Bard College at Simon's Rock: the Early College
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Early College

Problem

We launched the website with the first menu item titled "Why Simon's Rock." Are we missing an opportunity to highlight a differentiator? One has to read the page to find out what makes Simon's Rock special. What if we prominently feature an important aspect of the college in the menu? 

 

Solution Parameters

A solution must:

  • Simple text and/or link change to the website menu
  • Work on both desktop megamenu and mobile menu
  • Increase conversion value (conversions weighted with relative values)

Test

Set up a site-wide A/B test where 50% of users get Why Simon's Rock and 50% get Early College. On mobile, Early College links directly to Understanding Early College.

 

 

Change Website Menu
 
We are planning on changing the website menu. The first menu item is currently "Why Simon's Rock" and we are looking to change it to "Early College."
 
The idea is to prominently feature this important aspect of the college. I set up a test where 1/2 of our traffic got our current menu, and the other half got the Early College version of the menu.
  

Result

Choosing the winner is based on how we measure and value different actions on the website. Given our current valuation of enrollment based conversions, Early College causes a 20% increase in value.
 
Including the non-enrollment conversions, Early College doesn't do as well, but it still has a 8% increase in value. Non-enrollment conversions include visiting the job opportunities page, donations, and visiting KAC membership page.
 
The Early College/Why Simon's Rock menu item also doubles as the 'about' section and I'm guessing that Why Simon's Rock serves that purpose better, thus the Why Simon's Rock does better amongst our current non-enrollment based goals. However, the key non-enrollment valued pages are also located in the footer.
 
Given our current measurement and valuation, we selected Early College as the winner and made the change across the website.

 

Next Steps

Test whether the mobile menu should link to Why Simon's Rock or Understanding Early College.