Increasing FSCJ's
Enrollment Experience
How we improved Florida State College at Jacksonville's user experience for the fall semester enrollment and increased conversion through a marketing persona campaign.
Users visit the fscj.edu/imagine to apply for admission for the fall semester. The application process must be easy to find, intuitive and feel more personalized. The combination of the marketing personas and the microsite's user experience increased enrollment rates for the fall.
Problem
From a design and technical perspective, when users visited the current FSCJ.com site the apply experience was outdated, complicated and not personal. From a technical perspective, the codebase was outdated making it difficult for the team to iterate and test new concepts.
The team
I served many roles (Creative Director, UX/UI Designer/Architect & Visual Designer) on this project with a team of front and back-end developers and marketing managers.
Project scope
Focused on optimizing the experience of the apply now process. The new experience would be implemented across all platforms (mobile web, desktop, iOS, and Android).
Important metrics
• Overall conversion - turning new leads into students
• Program conversion - increase enrollment in the 4 spotlighted programs
Challenges
1) The current FSCJ site was not user friendly or responsive.
2) Simultaneously, a new site was being developed for FSCJ.
Requirements
The microsite also had to house 4 highlighted programs directed by the stakeholders - which makes things complicated and could dilute the message. The board requested we use the Imagine You campaign from Spring but tweak look to remove the aspirational "closed eyes" (which was kind of the a main component of the concept) and use the color palette from site that was being developed.
Findings
During our testing, we found that on the mobile version, the spotlight programs needed to be eliminated. We were limited to one url so traditional media like billboards, bus, direct mail, radio and print ads would need to experience a "general persona" that could pertain to anyone.
Results
Traffic converted from the microsite to the main site "apply now" increased by 38% over last fall and conversion to enrollment increased by 16%. The 4 highlighted programs also generated more traffic to the main site and converted to applications and successful enrollment as well.
Marketing personas
Through research - 4 marketing personas were established:
1. High-school students still deciding which college to attend.
2. First-generation students who would be the first in their family to enter college.
3. Working adults looking to change their career path or gain additional skills.
4. Military Veterans obtaining a degree in a civilian career.
How would these personas work?
By using paid digital ads, the provider's analytics would push the appropriate ad to the user that would most likely hit their persona. When the user clicks the ad, they will be taken to the microsite populated with same persona to create a seamless and personalized experience.
NEW! First time using Paid Social Media Ads (Facebook, Linkedin, etc.)
Looking for opportunities that would result in a return on investment, I met with the Marketing Managers and suggested we tap into social media channels and use paid ads that would create a holistic user experience via our established personas. Prior campaigns they simply pushed ads via the FSCJ Facebook page that only speaks to those you follow your page.
Facebook carousel approach
Took advantage of the new carousel ad feature witch allowed us to further that user experience
