Optimizing for conversion

Background

NZMA is a New Zealand-based tertiary education provider focused on providing practical courses that transition students into careers they can thrive in. Each year they enrol thousands of students onto courses that range from eSports to floristry.

In New Zealand, tertiary education is an extremely competitive space, and the NZMA website is the entry point for most prospective students. How the NZMA website performs, the experience it offers and its ability to engage prospective students has a material effect on how well the wider business performs. 

As the primary entry point, the website has very specific performance and conversion criteria measured, edited, tested and optimized by a team of digital marketers continuously.

In 2021, the NZMA management team embarked on a project to create a world-class human experience on a new CMS. They believed that although their existing WordPress site was functional, a better set of commercial outcomes could be achieved by delivering a richer multi-channel digital experience to their prospective customers.

Why NZMA chose Octana

• High-speed page delivery across web and mobile

• Cost-effective (both in terms of initial build and ongoing support)

• Secure, cloud-based platform with low IT maintenance overhead

• SEO-friendly with proven performance capability

• Easy integration with the existing enterprise systems

• Super easy content authoring tools suitable for a centralised digital marketing team

• The ability for marketing to "own" the website whilst meeting the organization's IT compliance and cybersecurity requirements

In their selection process, the team considered a range of different technologies to support its vision and considered both monolithic and headless CMS options. Traditional monoliths were eliminated early in the process due to security, performance and scalability concerns which left headless technologies as the technology of choice.

In selecting a headless platform, NZMA considered a range of vendors but ultimately settled on the combination of Contentful and Octana, as together, it met all of the stated requirements.

"Without Octana in the technology stack, the team would have needed to build a complete custom website that would carry a long-term total cost of ownership (TCO) they didn’t want."

The Results

• 01

  20% reduction in bounce rate

• 02

  32% improvement in lead conversion rate

• 03

  It took 12 weeks to get from site design to launch (including content creating and authoring) and the project has exceeded company expectations 

• 04

  Student and staff feedback has been overwhelmingly positive

• 05

  The new technology stack lowered the cost-per-click of digital media spend through better quality scores for landing pages, allowing for a better ROI.

• 06

  The improved digital enrolment process allowed NZMA to deliver an experience that not only engages the audience but also empowers them to enrol.

• 07

  The flexible content authoring reduced the need for marketing to engage developer resources as they evolve the site to meet new campaign requirements.