Business

Brand, market and promote the Extension School's portfolio
Manage and run the Extension School's administration including enrollments, payments and issuing certificates

“2022 was a year filled with enthusiastic experimentation to enhance the customer experience also by strengthening and innovating our marketing, communications, and product strategies, together with our continuous dedication to the further professionalization of our teams."

"We worked on portfolio development to ensure it continues to meet the demands of learners and the market – achieving greater outreach and responding to increasing requests from companies for employee training. I am also proud of the quality management of our operations that last year also delivered a smooth administration process for new offerings, such as micro-credentials – and of our persistent efforts to better the reporting and management information cycles. Quantitative data and testimonials from learners show us where we are succeeding and spur us to take on the next challenge to be ever more responsive toward their current and future needs.”

Maaike van Buul – Manager Business Development

B2B on the rise

All throughout the year, we registered a steady and significant increase (+115% compared to 2021) in organisations wanting to take advantage of our courses and programs for their employees, which gave us a comparative increase of +83% in the number of group enrollments.

The 43 companies that contracted group enrollments for their staff in 2022 are representative of a wide range of sectors, in particular from the transportation (aviation/rail), energy production and distribution (wind/solar), manufacturing, and water management industries, with requests also coming from other institutions of higher education.

To optimise the return on discount offers, we trialed new incentives and schemes, such as the 'Bring a colleague' and 'Early Bird' promotions, alongside a successful early launch of topic-related campaigns for courses starting in 2023, which resulted in high-performing adverts generating over 1,000 clicks.

By improving the messaging and user experience on our website we achieved a fantastic 380% increase in our visitors joining a waiting list for future course runs.

Additionally, we signed an agreement with the International Water Association (IWA) to promote our Water Treatment courses to their members (water professionals in more than 130 countries).

Stepping up on process management

We implemented a more streamlined digital enrollment process that led to a 30% increase in the conversion rate.

Our improvement efforts included the early adoption of the BlueDolphin process management tool that is being piloted at TU Delft. The tool gives an overview and insights into our processes, applications, and underlying infrastructure, making chains and information flows more transparent. It will in the future shows the interrelations between all university processes, offering valuable information as to which ones are impacted by changes occurring in any of the others.

We regularly hold joint educational development and innovation sessions with colleagues from other teams, to share expertise, lessons learned, and best practices, for example concerning new tools, accessibility, learner digital skills, and open educational resources.

Live webinars and video campaigns

As part of the University's 180 days Lustrum celebrations, we co-organised the Energy Transition Talks: three online webinars by leading TU Delft experts and online instructors – Olindo Isabella, Peter Palensky, and Axelle Vire – who introduced current and future developments in the field of energy transition.

We also organised a first, live webinar for professionals about online learning at TU Dellt, resulting in over 4% paid enrollments.

To expand audience reach, we used 'video nuggets in mailout campaigns and social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram) to promote our courses and the topics of sustainability and climate change. These short samples of video lectures from our courses attracted hundreds of new views – with the numbers growing over time.

Additionally, we co-issued a dedicated newsletter for TU Delft alumni focussed on Lifelong Learning and promoting our portfolio and the concept of education through one's lifetime, and participated in the Master’s open day on campus to create awareness of TU Delft’s online offering.

“Over 25 Zymergen employees participated in the online course Industrial Biotechnology offered by TU Delft. This resulted in an increased understanding of microbial physiology and fermentation technology and of how to scale up bioproduction processes. Through this course, the quality of our R&D work will further improve and timelines for the commercialization of bioprocesses will be shortened.” – Stefan de Kok, Director Fermentation, Zymergen

"The built environment grows more complex every day in terms of connectivity, attention to personal comfort, and working with the ever-changing energy grid. People in the production chain, therefore, need a better understanding of the different fields of technology and psychology involved. Linearity in building design and installation are things of the past. Now, the design, construction, commissioning, and operation of a building are all interrelated. This certificate program 'Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems' provides a basic awareness to start with, but adds a depth of understanding at the strategic level of the various aspects of modern-day building design and operation. As a result, it makes our job easier." – Jan Westra, Strategic Business Developer, PRIVA