The Challenge
Parents were visiting the school’s website and reading the wealth of information available. But when it came time to apply or visit the “contact” page, they weren’t clicking through to take action.
Canisius officials knew they needed to increase their conversion rate, which Canisius defines as the number of parents who visit the website and request additional information, schedule a tour, or ask for a follow-up call from a staff member.
Starting the conversation with an interested parent is the first step toward successful student enrollment.
The Problem
When approaching any challenge, it’s easy to get distracted by assumptions about the nature of the problem and jump to create solutions without deeply understanding how all of the moving parts interact with and affect one another.
We wanted to understand why the school’s conversion rate wasn’t being met.
The school’s website has a plethora of clear information that outlines their values and the quality of the experience that they offer students. Both are supported by a user experience that spotlights colorful imagery and informative videos. But the content wasn’t leading people to reach out at the rate Canisius officials expected.
We worked collaboratively with Canisius officials on a deep dive that ultimately revealed the core problem: The institution wasn’t offering a message that spoke effectively to its main audience and decision makers—young men and their parents.
As a private school, student enrollment at Canisius is a direct result of instilling interest in parents. And for parents of prospective students, the most reliable and trustworthy source of information within the school ecosystem is parents who currently have sons enrolled at the institution.
What we found was that prospective parents wanted to know what those parents thought of their experience, the education their sons received, and their opinion of the school after having been part of its community for four years. Specifically, parents of prospective students wanted to know about the academic, personal, and spiritual transformation other parents saw in their sons. Had they been shaped into thoughtful contributors to society?
Finally, parents of prospective students wanted to know how the parents themselves had been transformed by the Canisius experience.
The Solution
We decided to make three videos that would be featured on the school’s website.
Why three? We knew that parents wanted to hear from other parents. They wanted to see the end result and see for themselves the quality of the person that Canisius builds. They wanted to see the world at Canisius and get a sense of the school’s unique approach to education, how it innovates in the classroom and extracurricular activities, and how it enables interaction between older and younger students. They also wanted to see the students in a state of “flow” as they focus, work in teams, and learn.
Ultimately, we knew that parents wanted to see Canisius for what it is—not for what they think it is. They wanted to see the “secret sauce” and how the school uses its values to create it.
We knew this would be too much for one video. But we also knew we had to bring out the truth in the parents of current and former Canisius students and give them the right space to be honest and genuine.
In the first video, we interviewed parents about the Canisius experience. In the second video, we filmed Canisius students as they spoke at graduation. And in the third and final video, we featured the summer program for current and prospective students.
The videos launched in 2019—and the impact was profound.
The Result
Our videos were a resounding success. Web analytics show that parents spend more time on these three videos than on any other part of the website. As a result, both current and prospective parents say they have a deeper understanding of—and connection to—the school’s values.
Best of all? The videos solved the conversion rate, which increased substantially over the previous school year.
“The videos captured real, authentic expressions from parents of students about the value they see in our school,” said Ginger Geoffery, APR, the Director of Communications at Canisius. “Hearing parents put into their own words the transformation they’re seeing in their sons has been very impactful for families of prospective students. Perhaps even more powerful is seeing and hearing the students themselves describe their experiences at the school. This series of videos helped us showcase what our school offers in ways that we weren’t able to do before.”