About the Department
The Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering in the School of Engineering at the University of the Aegean was founded in 1997 and was based in Karlovasi, Samos.
It boasts a contemporary study programme, as well as scientific and educational staff with international distinctions, while the University of the Aegean ranks among the 400 best Universities worldwide.
The Challenge
The aim of the project was to attract students to the Department’s undergraduate and postgraduate programmes through digital marketing.
The huge competition in advertising channels from Greek and foreign educational institutions, combined with the Department’s lack of a comprehensive digital presence, were 2 of the major challenges we were called on to handle.
Furthermore, the low conversion rate of the websites for the 2 programmes, which is attributed to the fact that they were not optimized for advertising, increased the degree of difficulty and created additional needs.
With experience in highly demanding projects, in-depth knowledge of marketing techniques and a result-oriented mindset, our team managed to achieve the objectives of the project.
Our Digital Marketing Strategy
Website Audit
In order for an advertising campaign to achieve its goals, the website linked to the ads should have a high conversion rate, i.e. convert a large number of visitors into customers.
On the postgraduate programme website, we performed a thorough analysis on both a technical and content level:
- content strategy
- figures with advantages and significant achievements
- clearly visible CTAs
- use of scarcity
- mobile issues
We thus significantly improved user experience and achieved a 146% increase in the conversion rate.
Landing Page
For the undergraduate programme website, we designed and implemented a storytelling landing page from scratch, with all the important information of interest to parents and senior high school students.
We created the right content, banners with visual stimuli and traffic, while following a modern design model with a perfect visual communication language.
View the landing page here: www.icsd.aegean.gr/pps-landing/
Targeting
Targeting the right audience with exceptional creatives and content is the key to a successful digital marketing strategy.
We designed a total of over 75 creatives and aimed at different target groups for each study programme (high school seniors, parents and university graduates).
Additionally, we more effectively targeted the postgraduate audience, while also excluding users who already had a postgraduate degree.
Channels
The video played a crucial role in our plan.
We utilized the available material and created advertisements on YouTube and Facebook-Instagram.
On YouTube we created TrueView for reach, Skippable in-stream and In-feed campaigns using custom intent, lifetime and affinity audiences.
On Facebook and Instagram we used a traffic campaign aimed at video views and a reach campaign in order to reach a large number of users.
Results
Our strategy delivered substantial and measurable results:
- 280 new students (100% of spots filled)
- reach: 253,000 users
- total video views: 490,500
- 100% video views: 395,432
- total conversions: 614
What the client said about us:
Yannis CharalambidisWe worked with Simple on the digital marketing campaign for the undergraduate and postgraduate study programme of the Department of Information and Communication Systems Engineering at the University of the Aegean.
They are experienced and have a team spirit and in-depth knowledge of digital marketing. We enjoyed an excellent collaboration and I highly recommend them.
Yannis Charalambidis
Professor, Univ. Aegean