By extracting insights from key stakeholders, developing a core messaging framework, and enhancing target audience profiles, we reached the heart of what drives each prospective student of Universal Technical Institute (UTI). We were able to rebuild the technician training school's website into a new, improved customer experience that places the prospective student first.
The redesigned website is now an even more effective marketing tool for the admissions department that creates excitement and anticipation for prospective students.
Universal Technical Institute wanted to redesign their website to better engage their core audience -- prospective students -- and inspire action -- getting them to inquire about enrollment.
The school needed to increase enrollment inquiries, improve the quality of their inbound leads, and make the website a tool to foster productive conversations between prospective students and the admissions department.
Our goal with this redesign was to act as both user-experience and communication designers, building the right customer experience, rather than just creating a different one.
Customer Experience starts with listening to your prospective students tell you what they want out of their education, their needs, and of their experience with your website. No guesswork involved.
A comprehensive discovery phase helped us better understand the core audience, our mission, and how to connect those objectives in an engaging, effective way.
In an effort to better understand and connect with the prospective student base, we spoke with representatives across the auto, motorcycle, diesel, and marine programs, including:
These interviews resulted in a deep understanding of the prospective student – their needs, concerns, and motivations when choosing a technical training school, how to best connect with them in each phase of their journey, and the challenges to address on the path to inquire about enrollment. They also helped us create key deliverables that laid the foundation for a student-centric redesign, including:
Our goal with this redesigned website development was to build it for marketers and content editors, rather than developers, allowing content to be refreshed without any help from development resources. We deployed a modular architectural build that allows the marketing team to build new pages on the fly, update content, and manage deployment, without knowing a single line of code, within the Sitefinity Content Management System (CMS).
With an emphasis on addressing prospective student needs balanced with meeting the school's goals, the new website has helped Universal Technical Institute generate more quality inbound leads while giving prospective students an engaging online experience during their journey.
The new, improved experience that places the student first drove positive business results, including UTI's first quarterly increase in student starts in eight years. In addition, the school's stock price was up 16.7% in the year following launch, compared to an average decline of 14% among industry peers. The upward trend continued in 2019, with the stock being up nearly 50%.
increase in student inquiries from organic search traffic
increase in conversion rate from organic search traffic
"We have continued to invest in the highest converting media channels such as our website, uti.edu and paid brand search. During the quarter, brand inquiries from our website and page search grew 36.5% year-over-year."
- Kim McWaters, CEO, Universal Technical Institute (Q2 2019 Earnings Call)
Bridging the Gap Between Student Needs and Marketing Strategies
