The Challenge
Northern Adelaide Senior College (NASC) is an adult re-entry school, exclusively for people over the age of 16, who want to complete the South Australian Certificate of Education (SACE).
communikate et al was engaged by NASC to support the launch of its relocation and rebrand, as well as drive enrolments. This involved developing new key messages, marketing material, publicity, social media strategy and implementation, market research, signage, branding, a series of videos and a new website.
NASC’s previous website was static and rarely used by potential or current students. It was difficult to find information and needed to be optimised for search engines to drive organic traffic. Staff also found it difficult to update the site.
Following the rebrand we also ran two integrated enrolment campaigns to further raise awareness and boost student numbers.
Our Approach
We ensured the enrolment campaigns were strategic and highly targeted, using multiple tactics to drive enquiries and enrolments. Campaign elements included:
- Developing a creative and emotive campaign theme that would resonate with potential students
- Open Day marketing
- Publicity
- Social media
- Google Ads Search and Display advertising
- Traditional print advertising
- Specific campaign material on the school’s website
- Facebook advertising, page imagery and page management
- NOVA FM radio campaign
- Virtual tours via the website
- Campaign material, such as signage, flyers and posters
Our process for the website included user workshops to understand the business needs and, importantly, the needs of current and prospective students. This ensured the website was designed for the people who would be using it, to maximise the return on investment.
The Outcome
Both our enrolment campaigns were fruitful with the first one so successful that NASC decided to cap enrolments six weeks into the eight-week marketing campaign.
Standout results of the campaign included:
- 2,444 website clicks from Facebook advertising, reaching more than 56,000 people from 16 December 2015 – 2 February 2016
- 1,210 clicks on our Google Ads in the same timeframe
- More than 200 people attending the college open day with 50 enrolling on the day
- 123 unique visits to virtual tours on the NASC website in one week
- An overall boost in brand reputation, to support their future growth
NASC’s mobile responsive website is user-centric, easy to navigate, easy for staff to update, and reflects the welcoming and flexible environment of the College. It also delivered:
- An increase in site visitations by 148% (839 visitors in February 2015 increased to 2,077 visitors in February 2016), with similar numbers being recorded each month since the redevelopment
- The ability for students to search courses based on area of study, level of study and areas of interest
- Highly sensitive information hosted in a secure ICT environment requiring login information to access
- A very happy client now proud of their online presence
