Client
Year
Deliverables
Digital Advertising
Situation
NCFDD partnered with Franco to expand its footprint in higher education and drive qualified leads across multiple programs via a paid social and organic social media strategy.
Universities across the country struggle to support and retain faculty members at all levels due to factors like high burnout and turnover, resource constraints and lack of measurable impact. NCFDD’s mission is to help institutions increase faculty productivity, mentorship and work-life balance through different programs like the Faculty Success Program and Department Chair Success Program.
To start our partnership, we put together a strong integrated strategy designed to help NCFDD grow social media awareness and generate leads for their programs.
Approach
We developed and launched an integrated strategy to generate leads and increase social platform engagement via a dual-track growth engine. On the paid side, we centered investment on LinkedIn Lead Generation with precise role- and institution-level targeting, message testing and lead gen forms to lower friction and boost completion rates.
In parallel, the social media strategy spanned Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to create consistent visibility, nurture credibility and retarget engaged audiences. The content mix paired thought leadership and data-backed outcomes with program spotlights and testimonial snippets, guiding prospects from awareness to inquiry during a pivotal time when academia began facing growing uncertainty.
LinkedIn Advertising Results
- Leads: 428
- Lead Form Opens: 1,589
- Lead Form Completion Rate: 26.94%
(LinkedIn Lead Form Completion Rate Average: 10%) - Cost Per Lead: $87.96
(LinkedIn Average Cost Per Lead: $15 – $350 – variation is caused by audience type, offer, creatives) - CTR: 0.75%
(LinkedIn Average CTR: 0.4%) - Engagement Rate: 1.39%
- Clicks: 4,924
- Impressions: 657,926
The Social Media Response
Amid the day-to-day challenges NCFDD was helping solve, colleges and universities across the nation began facing federal defunding and other uncertainties in early 2025. NCFDD moved swiftly to offer timely, relevant support and resources to individual partners, partner institutions and their social media audience. Not only was social media a space where we could help amplify those resources, but it also served as an outlet where their community could find a message they needed more than ever: We understand you and you are not alone.
We amplified this sentiment in social media content, including relevant partner testimonials, webinar invitations, actionable tips and even light-hearted culture-driven content that captured the essence of what their audience was feeling.
The higher-than-average engagement on memes particularly affirmed that, on top of resources, their audience was looking for positivity and humor.
View this post on Instagram
We also noticed consistent higher-than-average engagement when featuring the faces and hearts of the organization: the NCFDD team.
Based on both reporting metrics and qualitative feedback, our partnership affirmed that the most effective organic social media approach is one that is humanized and empathetic – especially in times of uncertainty.
”Franco helped us spin up our paid social efforts, as well as streamline our organic social calendar. They took the time to learn about our audience and our business but still got us up and running quickly. As we were figuring things out early on, they were incredibly responsive and helped us make a lot of changes along the way; always making valuable suggestions. They've been a great partner!
Zach Monroe, NCFDD Marketing Director
