Recruiting future innovators and leaders.
UNSW Sydney works with Media.Monks to transform the future student experience for the digital age using Adobe Experience Cloud.
Established
1949
Students: 59,000
Sydney, New South Wales
Media.Monks
37%
Increase in organic web traffic
Objectives
Reach prospective students with a digital-first approach to marketing and recruitment
Gain insights into how digital initiatives affect application and enrolment numbers
Understand what types of information and engagement audiences want from the university
Work with a partner who can provide strategic guidance over the complex digital transformation
Results
Established a strong digital foundation in nine months
Re-platformed 450 web pages representing 60% of web traffic
Consolidated degree information for better SEO results, improved enrolment and a 37% increase in organic web traffic
Affected business outcomes**** by increasing open rates for nurture communications by 7% and conversion communications by 12%
“Innovation” lies at the heart of UNSW Sydney (UNSW). Home to researchers, entrepreneurs and leaders, UNSW has become a top university choice for students across Australia and around the world who are interested in becoming pioneers.
This spirit of innovation not only inspires students, but also all the faculty and staff working at UNSW. “UNSW is a research-intensive university with ambitious plans for the future while staying true to a tradition of excellence,” says Sydney Demaria, head of strategy and planning for recruitment and marketing at UNSW. “That’s what makes being a part of UNSW so exciting. We all want to be cultivating that tradition into a next phase of growth. And for us, that means leaning into digital.”
Historically universities relied on analogue strategies to engage and recruit potential students: face-to-face meetings, outreach events and paper pamphlets. However, as the higher education sector has become increasingly competitive, universities are quickly investing to become more digitally oriented. As one critical pillar in its digital transformation agenda, UNSW saw a need and opportunity to boost enrolments by delivering more personalised messaging to potential students online.
UNSW had four main objectives to support student recruitment with its digital transformation: gain a single view of potential applicants across channels, create a consistent omnichannel experience for these students, personalise messaging and gain a better understanding of how the new messaging connects with students. Adobe Experience Cloud provides all the applications UNSW needs to address these challenges in one integrated solution.
“We had a lot that we wanted to achieve through building our digital maturity,” says Livia McKenzie, Head of Marketing and Campaigns for student recruitment at UNSW. “Adobe Experience Cloud has given us access to sophisticated tools to create consistently compelling experiences for our future student audiences.”
“Media.Monks had the Adobe Experience Cloud expertise that we could rely on from a technical perspective, but more importantly they were real partners that provided us higher-level strategic direction and guidance to navigate complexity and build momentum of our digital transformation.”
Livia McKenzie
Head of Marketing and Campaigns, Recruiting and Marketing, UNSW
Accelerating implementation with Media.Monks
While UNSW was excited to lay a solid foundation for digital excellence with Adobe Experience Cloud, the implementation started out slowly. The university worked with multiple implementation partners, but with so many moving parts, it became difficult to know where to start. UNSW realised that it needed greater focus with a single partner driving the digital transformation. The answer came from partner Media.Monks.
“Media.Monks had the Adobe Experience Cloud expertise that we could rely on from a technical perspective, but more importantly they were real partners that provided us higher-level strategic direction and guidance to navigate complexity and build momentum of our digital transformation.” says McKenzie. “They gave us the foundation we needed to make our goals of reaching future students a success.”
The Future Students team, which closely oversees recruitment, partnered with colleagues in external relations and IT, working with Media.Monks to implement Adobe Experience Cloud. Within nine months, UNSW migrated nurture communications to Adobe Campaign, re-platformed hundreds of web pages to Adobe Experience Manager Sites and implemented Adobe Analytics for greater insights across digital channels.
“It's fantastic to see how our teams are championing the most difficult parts of the implementation together,” says Mariëlle Bouwman, Digital Consultant and Account Lead at Media.Monks. “We've created an environment at UNSW where our expertise and digital capabilities could truly accelerate and nurture digital talent - both within the client team as well as UNSW students - a massive win for us as an industry.”
Optimising nurture and conversion communications with prospective students
Email is one of the most powerful ways of nurturing relationships with prospective students and converting to enrolment. With Adobe Campaign integrated with the university’s Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM, the recruiting and marketing team can create more automated and triggered email campaigns to keep communications relevant and timely.
“Conversion is particularly important during the time between prospective students applying to UNSW and enrolling,” says McKenzie. “Adobe Campaign has helped us to create triggered communications that support future students and keep excitement high throughout the process, leading to improved recruitment outcomes. Since migrating to Campaign, we have seen overall improved engagement rates with open rates for nurture communications increasing by 7% and open rates for conversion communications increasing by 12%. This engagement directly affects business outcomes.”
“We launched 450 pages on Adobe Experience Manager Sites, so now 60% of our web traffic runs through Adobe. Optimising and consolidating content improved our SEO results, allowing us to reach even more prospective students.”
Livia McKenzie
Head of Marketing and Campaigns, Recruiting and Marketing, UNSW
Creating a central hub for recruitment
Web is the critical channel for recruitment, reaching students around the world and playing an essential role during the lockdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The UNSW website must strike a balance between conveying a lot of information, while not overwhelming potential applicants. With Experience Manager Sites, UNSW established a strong web foundation, bringing together fragmented domains and web designs into one consistent experience.
UNSW created all the components needed to build a website, including templates, navigation, footers, images and copy. When creating a new web page, content authors can easily drag and drop content into a template. The ability to create content faster helped UNSW migrate all faculty sites into new templates in just a few months. Templates are optimised for both desktop and mobile devices, increasing the reach to digital-savvy applicants.
At the same time, the move to Experience Manager offered an opportunity for UNSW to take a closer look at web governance. The university examined the user journey, removing duplicate content and using dynamic personalisation to deliver more information. For instance, multiple degree pages were consolidated into a single degree page where prospective students can quickly search for programmes that interest them. Since migrating the pages, the university has seen a 37% increase in organic traffic - 23% domestic and 70% international.
“We launched 450 pages on Adobe Experience Manager Sites, so now 60% of our web traffic runs through Adobe,” says McKenzie. “Optimising and consolidating content improved our SEO results, allowing us to reach even more prospective students.”
“Through Adobe Analytics, we get fast visibility into our audiences and their behaviours. We can see what works and what doesn’t and adjust our strategies more efficiently.”
Sydney Demaria
Head of Strategy and Planning, Recruitment and Marketing, UNSW
Using data to drive insights
Data plays a critical role across channels to help UNSW understand how content is reaching prospects. “Through Adobe Analytics, we get fast visibility into our audiences and their behaviours,” says Demaria. “We can see what works and what doesn’t and adjust our strategies more efficiently.”
With Analytics, the recruitment and marketing team discovered that regions respond to content or messaging differently. For example, in some markets, traffic and conversion metrics are much stronger on general degree information pages compared to more specialised areas of interest. Understanding diverse levels of interest can help guide faculty around how to best position degrees to these international audiences.
“The key when working with analytics is that we’re not reacting like a mindless algorithm, just doing what the numbers say,” says Demaria. “Adobe Analytics gives us insights that help inform how we react to the market and better attract potential applicants.”
“We’ve empowered our team to step up and take on more challenging and innovative projects because they have the tools that they need to unlock new opportunities for UNSW.”
Livia McKenzie
Head of Marketing and Campaigns, Recruiting and Marketing, UNSW
Setting the foundation for personalisation
UNSW is already taking steps to better connect with prospective students digitally. A testing framework based around Adobe Target helps UNSW optimise content based on what gets the best response. The university aims to add more personalisation with Adobe Target as well to make it easier for prospects to find the information that is most relevant to them. Plans are also in place to use Adobe Audience Manager to support segmentation and personalisation across channels.
“With the foundations of Adobe Experience Cloud in place, we’ve found that our digital plans are growing exponentially,” says McKenzie. “We’ve empowered our team to step up and take on more challenging and innovative projects because they have the tools that they need to unlock new opportunities for UNSW.”
“The possibilities for UNSW are endless,” says Bouwman. “Digital natives of today are spending most of their time online and choosing the university of preference happens there too. With our human-centric and digital-first approach and we're continuously analysing and optimising together with UNSW to deliver the best experiences to the right students, at the right time.”
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