THE KSGB ENROLLMENT UX/ANALYTICS PROJECT

SITUATION

The Kellstadt Graduate School of Business developed a new program, the Executive Doctorate in Business Administration (EDBA). It was critical to start the program in the Fall of 2015 with a full class. The marketing team at DePaul conducted a paid search campaign to help boost awareness of the program. But we in the business school wanted to see how we could enhance the user experience through content to help make sure we met enrollment goals. 

ACTION

Step One: Decide what to measure.

The Adoption section in our HEART/GSM model focuses our content including website articles and social medial links to link to our program pages where prospective students fill out inquiry forms for enrollment.  

The Adoption section in our HEART/GSM model focuses our content including website articles and social medial links to link to our program pages where prospective students fill out inquiry forms for enrollment. 

 

After creating a HEART/GSM model for our other programs we created a content strategy that would lead website visitors to measurable channels within our website. We wanted to determine how users entered our EDBA program page.

The program page had a short inquiry form that we used to follow up with prospective students interested in enrollment. The HEART/GSM model I created showed getting users to the EDBA program page short form was the top priority. We decided to:

  • Track # of  users who found the EDBA program pages through story pages and home page content
  • Track # of users who filled out EDBA program inquiry page 
  • Track # of users who came to the EDBA pages through organic search as well as paid search

Step Two: Decide how to measure.

  • Created a "Thank You," page that could only be seen when someone filled out the EDBA inquiry form. 
  • Used irregular expression formula from Google Analytics data to track # of users who filled out this form.  
  • Used page path journeys from GA to track where users entered our site and how they got to EDBA "Thank You," page. We did this so that we could trace user's behavior through our website to the EDBA information. 

Step Three: Develop content to boost metrics.

  • Once we found out that users were coming to the EDBA information from the homepage we created an EDBA "billboard," with tracked URL link to the EDBA program page.
  • Directed users' journey from  "Billboard," to  "Program Page," to "Thank You," completion page. 
We created this "billboard," on our home page and tagged it with a specific URL to track how many website visitors landed on the program's landing page from this content. 

We created this "billboard," on our home page and tagged it with a specific URL to track how many website visitors landed on the program's landing page from this content. 

RESULTS

Using this strategy we were able to isolate the effects of our content efforts from any other marketing efforts going on simultaneously. 

  • EDBA program landing page had more than 4,000 pages views in the two-month campaign. 
  • 1 out of 4 people who filled out the short form got to the form by using our billboard link. 
  • Out of the 400 who filled out the short form inquiry 125 people actually enrolled. (That's a conversion rate of 3.2%)
  • EDBA started with a full class in Fall 2015.