Case Study — Vocational & Trade School Education | 10-Year Partnership
Midwest Technical Institute & Delta Technical College: 325%+ Enrollment Growth Over 9 Years
Midwest Technical Institute (MTI) and Delta Technical College represent one of the longest and most successful agency-client partnerships in trade school advertising. Over a 10-year relationship, Colling Media has served as the full-service digital advertising partner for MTI and Delta Tech — managing all digital channels, attribution strategy, creative, and multi-market expansion. The result is 325%+ enrollment growth over nine years, award-winning campaigns, and a partnership that continues to grow.
Results at a Glance
325%+
enrollment growth over 9 years of partnership
10 Years
continuous agency-client partnership and growing
All Digital
full-service management: strategy, attribution, creative, and all digital channels
Award-Winning
recognized campaigns for trade school enrollment marketing
About the Partnership
Midwest Technical Institute is a multi-campus vocational training provider offering programs in HVAC, electrical, automotive, and other skilled trades. Delta Technical College offers technical and vocational programs across multiple markets. Together, they represent one of the most ambitious enrollment growth stories in the trade school sector — and Colling Media has been the advertising engine behind that growth for a decade.
The partnership began with a single market and a clear mandate: build an enrollment marketing system that could scale. Over ten years, Colling Media has grown alongside MTI and Delta Tech — expanding into new markets, launching new programs, and continuously refining the advertising strategy as the competitive landscape evolved.
The Challenge: Scaling Enrollment Across Multiple Markets
Trade school enrollment marketing is fundamentally a local game. Prospective students search for programs near them, attend campuses they can commute to, and make decisions based on proximity, program availability, and perceived career outcomes. Scaling enrollment across multiple markets means building a system that works locally in each market — not a national campaign applied uniformly.
MTI and Delta Tech’s growth ambitions required an advertising partner that could operate with market-level precision while maintaining brand consistency and attribution visibility across the entire portfolio. As the institution expanded into new markets, Colling Media had to build new market entry strategies from scratch — establishing brand awareness, generating demand, and converting leads in markets where MTI and Delta Tech had no existing presence.
The Approach: Full-Funnel, Multi-Market, Attribution-First
All Digital Channel Management
Colling Media manages the full digital advertising portfolio for MTI and Delta Tech — Google Search, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), programmatic display, Connected TV (CTV), YouTube, and retargeting. Each channel plays a specific role in the enrollment funnel, and the media mix is continuously optimized based on attribution data showing which channels are driving actual enrollments, not just leads.
Attribution Strategy
Attribution is the backbone of the MTI and Delta Tech advertising program. Colling Media built and maintains a cross-channel attribution model that tracks the full student journey — from first ad impression to campus visit to enrollment. This model gives MTI and Delta Tech’s leadership team clear visibility into which markets, channels, programs, and campaigns are driving the highest-quality enrollments, enabling data-driven budget decisions across a complex multi-market portfolio.
Multi-Market Strategy and Expansion
As MTI and Delta Tech expanded into new markets, Colling Media developed market entry strategies tailored to each geography — analyzing local competition, search demand, demographic data, and program fit to build advertising programs that could establish enrollment momentum in new markets quickly. This market expansion capability has been a critical driver of the 325%+ growth achieved over nine years.
Creative Strategy
Over a decade, Colling Media has developed deep creative expertise for MTI and Delta Tech — understanding which messages resonate with prospective students for HVAC, electrical, automotive, and other skilled trades programs. Creative is developed, tested, and optimized continuously, with winning concepts scaled across markets and underperforming creative replaced systematically. The result is award-winning campaigns that consistently outperform industry benchmarks.
The Results
Over nine years of partnership, Colling Media has helped MTI and Delta Technical College achieve 325%+ enrollment growth — a result that reflects not a single campaign win but a sustained, compounding advertising system built and refined over a decade.
The partnership has produced award-winning campaigns recognized within the trade school advertising industry. The attribution model built for MTI and Delta Tech has become a template for how Colling Media approaches multi-market enrollment advertising — and a proof point for the value of long-term agency partnerships built on trust, data, and continuous improvement.
MTI and Delta Tech continue to expand, and Colling Media continues to grow with them — managing new markets, new programs, and new channels as the enrollment landscape evolves.
What a 10-Year Partnership Looks Like
Most agency relationships last 18–24 months. The MTI and Delta Tech partnership has lasted a decade — and is expanding. That longevity is not accidental. It reflects a shared commitment to data transparency, continuous improvement, and the kind of trust that only comes from consistently delivering results over time.
For Colling Media, the MTI and Delta Tech partnership represents the highest expression of what an agency-client relationship can be: a true strategic partnership where the agency is as invested in the institution’s growth as the institution itself.
Ready to Build Your Enrollment Growth Story?
Colling Media specializes in long-term enrollment marketing partnerships for trade schools and vocational programs. If you want an advertising partner that will still be driving results for you in year 10, let’s talk.