John Cabot University Case Study

Objectives

Increase traffic from the United States to the John Cabot University website with the goal of increasing applications to JCU's study abroad and undergraduate degree programs.

RESULTS from January 1, 2015 - July 31, 2015 (year over year)

• 11.52% increase of traffic from the USA
• 101% increase in referrals to the JCU website from social media
• 300% increase in applications to JCU from social media channels
• 42% increase of student applications to JCU

Solutions

Phase 1: Conduct a comprehensive audit & identify areas for improvement

In order get a clear overview of JCU’s digital presence and establish a baseline for improvement, HEM conducted a comprehensive digital audit in July, 2013. This competitive analysis revealed that:

• John Cabot University needed a centralized, integrated means of tracking traffic across its domains and measuring website conversion goals
• John Cabot University was being outranked in USA Google search results by its top competitor for several priority non-branded keywords
• JCU’s webpages were not all optimized for SEO
• JCU’s blog did not integrate SEO best practices to support improved ranking for priority keywords
• John Cabot University’s social media channels needed more audience-targeted content to attract followers, encourage conversions, and drive traffic back to the website

Phase 2: Collaborate with JCU to implement multi-channel digital marketing

As a first step, HEM consolidated tracking of the JCU digital ecosystem by setting up cross-domain tracking and Google Analytics Goals. With a more effective analytics framework in place, HEM then implemented the following tactics to help boost JCU’s traffic, and its online visibility:

• Optimized the titles and headers of the JCU website
• Created and published audience-customized blogs (2 per week) for the John Cabot University Admissions Blog
• Created new social media accounts (Tumblr and Google+), shared blogs and targeted messages across all JCU social channels, and generated weekly reports to track community growth
• Generated and shared monthly Analytics reports with John Cabot University to review results and support continuous improvement