Stow College
Social website
We were appointed to design and build Stow College’s new CMS website which launched in April 2009. The site struck gold recently – winning a coveted Gold Award in the Scottish College’s Marketing Awards.
Our brief was to create an interactive site that would appeal to potential students, aged 16-25, and deliver a strong online identity that would give Stow stand out from its competitors.
The homepage design reflects a noticeable shift away from typical educational websites. The youth appeal centres on the site’s community section where current and prospective students can contact each other online, plot themselves on Google Maps Mashup, join dedicated college forums and access various social media networking sites.
Hilary Ramsay, Marketing Manager at the College, said: “999 Design impressed us with their attention to detail. Research into our specific needs, our background and heritage, as well as our future requirements, was incorporated into their strategy. Site visits have increased by 81%, average time spent on the site has increased by 54% and online applications have soared.”
The website recently won Gold for 'Students’ Award for Website' at the Scottish Colleges marketing awards 2011.
Statistics since launch:
• 7,500 online applications
• 9,761 users registered
• 265 forum posts
• Site Visits have increased but 81%
• Page views have increased by 87%
• Average time on the site has increased by 58%
• Traffic from Search engines has increased by 695%
