A new turn of events

Designing a hybrid online/real-world platform for the University of South Australia to deliver relevant event experiences.

THE BRIEF

A digital platform to engage prospects on a global scale.

The tertiary education sector wasn’t immune to COVID-19. The spread disrupted traditional business models and revenue streams. Reaching students – particularly international students – became impossible without fresh digital strategies. Australian universities, like the rest of the world, had to pivot fast.

University of South Australia

Wineries. Coastlines. Australia’s University of Enterprise.

There was a moment in 1991 when something different happened. An institute, a college and an art school joined forces to create the University of South Australia.

Today, with 6 campuses dotted around Adelaide, UniSA welcomes learners from all backgrounds. Its commitment to research and industry partnerships makes it one of the world’s top young universities. It’s Australia’s University of Enterprise and it’s welcomed almost 40,000 students through its doors.

Open Days was an opportunity to create a different experience for students looking to study at UniSA: A hybrid online/real-world experience.

Ryan Bailey

Deputy Director, Marketing and Student Recruitment University of South Australia

Technical difficulties.

Observations and student feedback from previous online expos and Open Day trials pointed to one thing: Students needed more. They wanted to engage in different ways but technology hadn’t always played nice.

Mobile usability issues, device incompatibility, chat and Q&A limitations, no automatic directs to live webinars. The University had experienced it all. Staff were left picking up the pieces — from manual registration processes to reports with holes in them. They couldn’t properly follow up with students or deliver what the students actually needed. The data just didn’t exist.

  • 50%

    new customer leads in year 1

  • 3 weeks

    The time it took to reach a 3-month sales target

  • 35%

    How much we beat the sales target by

Enter: Data, technology, the customer POV.

UniSA wanted to deliver an experience that would resonate with students. Historically, events had proved powerful in attracting academics. They’re a stage for the University to showcase its offerings and facilities, and to hold one-to-one conversations with prospective students.

Sudo Roux prioritised data to design and implement a hybrid events platform — one that complemented our client’s existing tech stack and appealed to students.

Toolbox

The orchestra

  • Guest Manager

    • Booking platform

  • Auth0

    • Identity management

  • Optimizely One

    • Commerce, Content, Intelligence

  • Oracle

    • Customer relationship management

  • Eloqua

    • Marketing automation

Launch at speed. Scale without limits.

Over 1000 assets, 350 web pages, 60 new videos, 25 webinars, 51 study booths, 155 campus tours. All deployed in less than two months. Open Days hosted features such as language translation capability, advanced analytics, and integration with Oracle CRM and Eloqua.

With a design backed by Optimizely’s Content Cloud, Commerce Cloud and Intelligence Cloud, we made sure the platform was scalable across domestic, international and online students.

  • 2 months

    to deploy the Open Days platform

  • 1000+

    assets implemented straight away

Results that set a new standard.

Within the first year of launch, UniSA saw 50% more bookings compared to the previous year — an unheard-of number in higher education. Alumni finally had the tools in their hands to segment and understand students. The power to create events that met their interests.

But it was the second year that things really ramped up. The platform facilitated 60+ webinar sessions in just one day, which are set to be followed up by full-day, on-site campus events in the coming weeks.

Technology stacks of benefits.

From the moment users land on the Open Days platform, UniSA gets actionable insights about their behaviour and preferences. With data driving strategy, and personalised experiences driving conversions, the client exceeds their sales target time and time again. Plus, as automation cuts manual back-office tasks, support staff have extra time to dedicate to customers and future event-led recruitment drives.

High-value conversations, on and offline.

We went deep with customer preference insights. This meant we could capture enough information to re-structure how the University approached webinars and in-person events. Session leaders could now have targeted, 1:1 conversations with prospective students, driving new levels of relevance and conversions.

Let’s talk.

Untangle your organisation’s challenge. Re-imagine the customer experience.

It starts with a call to Sudo Roux: 1300 753 499