ODU Distance Learning

Great collaboration leads to great results

Old Dominion University Distance Learning program enlisted NewCity in 2011 to completely redesign their website, create a mobile site, and develop a related comprehensive marketing campaign.

Background and Project Goals

Old Dominion University is a public institution with more than 24,000 students. In addition to its campus in Norfolk, Virginia, the university offers a robust distance learning program. The program brings convenient, flexible, and high-quality education to students with location, career, or family related constraints.

ODU’s distance learning website provides information to prospective students and serves as a learning portal for current students. Realizing that the website was key to the continued success and enrollment growth of the program, ODU determined that the site was ready for a redesign to improve its appeal and functionality.

Plan and Challenges

The website needed more than a new attractive look—a given for any redesign process. The design needed to create a new experience for users, an experience that was engaging, informative, interactive, easy-to-navigate, and that would resonate with the distance learning audience, primarily middle-aged, married, and working full-time. A major goal was to provide this audience an idea of what the ODU distance experience would be like and enable them to picture themselves as part of the program.

The site also needed to make it easy for visitors to find what they were seeking when considering the program, such as tuition costs, specific programs, and satellite locations.

The project grew to encompass a website, microsite, mobile site, and a comprehensive marketing campaign.

While a project this large could take a year to produce, the ODU site needed to be completed in about three months for new enrollment.

Solution and Results

Our approach to the site redesign was based on user needs, not the content or construction of the old site. Benchmarks of similar institutions, KJ sessions, and care words surveys helped determine priorities and site structure. The user experience team conducted phone interviews with prospective students, current students, and alumni. Armed with this input, we mapped out the structure and content of the site to serve audience needs.

We also knew that ODU’s goals required more than an efficient, user-friendly design. From the earliest stages of the project, we planned and implemented strategies for search engine optimization and targeted, location-based online advertising.

ODU already had a great tagline for their Distance Learning program, "Right Where You Are." It spoke to the accessibility of the program from any geographic place OR place in life. We felt they weren't making enough of it, so we amplified this idea and used it to tell stories of students who've taken advantage of the program to achieve their educational goals right where they are.

The website was designed in two phases, with the first piece being a microsite for the 2+2 Program, which launched April 1, 2011, with a robust marketing campaign running throughout the spring. The rest of the site launched April 30, 2011.

The marketing campaign included these key elements:

• banner stands
• billboards
• email campaign
• giveaways including bookmarks, mouse pads, and notebooks
• handout sheets
• mass transit advertisements
• movie theater ads
• online banner ads
• postcards
• posters
• print ads
• recommendations for social media

Making the campaign measurable involved the use of unique URLs and QR codes to determine which pieces resulted in increased traffic to the site.

The tight timeline required careful prioritization and close collaboration. Rather than moving stepwise through the typical project stages of planning, design, production and testing, we involved every discipline from the start and began doing things like implementing the CMS while we were still finalizing the design. We worked in parallel wherever possible.

The timeline also had a positive impact on the relationship with the client, effectively making ODU part of the NewCity development team with daily interaction as we raced to the deadline.

Results

In the end, we met and exceeded ODU’s goals for the new site. The results are already impressive:

• The monthly traffic following the launch is higher than the highest traffic month of the previous year.
• Increased rates of successful form completion demonstrate that prospective students are actively seeking more information about programs.
• The site and the marketing materials are resonating with target audiences and presenting a brand image that connects with ODU’s students.
• ODU’s senior leadership is praising the work of their Distance Learning program as a model of how the rest of the university should be promoted.