Boosting Sustainability Education with Innovation Marketing.
About Bard College GPS
Bard College's Graduate Programs in Sustainability (GPS) is consistently ranked as the #1 green MBA program by the Princeton Review. Bard GPS offers an innovative suite of programs in addition to their Green MBA, including a Master's of Science in Environmental Policy, Master's of Science in Climate Science and Policy, and Master's of Education in Environmental Education. Students, alumni, and faculty of Bard GPS are dedicated to fostering a just transition to a sustainable world, reshaping environmental policy, transforming business practices, and educating future changemakers. Bard GPS not only sets the standard for sustainability education but also influences the global conversation around sustainability practices, with a community rooted in diversity, equity, and environmental justice.
Challenge
As a leader in sustainability education, Bard GPS faces increasing competition from globally recognized programs such as NYU Stern and Columbia Climate School. Despite their pioneering work in sustainability, Bard GPS must navigate the challenges of a smaller marketing budget while ensuring their distinct value proposition resonates with prospective students. This necessitated a marketing approach that was agile, impactful, and fully attuned to reaching audiences effectively in a crowded field.
Deliverables
PPWA partnered with Bard GPS to enhance their marketing capabilities by focusing on two core areas: strengthening their LinkedIn presence and integrating AI-driven workflows into their outreach.
Enhanced LinkedIn Presence: PPWA conducted a discovery process to assess Bard's existing social media practices and crafted a tailored strategy to amplify their reach. This included developing a content strategy handbook, an editorial approach, and a collaborative workflow that empowered Bard's small but capable team to efficiently create meaningful content that directly addressed the needs of prospective students.
AI Workflow Integration: PPWA explored and optimized Bard's content creation and marketing workflows. We developed a custom GPT model trained on several hundred pages of Bard GPS's existing marketing materials, including guides, blogs, and podcasts. This model was fine-tuned to align with Bard's brand voice, accelerating content generation and supporting consistent, high-quality content outputs.
Results
Through PPWA's interventions, Bard GPS was able to improve marketing efficiency and outreach effectiveness. The enhanced LinkedIn strategy provided a clear framework to better position Bard, enabling the team to produce engaging content more rapidly and consistently.
Meanwhile, the AI workflow integration allowed Bard's marketing team to leverage their wealth of existing assets as a means to help generate new and compelling content faster and with greater alignment to their brand. Together, these efforts ensure that Bard GPS can continue to find, meet and exceed their prospective students’ expectations and amplify their reputation as the go-to institution for sustainability education.