Campbell University

Creating a user experience to stand the test of time.

130 years after opening, Campbell University was an established presence in North Carolina’s higher education landscape. The Baptist-affiliated private college had graduated generations of state leaders in business, medicine, and law. However, 75% of Campbell students and staff reported difficulty finding information on the university’s website. Furthermore, mobile traffic to Campbell.edu had increased 1,277% since 2011.

The Challenge

Campbell.edu did not deliver on its university’s promise. The homepage failed to engage aspiring students or serve campus staff in finding information. Campbell.edu also lacked a unified digital experience. Because each school or program managed its own site, visitors were forced to reorient themselves to a new navigation and design for each school.

The Strategy

Atlantic BT architected the new design of Campbell.edu by focusing on a user-centric content strategy and navigation. We conducted in-depth research and workshops with many university stakeholders to identify universal elements to unify the look and feel of each school’s page. We also streamlined the interface for the new Campbell.edu to make it more mobile-friendly. This made it simple to access essential information on all kinds of devices.

The Results

The new Campbell.edu achieved a 36% lower bounce rate and a 20% increase in new visitors. As Atlantic BT continues its partnership with Campbell University, we will transform the sites of individual Campbell programs to improve their interface and design.

By the Numbers

36%

Lower bounce rate

20%

Increase in Visitors

Atlantic BT’s designers, project managers, and developers were great partners with our own team of creative professionals to develop a robust and brand-consistent platform. We are now in a much better position to serve the needs of our campuses. Haven Hottel // Campbell University Assistant VP for Communications and Marketing

A New, Unified Digital Strategy

The new Campbell.edu needed to integrate more than 8,000 unique web pages into a cohesive digital ecosystem that would engage students and staff across all devices. We built a new device agnostic sitemap, implemented faster loading on CloudFront, and developed a new content strategy.

Device-Agnostic Sitemap

To better engage smartphone-savvy students, we designed a mobile-friendly interface which tested well on devices of all sizes.

Faster Loading on CloudFront

We set up a powerful CDN on CloudFront to rapidly load pages and content on Campbell.edu, then secured the new site with a Web Application Firewall.

Leading with the Best Content

We analyzed which pages, images, and videos would do the most to engage Campbell’s audience and organized these assets accordingly on the new Campbell.edu.