Med School Tutors has a very clear mission. The company is determined to aid medical students in getting ready for standardized tests. Inspired by the growing disillusionment aspiring physicians were expressing related to traditional study methods, Med School Tutors came up with an innovative online solution.
Rather than spend hours watching unresponsive videos, listening to boring lectures, or wading through stacks of stale textbooks, students get a chance to work 1-on-1 with tutors that come up with customized plans that fit best with each students’ situation.
Those customized plans not only incorporate each students' learning style, but also their schedule, their goals, and even their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, the tutors are expected to provide emotional and psychological support as the students navigate the roller coaster that is medical school.
By helping medical students learn better and become better doctors, Med School Tutors is improving medicine from the ground up.
The Challenge
The Med School Tutors product was great, but their website had grown outdated. It was no longer compelling enough to attract students to give it a try. The company knew it needed a redesigned site that was more engaging if it wanted to keep attracting students and then get them to convert into customers.
All the while, this redesign had to take place while the existing site continued running and couldn't interfere at all with the live environment or any other aspects of the service.
The Design
Our initial thought was that the website came across a bit too corporate and bland. Considering the product was targeted to students and positioned as a fresh new alternative to an old fashioned system, we deemed it necessary to make the site feel more dynamic and relatable to a younger audience.
We contemplated several different ideas for how we could make that happen and quickly realized it was going to be important that we conduct user testing to ensure our theories were on point. A representative sample of five people that fit within Med School Tutors' targeted demographic were chosen, including four current med school students and one entering med school the following year.
The findings helped crystalize our strategy and confirmed we were on the right track. Through a wonderful agency/ client collaboration we decided to showcase the site in a way that the target demographic would immediately relate to and created a home page that mimics the opening screen of a video game. Med School Tutors classifies their role with students as an apprentice/master relationship, making the video game theme even more of a natural fit.
Website visitors are then encouraged to "Level Up" on the home page to get more information. That begins them on a fun, interactive classic video game-style "journey" in which they are guided through various stages to eventually land on the appropriate page for the test they plan to take.
Old Homepage:
New homepage:
The Results
When a website is redesigned, there is usually an immediate drop-off in traffic before it rebounds over time and eventually surpasses the old site. Given that knowledge, Med School Tutors had limited expectations for the launch results.
Year-over-year increase in visits of 20%
Instead, the company was blown away when the redesign led to a record number of visits within the first month (May 2016). In fact, the first month of launch beat the previous best month in the company's history by 5 percent.
Additionally, there was a 20-percent increase in YoY visits from May 2015 to May 2016.
Med School Tutors is changing the world of healthcare and we are proud to have played a part in this great company's impressive growth.
If you're interested in how a conversion-focused, lead-generating website could impact your business, contact us today for a 30-minute consultation.
