Shillington College & School.

overview.

Experiencing rapid growth within Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, Shillington College & School needed a review of their web presence, and the creation of a social media strategy. The results were increased time spent on site, increased number of leads generated, improved organic rankings and a reduction in the marketing spend. The development and implementation of a social media strategy increased engagement with current and potential students by over 80% and much more.

brief.

Shillington College & School had experienced rapid growth within Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. With a number of new locations, advertising costs had increased dramatically to ensure all courses were filled. Philter was commissioned to assess Shillington College & School’s web presence, alongside the use of social media, to lower advertising costs and ensure effective communication within all three markets.

solution.

A thorough review of the website identified the following problems:

• Minimal content management capabilities.
• Security flaws left sites vulnerable to potential malicious intrusions and hacking.
• Suboptimal site structure and build resulting in poor site performance, usability and search engine optimisation (SEO).
• The blog was built and hosted on typepad and not indexed at all by search engines which had a large impact on their overall web presence potential.

A thorough review of current social media implementation alongside available opportunities resulted in the proposal of a defined digital marketing and social media strategy to leverage word of mouth with a long term view of reducing advertising costs.

What we did.

• Worked with Shillington College & School to define domain, hosting and website requirements within AU, UK and US and devised a suitable solution and content management system to be rolled out across all three.
• Reviewed and analysed current online content, including keyword analysis and optimisation.
• Outline of desirable future content with a strong user focus.
• Developed a content management system to work with supplied design and across 3 domains and hosting platforms.
• Worked with Shillington College & School to define requirements of blog and developed a custom solution.
• Reviewed and analysed media spend and ROI.
• Reviewed, analysed and remodelled existing email marketing strategy and practices.
• Developed social media strategy, including review of business, competitors and users, identification of core messages, selection of appropriate channels and associated usage, content recommendations and established KPIs.
• Developed governance plan for social media implementation and set-up tracking tool.
• Developed a crib sheet for social media champions within the company to stay on track.
• Carried out social media 101 training sessions with employees to ensure everyone is on board and leveraging the social media content for maximum ROI.
• Social media monitoring and mentoring of employees to ensure transition phase was successful.

What we achieved.

• Increased efficiency of content management.
• Improved web presence resulting in increased time on site and number of leads generated.
• Best practices implemented in site structure and build resulting in improved usability, performance and SEO.
• Improved organic rankings by over 40%, reducing amount of marketing spend required.
• Poor performing advertising identified and stopped, funds reallocated to high ROI.
• Development of social media strategy and implementation across business to increase engagement with current and potential students through social media by over 80%.
• 15% increase in number of leads generated.*
• 22% of traffic to the Shillington design blog is from Social media.

*Based on Shillington College UK site re-launch 2011