Wits Plus, How Wits Plus turned email into a real enrolment channel

The challenge

Wits Plus, the Centre for Part-time Studies at Wits University, needed a stronger way to reach prospective students. Email was going out, but without clear audience segments, tested send times, or a consistent design approach, it was not performing as well as it could. Database growth was also a priority, and there was no concrete plan in place to address it.

The approach

• Developed a full email marketing strategy, including audience segmentation to target the right prospective students with relevant messages
• Ran send-time testing and analysis to find when the Wits Plus audience was most likely to engage
• Improved email design for better readability and a more consistent brand presentation
• Provided ongoing managed services to keep campaigns running consistently and on brief
• Mapped out a database growth plan to bring in more subscribers and keep existing ones engaged

The results

• Stronger audience targeting through segmentation, with emails reaching more relevant recipients
• Higher engagement through optimised send times identified during testing
• More polished email designs that better reflected the Wits Plus brand
• A clear database growth roadmap, giving the team a structured path to a larger subscriber base
• Email shifted from a routine task to a core marketing channel with a measurable strategic foundation