UW-Madison Engineering Professional Development Website & Inbound Marketing Campaign

Taking enrollment to the next level with e‑commerce tools

UW-Madison College of Engineering’s Department of Engineering Professional Development (EPD) needed a way to reach the nation’s professional engineers where they work, play and learn: online. KW2 delivered the updated website and digital media strategy EPD needed—along with a 4-to-1 return on ad spend.

Insight

For years, EPD relied on brochures and postcards to promote its top-ranked short courses, certificates and degrees. But user research conducted with current and potential customers told us working engineers wanted the convenience of digital communications. To be successful, EPD needed to build their very first digital media strategy—and employ e‑commerce website best practices that would move engineers from curiosity to enrollment.

Action

After hearing from 234 engineers from around the country, KW2’s user experience designers radically restructured the course search and enrollment experience on epd.wisc.edu to serve both academic explorers and goal-oriented enrollees. At the same time, our digital media team extensively researched engineering terminology to develop a highly-targeted paid search campaign based on dozens of distinctive, topic-specific words and phrases. EPD’s new higher education marketing plan also introduced new organic search tactics, including inbound marketing efforts for LinkedIn, email and more.

Result

Enrollment is up. So are page views, brand awareness and ad performance. EPD’s award-winning e‑commerce website has steadily increased mobile traffic and site engagement since 2015—and it still gets stronger with every visit, thanks to site-wide event tracking. Meanwhile, proactive Google Ads campaign management is helping EPD optimize their short course promotions from month to month—and earn a $4 return on every ad dollar they spend.

ROI

Graphic showing $3.30 return on investment

Impressions

Laptop graphic showing a results impression increase of 500,000 from 2017-2018

"Our redesigned website advances our brand, serves our customer community, and ultimately helps us achieve our mission. Within one week of site launch, Engineering Professional Development had more warm leads submitted through the website than the previous 4 months. We had 45 leads within two days."

CARL VIETH, DIRECTOR, ENGINEERING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Sessions

Graphic of open laptop showing a 10% increase of sessions from 2017-2018

Page Views

Chart showing 8% growth in engagement fro 2017-2018
Hand holding mobile phone with UWEPD mobile app on screen

Image of UWEPD website page
Image of UWEPD website page

Related Work