Case Study: TargetX and Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Challenges: Engaging and recruiting more prospective students, nurturing more faculty connections, and orchestrating integration across a multicampus network.

When Michelangelo Balicco took on his current role as the director of marketing at the university, he knew that engaging with Gen Z prospects successfully would require new, innovative strategies. He understood that conventional approaches that once yielded favorable outcomes are proving inadequate with a population that relies heavily on social media, has an inherent affinity for technology, and possesses a desire for freedom and flexibility over conventional social constructs.

Balicco quickly realized the university needed a solution to help engage and recruit more prospective students, nurture more faculty connections, and orchestrate integration across a multicampus network.

Solutions: The TargetX CRM provides the ability to evaluate engagement, response rates, and behavior in real-time so that strategies can be modified to connect with prospects.

Using the TargetX CRM, Balicco and his team can compare the performance of different types of marketing campaigns, analyze results to predict future behavior, and adjust tactics to increase the success of the institution’s initiatives.

“TargetX is a very precise tool. Having data in real-time makes my job easier. I can compare one event to another and change my strategy, maybe using other channels to promote our programs to prospective students. That’s very important,” notes Balicco.

Results: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore has increased its international student population more than tenfold, unified operations across five campuses, and improved targeted communications and engagement.

Balicco credits Liaison’s TargetX CRM as a foundational element in helping the university achieve this success.

“TargetX is making our operations better because we now can interact with our students in a more personal way, consistently, and across multiple campuses,” said Balicco. “The ability to create a dynamic database and segment and target our audiences has been more cost-effective and has given us the opportunity to use one standard platform among the university’s five campuses” said Balicco.

While the university continues to leverage TargetX to engage and enroll students, evaluate the success of events, and unify communications, Balicco is looking to the future. “TargetX has been a wonderful solution in helping us to achieve many of our goals but there is so much more we can do with this CRM. I’m looking forward to unveiling greater possibilities and maximizing our use of TargetX in the future.”