of cross-functional, collaborative Strike Teams across ACC to achieve the following goals: definition and adoption of a college-level enrollment funnel, a comprehensive Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (AMES), the reengineering of both student-facing and business level processes from the point of inquiry through the first day of classes, and the development and implementation of communication journeys and designed, automated communication plans to support the reimagined processes. These Strike Teams were supported by an overarching Change Management team that supported all four of the strike teams.
Solution: Swim evolved the new, clean identity across all AACSB platforms and marketing collaterals using the plaid elements coupled with a refreshed voice and tone across all communication materials. Membership is critical to the success of AACSB, thus shifting the focus and communications to members brings energy, engagement, and support to an audience that is important to AACSB.

Broward Community College
Challenge: Broward College (BC) is ranked among the top 3 colleges in the nation by the Aspen Institute with an annual enrollment of more than 63,000 from more than 180 countries. They offer over 140 programs for certificates, associate’s degrees, and bachelor’s degrees. They also service more than 11 locations within the Fort Lauderdale area.
Like many schools across the country, Broward College was facing enrollment challenges prior to engaging Swim. Additionally, it was difficult to identify the gaps because there were inconsistencies in tracking conversions and measuring data. Their admissions team was using a separate system and inquiry to application conversions weren’t being tracked; roles and responsibilities for college recruiting and prospect conversions were also unclear.
Based on experience and an understanding of the College, the student body, and Broward County, Swim was asked to help the Enrollment Services, Marketing, and IT departments. By leveraging the existing digital platforms and technologies, Swim was to create a solution for their decreasing enrollment.
Approach: Swim held multiple meetings with cross-departmental stakeholders to begin reviewing the current processes and technologies, and also began outlining the critical path to enrollment and the ideal student experience. Based on the ideal student experience and onboarding process, Swim worked to create solutions that could be executed within the existing software.
This was done over a period of time to ensure Swim analyzed new students who just underwent the process, students who dropped out of the institution for various reasons, internal faculty, and staff as well as community members. Swim also knew that in order to deliver recommendations to such complex challenges, they needed to experience the process firsthand. Below is the approach taken:
- Environmental Analysis
- Secret Student Experience
- Focus Groups & Surveys
- Technology Audit
- Change Management
Solution: Through this work, Swim came to multiple solutions that would immediately address the recommendations including:
Project Kickoff: Swim held multiple meetings with cross-departmental stakeholders to begin reviewing the current processes and technologies, and began outlining the critical path to enrollment and the ideal student experience.
Process Re-engineering: Before implementing any of the desired solutions, Broward and Swim had to map the ideal process, agnostic from any current technology and systems.
Student Funnel Development: Implementation began with defining the College’s student onboarding funnel. In collaboration with college constituents, Swim defined their Suspects, Prospects, Respondents, Applicants, and Enrolled students.
Request for Information Form: All digital marketing and recruiting efforts directed to a redesigned form.
Marketing Efforts: Developed criteria to track leads from the very first point of contact through all marketing campaigns leveraging unique URLs for traditional advertising and digital campaigns using UTM codes.
Communications Plan Development: Created and coded a strategic communications plan based on the desired outcomes within the process and enrollment funnel.
Final Results: Since the College started using the first phase of the plan: More than 3,500 prospects completed the RIF or prospect card. Recruiters are completing their monthly calls to prospects and they have seen their enrollment conversion grow over 25%.

Howard Community College
Challenge: Howard was experiencing an enrollment decline and flagging persistence and graduation rates. They had multiple systems and technologies in place but lacked a clear communications plan and structure.
Approach: Swim reimagined Howard’s enrollment operations by building a collaborative team to undertake process reengineering, student journey development, and strategic communication planning. To support the improved student experience, Swim designed Howard’s Student Services Restructure and established the Howard Hub concept as a one-stop center.
Further advancing the college’s goals of not only increasing enrollment but also driving students to completion, Swim partnered with HCC to transition to an 8-week term model, remove developmental education in favor of a co-requisite model, and build a more strategic year-long academic schedule.

Solution: Swim developed position descriptions for the reorganized Student Services division, designed operational structures, and created infrastructure models for the physical space implementation of the one-stop center. We also reengineered the enrollment process to remove barriers to admission and increase access to the college.
In further support of the college’s goals, Swim facilitated the development and implementation planning of a course scheduling model, Accelerated Pathways to Success, aimed at decreasing time to degree, improving persistence and retention, and increasing student graduation rates. Additionally, the transition to corequisite education will remove barriers to student progress and completion.
Currently, Swim is partnering with HCC on their new strategic plan goal of increasing completion rates across the college.

AACSB
Challenge: The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) is the international accrediting body for business schools across the world. They recently developed a new logo, but needed an execution strategy to launch their new brand worldwide. AACSB engaged Swim to assist in the activation of their new brand identity, the development of their website, and their content delivery strategy.

Approach: Swim was asked to evolve their new logo identity into a living, breathing element of AACSB brand identity. This required a streamlined membership experience via communications; both online and at worldwide events (face-to-face and virtually).
To fulfill AACSB’s goal, Swim prioritized in the following areas:
Website UI/UX Design
Website Ontology
Trade Show Materials
Membership Collateral
Membership Recruitment
Membership Recruitment
Solution: Swim evolved the new, clean identity across all AACSB platforms and marketing collaterals using the plaid elements coupled with a refreshed voice and tone across all communication materials. Membership is critical to the success of AACSB, thus shifting the focus and communications to members brings energy, engagement, and support to an audience that is important to AACSB.
Rockland Community College
Challenge: As Rockland Community College (RCC) was faced with the need to take a new approach to their brand and their enrollment efforts, they wanted to shift from a PR & Communications model to a strategic marketing and enrollment model. To make this shift, they needed to examine their current marketing and recruiting efforts, so they engaged Swim to analyze current processes from the prospective student’s view point, the infrastructure to meet the needs of a growing and expanding institution, as well as the overall enrollment pipeline.

Approach: To meet this challenge, Swim embarked on a journey with RCC that included two phases.The first phase, Research and Analysis, informed the college of next steps to address their challenges. The second phase of the project, Implementation, allowed us to partner with the college to take action on the next steps we identified.
Solution: We gained an in-depth understanding of their Communications team, their roles and responsibilities, as well as what role their team played on the college stage in context of acquisition of new leads and the development of new programs. Through multiple deep dive sessions, focus groups, and discovery sessions, we wanted to map our current processes to identify gaps and opportunities for prospective students to fall out of their enrollment funnel. Through extensive time with their research team, we gained a firm understanding of the composition of their student enrollment and needs.
From this data gathering, we provided extensive findings and recommendations that led to the restructuring of a Strategic Marketing and Student Services model. Some of these recommendations included:

Communications Departmental Restructure
Restructuring of the Communications Department to build a strategic marketing department charged with elevating the brand position for the institution within the service area.

Communications Departmental Restructure
Restructuring of the Communications Department to build a strategic marketing department charged with elevating the brand position for the institution within the service area.
Communications Plan
Development
Developing process maps and strategic Communications Plans, as they begin implementation of a new Enterprise Resource Planning System.
UI/UX Brand Redesign
Redesigning their website, to a more user friendly look and feel. It was built, and designed, with converting prospective students in mind.
With their infrastructure in place to begin implementation of the transformative work, Swim partnered with RCC to begin:
- List harvesting for prospective students who have never applied to RCC before
- Developing communication and intervention strategies for students along the entire lifecycle of the enrollment funnel
- Digital marketing strategies that are catered to students and prospects based on their current status within the enrollment funnel
- Text message and phone call campaigns for students
The development of a user-friendly, interactive, modern, and easy-to-edit website that can serve as a marketing tool as well as a lasting first impression for potential students. Keeping in mind that this site would be the primary marketing tool for RCC, laying out a solid framework for the website design was an important first step for this project. Implemented elements of the website include, but are not limited to:
- Web Design
- Responsive Platform
- HTML/CSS
- CMS Development
- Website Hosting Recommend
- Photo Galleries
- Create and Edit Calendars
- Staff Directory
- News and Media Center
Final Results: After assessing all of the content and graphic requirements for the site, our designers went to work to provide a mobile responsive interface that included areas for marketing messages, news, calendars, and social media. Just like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, it’s a delicate task that our professional designers tackled with ease to get all the components of the concept to fit together nicely. Additionally, the refinement in RCC’s communication and enrollment funnel strategy helped the institution exceed enrollment goals by 3% for the first time in 5 years. This was a significant increase, being that this was the first enrollment campaign that used a fresh approach to data collection for the service areas, allowing RCC to recognize their target group and establish effective, productive communications that drove success.
Northeast Wisconsin Technical College

Challenge: Northeast Wisconsin Technical College (NWTC) has long been acknowledged as one of the leading technical institutions in the Midwest due to their strong brand and community reputation. NWTC needed to ensure they remained in the forefront of service delivery across their main and satellite campuses. NWTC engaged Swim Digital Group (Swim) to assist with communicating to prospective students from the inquiry to enrollment phase and existing students for re-enrollment retention efforts.
NWTC had already purchased a CRM, but wanted to ensure that the processes and communications that they used during the implementation ensured that their students received the most effective and streamlined communications in the most timely, relevant, and personalized manner.
Approach: As students enter NWTC for the first time, it’s critical that they have a smooth and informational onboarding experience. Swim immediately started by getting a firm understanding of NWTC, their data, and their students. This was done through comprehensive deep dive sessions and internal research. Early on, Swim realized that NWTC required a strong Customer Relationship Management system (CRM) to support current student communications. Students were either receiving little to no communication or an abundance of communications from multiple departments, causing students to ignore outreach efforts.

Solution: After conducting a thorough analysis on their student life cycle, Swim proposed opportunities for improvement within the institution. Swim then implemented an all-inclusive onboarding strategy with both time and trigger-based flows of communication that occurs once a student has enrolled.

Final Results: NWTC trusted Swim to conduct intensive deep dives and processing mapping strategies in support of their student onboarding and retention initiatives. Since our partnership, NWTC has celebrated enrollment growth, healthy retention growth, and a very clear ability to identify challenges in enrollment gaps to solve them immediately.

Saint Petersburg College
Challenge: St. Petersburg College (SPC) faced a significant challenge with declining student completion rates, particularly among African-American and Hispanic males. The college identified a need to improve student engagement and retention through better utilization of support services and enhanced communication strategies.

Approach: Swim began their collaboration with SPC by conducting a comprehensive digital assessment. This assessment led to the development of a marketing prospectus that provided actionable recommendations aimed at creating a better student experience. Key suggestions included:
- Implementing a robust social media strategy
- Introducing interactive engagement methods for students
- Enhancing the website to improve usability and user experience
Following these initial recommendations, Swim partnered with the Student Services department to develop “The College Experience.” This strategic plan was designed to address the identified challenges by focusing on several core areas:
- Identifying factors contributing to low utilization of student support services
- Reengineering communication strategies to better engage students
- Creating a comprehensive communications plan to support students from their initial inquiry through their first term
- Developing a college-wide process to ensure a cohesive student experience
Swim’s role included overseeing strategic planning, brand development, and creating value propositions for “The College Experience.” To effectively communicate this plan to both internal and external audiences, Swim developed a brand identity for the initiative and created detailed documents and presentations explaining its components and benefits.
Solution: The implementation of “The College Experience” led to significant improvements in student success rates at SPC. Within the first 12 months, the college saw a 16% increase in success rates for African-American males and a 15.8% increase for Hispanic males. The initiative also garnered national recognition from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for SPC’s commitment to student engagement and retention.
Following this success, Swim continued to collaborate with SPC on various projects, including branding and design for major events. From 2015 to 2018, Swim managed the branding and design for SPC’s annual events:

For each event, Swim created overarching themes and logo designs, such as the 2017 theme celebrating the new president with the tagline “We Are. You Are. I Am. SPC.” Additionally, Swim supported the marketing efforts for the annual Moving the Needle conference, handling email marketing campaigns, social media content, website maintenance, and all conference collateral.
This comprehensive approach required close collaboration with various SPC departments and the marketing team, involving regular committee planning meetings and daily communication with assigned points of contact.
Solution:
Student Success:
Significant increase in success rates for African-American (16%) and Hispanic males (15.8%) within the first year.
National Recognition:
SPC received acknowledgment from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Enhanced Events:
Successful branding and design for major SPC events, fostering greater community and faculty engagement.
Effective Marketing:
Improved marketing and support for the Moving the Needle conference, resulting in higher registrant, sponsor, and speaker engagement.
Morgan State University
Challenge: Morgan State University (Morgan State) contacted Swim to evaluate their current onboarding efforts. Their challenge was due to apparent gaps in processing time for students being onboarded to the University, but it was unclear on exactly where. They also wanted to implement a One Stop Center for students so that there was a single team responsible for the engagement and communications for students, from the moment they are a prospect through to graduation – as it related to Student Affairs. They asked to identify gaps and propose solutions that offer process changes, as well as communications structure for students on the path of enrollment and re-enrollment at Morgan State.
Approach: To accomplish the objective above, Swim worked with university leadership and the identified stakeholders for the work ahead. In partnership with stakeholders, Swim analyzed current processes through “Mock-Sessions”, Deep Dives, and Secret Student Experience services. This engagement included all departments that engage the students outside of the classroom to include: admissions, registrar, student life, advising, and financial aid. From these fact finding sessions, Swim worked with stakeholders to develop the path forward.
Solution: To create a cohesive process and singular voice, Swim proposed the implementation of the following for Morgan State:
Bear Essentials
The development of Bear Essentials, a call center responsible for Morgan State’s Admission, Residence Life, and Financial Aid communications and triage. Bear Essentials served as the first point of contact that allowed students to ask questions and transfer to ancillary departments, if necessary. This implementation helped kick off the process of transitioning Morgan’s siloed departments into a single cohesive brand.
Social Media Takeover
Additionally, Swim took over Morgan State’s social media accounts to support the Enrollment Management Student Success team. By providing streamlined posts and content for Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, Swim helped Morgan State promote Bear Essentials, as well as provide another point of communication for students.
Communications Plans
The creation of an onboarding communication plan that directs students to Bear Essentials for commonly asked questions. It also directed students to the necessary departments for critical needs such as payment plan development, housing appointments, and faculty advising.
Final Results: The primary indicator that helped Morgan State realize that Swim was needed was the number of complaints to the call center and executive staff. This was significantly decreased within 6 months of the implementation. Additionally, students had less need to call for assistance and guidance due to the improved clarity of communications and next steps.

Discover Our Impact: Swim Results Book
Dive into our Results Book to witness the transformative journey of exponential growth, disruptive innovation, and unwavering dedication to student success. Experience how we’re revolutionizing higher education by placing students at the forefront of every endeavor.