From conception to results (and awards), strategy makes the difference
In 2014, the first sentence of a New York Times column noted that Bucknell University had attracted a record number of applicants. In fact, applications had grown 40% in one year. At least one part of the reason was a website radically redesigned to target admission prospects. The initial data supporting the site's impact were convincing. In the first year after launch,
admission page views rose 122%,
time spent on admission pages rose 42%, and
the bounce rate on admission pages fell by 25%.
Meanwhile, time spent on all Bucknell.edu pages rose 19%.
The website, of course, was only part of the reason for Bucknell's burst in applications. Other critical factors included the leadership of a president whose moves were (and are) making a huge difference on campus, a school with formidable competitive strengths across its faculty, more aggressive admissions outreach nationwide behind their new leader, the decision to reduce the application fee, and a new marketing approach that our communications and admissions teams had fashioned together.
Thanks to the hard work of the Bucknell team, the site is still proving itself a change agent, as the chart below suggests.
These results didn’t happen by chance, though. I was vice president of communications at Bucknell at the time, and our team set out on that redesign, in fact, to build a radically innovative site. Actually, we promised that it would be unlike anything in higher education. We even pledged that outcome in a brassy video that was part of a comprehensive effort to inform and excite the Bucknell community about what was ahead.
Since the strategy behind the site was critical to its success, and I’ve been asked many times about it since, here are seven key strategic factors that we acted upon in building a transformative website:
1. Culture: A website is the single-most important medium a college or university has—anyone anywhere with Internet access can see it. A website should reflect the culture of its institution. The design practically embodies the message. Bucknell is grounded in the liberal arts but also offers something no other liberal arts college does: a College of Engineering and a School of Management. An innovative website suited the university’s entrepreneurial, success-oriented culture.
2. Freedom: Having innovative ambitions liberated us from most higher-education website conventions. It cleared the way for us to question all our assumptions – about how we should do everything from find a partner firm to what final design, structure, and features we would choose.
3. Data: By the time we were ready for the redesign, we had done extensive focus group and quantitative research into perceptions that admissions prospects, alumni, and others had of the university. We knew that they valued leadership and innovation. Ambition with a new website would fit.
4. Timing: We were in part willing to take the risks we did because the campus had reached a relatively advanced stage of website comfort. We’d done the previous re-design five years before and it had gone well, though it had been starkly different from its predecessor too (though far more conventional than what we had in mind this time around). The community seemed ready. Besides, we had recently launched the largest campaign in the school’s history, had a dynamic president, and the campus with lots of positive energy going. We couldn’t dampen things with a Bucknell website that was like all the rest.
5. Communication: In campus presentations, emails, a website blog, the alumni magazine, and more, we informed the campus over and over again: this site will be different. We wanted them to know that our redesign would be prioritizing admissions cohorts, who are younger and largely technologically savvy. Besides that, we stressed that the site was going to be up for five years or more and if we rolled out one that the campus got right away, the site was going to become stale awfully fast.
6. Audiences: We wanted to keep admissions audiences engaged and exploring. But we also wanted audience-centered structures and search tools that would serve students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents. So regardless of its innovations, the site had to help them in the major ways that they typically use a college website: to quickly find information and solutions to problems.
7. Teamwork: Then we had to find the right partner. Since we were questioning everything, we reverse-engineered the RFP process too. Roberta Diehl, at the time our Director of Digital Communications, called nearly 20 top website firms and interviewed them, asking about their culture, their attitude toward risk, their preparedness for the task we had in mind. Then we invited the dozen firms that survived the vetting to submit a special type of proposal. We brought the three best respondents to campus. The winner? The outstanding firm out of Baltimore, Fastspot. In a recent conversation, Fastspot’s CEO and I discussed what this risk-oriented partnership taught us.
From the beginning of the site’s launch, the data supporting the change were strong, and have continued. In addition, Edustyle.net named the new site the most innovative in higher education. And the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education gave the new site its Gold Award for best institutional site.
Most importantly, the site has increased the engagement of admissions prospects even as the Bucknell community gave it a chance to thrive. As they say proudly on campus, ’Ray Bucknell.