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Your work. Our purpose. One and the same

What we stand for

In our 40+ years, we’ve seen trends come and go, but one thing remains constant: the education sector is chronically underresourced. And what funds institutions do have are often wasted or spent in the wrong direction.

Plenty of vendors are happy to stick to the status quo — after all, they’re making money on it. We know there’s another way.

Direct Development helps schools do the impossible: enroll more students in the face of smaller budgets, fewer team members, and soaring ad costs. Put simply — we help Davids beat Goliaths.

How do we do that? Well — it requires a little outside-the-box thinking. Some bucking of tradition. A lot of transparency. We’re kind of inciting a revolution here. But if you’re ready to break from convention, we stand for you.

dd team with jess front and center (1)
A man in a cap stands in front of a seated group in a modern room, holding a paper and speaking. The audience is attentive and casually dressed.
sam and matt (1)

The DD difference

Other higher education marketing agencies compete on customization and expertise. (We kind of think that should be a given??)

Our white space is at the intersection of purpose (helping underdogs come out on top) and sustainability (helping them stay there — with or without us).



Here's what that looks like in practice

The inbound approach to marketing

If traditional marketing is a megaphone, inbound is a magnet. Inbound marketing supports prospective students across their college search journey by providing value that connects them to your institution, builds trust, and creates lasting interest.

Proven bottom-funnel impact

You’ll get more out of your analytics with Direct Development: full-funnel marketing attribution. From first touch to seated butts, we can help you trace the student journey and see which marketing touchpoints made the biggest impact. There are perks to working with a HubSpot platinum partner.

Strategy before tactics

Any digital agency can execute marketing tactics. At DD, we start with a marketing strategy that meets your moment and is aligned with your enrollment goals. Without a smarter strategy, you’ll still be stuck over-investing in the same tactics next year, and without a sustainable plan for graduating to the next level. 

Education and training

We’re known for fostering deep partnerships built on trust. And we’ve been able to create these lasting relationships because we teach our partners how to think like we think. We’re part of your team, so transparency is key; you see our strategies, understand our methodology, and learn to do things the DD way.

Working with Direct Development has been an absolute pleasure. It’s clear that the Kroc School has achieved significant wins that wouldn’t have been possible without DD’s support. The team’s dedication, strategic insight, and execution have been invaluable!

Kevin Dobyns

Director, Marketing & Communications University of San Diego Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies

20%
Growth in SEO keyword targeting
1 Million
Views of our JD/MAPJ video that DD shot, produced, and marketed
+ More
And the list goes on

Our story

At DD, we’ve always been helping the underdogs do things they cannot do on their own. Our roots began in the nonprofit world, back in the 80s when faith-based charities needed a lot of help with direct mail to raise much-needed funds to support their missions. Over the next few decades, DD expanded into the higher education space to serve schools with creative and innovative marketing tactics that attracted students and alumni. We moved from being single-channel direct mail providers to multi-channel marketing gurus by the end of the first decade of the 21st century...but something still wasn’t right.

At DD, we’ve always been helping the underdogs do things they cannot do on their own. Our roots began in the nonprofit world, back in the 80s when faith-based charities needed a lot of help with direct mail to raise much-needed funds to support their missions. Over the next few decades, DD expanded into the higher education space to serve schools with creative and innovative marketing tactics that attracted students and alumni. We moved from being single-channel direct mail providers to multi-channel marketing gurus by the end of the first decade of the 21st century...but something still wasn’t right.

jared + tatiana high fiving
direct development full team

We knew we were fast. We knew we loved helping schools and nonprofits do more with less. And we knew how to make any complicated mar-tech strategy easy to understand and execute. So we adapted and improved and built a new team of storytellers, smart creatives, and marketing technologists — all of whom were hell-bent on achieving one common mission for every organization we partnered with: to help them slay their giants. That’s why…

We help Davids
beat Goliaths.

Our core values

Treat People Like Family

We believe that the roots of great success are great relationships, which is why with DD you get real partners, not a sales pitch. Your challenges are our challenges, and we understand that reality happens and you need partners who treat you like you’re a real human and part of our team.

Be Ridiculously Helpful

We are interested in helping you solve your biggest problems...whether that means teaching you how to do it yourself, or partnering with us to help you get it done together. Either way, “being ridiculously helpful” means you’ll be glad you came to DD for answers, ideas, technology, or services.

Challenge Conventional Thinking

Having served nonprofit and education clients for more than 4 decades, we know how important it is to challenge common conventions and think outside the box in order to stay ahead of the curve. Innovation requires challenging some best practices.

Treasure Transparency

We strive to create transparent conversations in everything we do, and we pride ourselves in being honest and realistic in our strategic recommendations, including what we believe are the right moves for a person or organization. If we don’t believe in it ourselves, we won’t recommend it for you either.

Adapt & Improve

Everyone who engages with our family of brands knows that we thrive on making smart and fast improvements that are informed by data. This is our commitment to prioritizing value over vanity when it comes to our products, services, resources, technologies, and communities.

Make It Fridge-Worthy

Excellence is what we strive for in everything that we create, and we know how to help you do that too. Our goal is to proliferate well-thought-out strategies that produce exceptional content and remarkable results — just like the one-of-a-kind art projects your mom would tape to the fridge because she’s so proud of your work!

Full-funnel marketing attribution. Sustainable marketing solutions. Learn to think the way we do.

Our Work
Services

Let's change the way your team does marketing — for good
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