Case study | University of Roehampton

A better digital experience, an
empowered marketing team

We built a new website in Optimizely and delivered unique tools to serve higher education audiences worldwide

University of Roehampton provides higher education to thousands of students every year and produces world-class research to change the world for the better.

Following a rebrand, the University was looking for an Optimizely partner who could take their new website designs and translate them into a great digital experience. We were commissioned to deliver this project based on our extensive experience creating Optimizely environments.

The challenge.

Although in line with the University of Roehampton's branding, the new, sleek web design had not been created platform-specific or with a clear experience in mind, which posed an early challenge in the build process. We worked closely with the third party branding studio and the University's team in order to surface the intended outcomes and rethink the UX journey. We redefined the user interface and delivered this build on time and on budget, to a client who was extremely pleased with the Freestyle way of working.

"Everyone here is very pleased with all the work we’ve done with Freestyle so far.
They have done a great job with the new build."

Andrew Mowbray, Head of Web and Digital Engagement at the University of Roehampton

Once live, we collaborated with the University and initially focused on improving the website’s performance to support its marketing ambitions by utilising Optimizely's capabilities to create engaging landing pages and generate leads.

Digital solution.

Homepage optimisation

We reviewed emotional analytics reports and used these learnings to inform UX, design and content on a newly redesigned homepage. Taking a mobile-first approach, we surfaced more relevant content and improved Optimizely Find by adding an intuitive search function for quicker and more accurate navigation.

Results

20.25% increase in page course views

for undergraduate and postgraduate courses, arriving from the homepage

Homepage bounce rate decreased by 16.84%

in the month after the new homepage went live

10.43% increase in course page views

across undergraduate and postgraduate course pages

Virtual tours and open days

Open days are a big part of attracting new students, but not everyone, especially international students, is able to attend them. We created a virtual open day microsite which provides an immersive and comprehensive experience for prospect students and their families, from the comfort of their own home. We included an interactive timeline explaining the enrolment process.

Extra functionality

We developed a wide range of blocks to house a multitude of content types, perfect for the University’s fast-moving and agile marketing team.

“Building on the foundations from the initial web project, we continue to work with our digital partner, Freestyle, to create new experiences for our audiences. Their expertise in the education sector and Optimizely has been invaluable and continues to support our higher education recruitment strategy.”