More than just a website for St Augustine’s College of Theology

About This Project

“We weren’t expecting this level of service!”: Transforming the St Augustine’s College of Theology website

With a rapidly changing market and an unexpectedly massive project to contend with, St Augustine’s College of Theology needed a website miracle. Thankfully, TukTuk Creative Marketing was on hand to answer their prayers!

St Augustine’s Head of Operations Becky Young chats about how the TukTuk team helped them overcome challenges and get even more from their website.

Looking back, I thought having our website designed would be just like our previous experiences. We’ve had a rebrand done before and we’ve had two previous companies work with us on the website.

The college has spent more money on these previous occasions than we have with Vicky, who’s designed it pretty much from scratch. We weren’t expecting the level of service that she delivered at all!

It’s absolutely brilliant; Vicky is so good at what she does, and Gen’s copywriting is really, really good.

“We needed a website for a changing market”

One of the biggest reasons we needed a new version of the website was to respond to how the market was changing.

We needed the website to speak to two distinct audiences:

1. people who were coming to the college to train for ordination (known as ordinands)
2. and people who were coming to study theology for the sake of it.

For a long time, ordinands were told by their diocese where to go for their training; there was there was very little choice for most people.

But just over five years ago, that all changed. There was now more freedom for ordinands to train where they wanted to. We noticed more people would come to us directly and the majority of people now find us online through the website.

So, we needed a website to meet that new demand and to draw people in. If ordinands can now decide to study anywhere, we wanted them to choose to train with us.

That’s where Vicky, Gen and the TukTuk team came in.

“From those very first briefing meetings, they were brilliant.”

Deep-diving with comprehensive briefing meetings

From those very first briefing meetings, they were brilliant.

Vicky and Gen got a flavour of everything and learned what St Augustine’s is all about. They made a lot of notes and everything flowed from there. I don’t remember having a call like that with any of the developers we’ve worked with previously. It was really thorough.

I appreciated that they wanted to get the overall picture as well right from the beginning. During one of the meetings, we were joined by college principal Alan Gregory and writing tutor Suzy Gregory.

Vicky correctly identified that these two people were critical to gaining an understanding of what the college is all about.

Designing the website as a sales and marketing tool

As the project moved along, Vicky would always be coming up with ideas on how we could make better use of the site and reduce our own workload.

While we still want to ensure that each student who applies receives a personalised service, Vicky’s helped us develop ways to automate some of the admin process. Being able to sign-up to taster events via an event page, for example, has really helped us cut down on admin.

And in terms of communication, Vicky was top-class throughout – I couldn’t have wanted anything better. She was so clear and so reassuring. You felt very much involved, as well; she kept us in the loop throughout.

Bringing out all the information with bespoke content

We had a very fine line to walk with the written content. We needed to get the language just right, without being too simplistic. We didn’t want it to sound like a generic university website.

The messaging was absolutely spot on. It’s done really well. Even before the website formally launched, we started using some of the language in our other communications. I even used some of the signed-off copy on the old website, before the new one was even launched – we just wanted to get the benefit from it as soon as possible!

Personally, I really liked what Gen’s done with Suzy’s page, focusing on student support; I think it’s excellent. They’ve brought out all the information and presented it so well, and the videos on the page really work.

Prioritising the project through clear communication

Because there was so much to do, the project ended up lasting over six months. Despite that, Becky and I felt like a priority throughout.

I think it came down to Vicky’s good communication. Consistent quick replies to emails – honestly, it’s as simple as that. Everything was in this reassuring tone of voice and she’d be updating on what’s being worked on, what’s been done recently, what’s left to do, etc.

The few times something ran a little late, I appreciated that she didn’t come back being super defensive or apologetic. There were no hollow excuses, just explanation and action.

There was no culture of excuses and I always felt that the TukTuk team were forging ahead.

“A truly excellent experience”

I think the scope that the St Augustine’s College of Theology website project ended up being was a surprise even to me.

But despite the size of the website, Vicky’s been excellent throughout. It always felt like she had the whole thing at her fingertips.

It’s been a truly excellent experience, and I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending Vicky and Gen to anyone.

There was no culture of excuses and I always felt that the TukTuk team were forging ahead.