The challenge
Lindquist ran vocational programs in healthcare and skilled trades with strong outcomes: high completion, strong employment rates and real salary gains. None of it was on the website, which led with campus photography and language about community and opportunity. Meanwhile their entire paid budget was spent in the eight weeks before each application deadline, which meant campaigns were still in learning during the only period that mattered and they were bidding in the most expensive auction of the year.
What we did
Published the data that was already collected
Completion rates, employment-within-six-months figures and median salary by program, sourced from their own institutional research. It had existed for years in a compliance folder. Program pages carrying it converted several times better than those without.
Moved spend a quarter earlier
Campaigns now launch well before the application window so they've exited learning by the time it opens. Early spend is less efficient and it buys stability during the eight weeks that decide the year. That tradeoff was the single biggest driver of the cost-per-enrollment reduction.
Split content for the funder and the applicant
Parents and applicants were being served one message. We built separate tracks: outcomes and cost for the person paying, and day-to-day experience and support for the person attending.
Rebuilt application intake
A fourteen-field form asking for financial aid detail up front became three steps with saved progress, financial information deferred until after a place was held.
The result
Qualified applications grew 214% and cost per enrollment fell 31%. Organic traffic to program pages grew 312%, driven almost entirely by the outcomes content, which cost nothing to produce because the data already existed.
What result did Lindquist College get? +214% in qualified applications over 16 months, completed in 2026.
“We were told our website was selling a campus when applicants were buying a job outcome. The data proving the outcome had been sitting in a folder for six years because nobody thought of it as marketing.”
Figures reflect real engagement outcomes at the time they were measured. This is a demonstration build — the client name and identifying details above are illustrative.