Case Study
New York Law School
Brand and Messaging Evolution to Engage a New Generation of Prospective Law Students
The Challenge
New York Law School is an independent institution located steps from the halls of power in Lower Manhattan and has been serving a non-traditional and diverse student population for more than 130 years. Forecasting declining enrollment rates for 2025 and beyond, NYLS engaged Town Hall to review and refresh its brand voice and marketing approach to mitigate this looming enrollment cliff and attract more aspiring lawyers to their institution.
What We Did
- Brand Messaging
- Channel Strategy
- Creative Design
- Paid Media Strategy
- Paid Media Execution
The Solution
Beginning with a series of stakeholder interviews, we evaluated NYLS’ current marketing materials, including the website, organic social, and email content and schedule. Through this evaluation, we identified an opportunity to peel back the curtain on the supportive, encouraging environment we learned about from stakeholders that was not reflected in their public-facing materials.
We created audience personas to define the needs and desires of prospective students and key influencers (i.e., parents, faculty, career advisors), wrote new messaging pillars to refresh the narratives and storytelling focus, and revised the design and visual approach for branded materials across channels. We also evolved the brand voice, which we updated to include welcoming and supportive language while retaining a knowledgeable and professional tone.
We identified how best to implement this new tone across owned and paid channels and created detailed implementation recommendations for email segmentation, automations, and messaging. We also built and launched a paid media strategy designed to drive awareness and incremental enrollments for the upcoming academic year.
The Impact
Beginning with the website, we refreshed the copy on key pages to reflect the new voice and tone, are integrating the new messaging pillars and tone in admissions emails to engage prospective and admitted students. We have also launched the school’s first paid media campaigns driving to a customized landing page with trackable form submissions.
8.6%
CTR from paid search
$1.66
CPC from Town Hall Exchange audiences