Applying to colleges is stressful. At 18, the thought of choosing where you’ll live and study for the next four years of your life is daunting. Not to mention deciding on your future career path.
Like most students, I didn’t have the luxury of visiting any campus more than once or twice. I obsessively looked over photos from my visits and of course, scrutinized each website, trying to get a feel for what it would be like to live and study at each school.
That exact scenario is a reason why a university’s website is one of its most important marketing strategy tools. Higher education websites often play a dual role: a place where prospective students can begin to research the schools they’d like to consider and where they return to later as they’re finally ready to make the big decision.
There are countless ways universities can use their site to solve the challenges that come with student recruitment. Including one of the biggest: standing out.
But how can a university truly stand out? When Northwestern’s Bienen School of Music chose Clique as their digital partner, this was our first priority. The Bienen School of Music is—of course—a world-renowned institution, but how could that be shown in the most impactful way possible?
Here’s what we did to find out:
Competitor analysis
Completing a competitor analysis was a vital step in understanding the other schools that were vying for the same students, and how they represented themselves through their digital presence. We cataloged best practices and identified patterns in design, user experience, and content. What were similar universities highlighting as their unique selling points? What information were they lacking in? How did the current site compare?
UX audit
A User Experience audit allowed us to uncover behavior patterns, identify pain points, and gather as much information as possible in order to make specific data-driven recommendations to optimize the new website. By evaluating the existing site, we discovered valuable insights that informed our strategy during the redesign process. You’ve got to know where you’re going to get there, ya know?
Interviews
While an outside or competitive perspective is important, it is equally important to understand the position of those closest to the organization. We did this by conducting one on one interviews with current students, faculty, and staff.
Talking with students gave us their personal view of the current site and insights into what influenced their enrollment decisions. What made them settle on Bienen as their final choice?
Speaking with faculty and staff helped us define clear goals and objectives for the redesign.
Using this research, we found six key differentiating factors that put Bienen above the rest and strategically designed the website to enhance the appeal of each key factor for prospective students.
The result? Feedback from a musicology professor at Northwestern sums it up nicely:
“An advanced Musicology student from Santiago, Chile was most emphatic in declaring his preference for Northwestern, saying that our website was one of the most important reasons he was inclining towards Northwestern…the clarity, ease of navigation, and detailed descriptions and biographies for the professors were all major factors in his decision to accept our offer of admission.”
We’ve worked on countless higher education websites, plenty enough to understand the wide range of challenges, opportunities, and goals involved in building a successful digital space. It’s a monumental effort, but shining a spotlight on a school’s greatest differentiators is a good place to start.
