The Boston Conservatory at Berklee

The primary goals for the Boston Conservatory at Berklee were:

• Increase the number of applicants to the Conservatory.
• Improve audition and admissions process flows.
• Define and differentiate the Conservatory experience more clearly. The site needs to provide prospective students with a feeling of what it is actually like to attend The Boston Conservatory.
• The vibrant city of Boston is a major selling point for The Boston Conservatory, but the city’s unique offer was not front and center in the original design. Providing the updated Conservatory site with a “sense of place” was a top priority.

Outcomes

At the start of the redesign process, OHO Interactive surveyed nearly 300 prospective and current students, parents, and alumni to better understand their needs. Our key findings were:

• Both parents and students felt the existing site did not give them a sense of what it would be like to attend the school.
• Faculty qualifications and the promise of future employment were primary motivators when selecting a conservatory.
• Audition information and course information were among the most important website features among prospective students.

From a marketing perspective, we learned that the top question from prospects is: how much will I be able to perform? To address this need, we designed the homepage of the site to showcase the performance options – including an ambient video that melds music, dance performance and theater – an events listing that showcases just performance opportunities, and alumni stories that show alumni performing.

We placed a strong emphasis on video and audio content throughout the site to illustrate what it means to attend and perform at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Because faculty information is so important to visitors, we positioned faculty profiles front and center and redesigned the pages to allow the web team to include awards and certifications as well as multimedia content.

To make it as easy as possible for prospective students to apply, we optimized the presentation of the application process, including clearer, more concise organization of audition requirements and other key phases.

OHO Interactive implemented a new build of Drupal and architectured the site with modules of content that could be strategically reused by the small marketing team. The Drupal implementation allowed them to make the most of all of their content.

Results

Since the site launched in 2016, the Conservatory has seen a 61% increase in admissions page visits, a 22% increase in site visitors, and a 5.9% increase in overall site visits.