By Naomi Stern

The internationally recognised Heist Awards are the premier awards programme for marketing in the education sector, celebrating innovation and professionalism from the smallest regional college to global education brands.

City Lits website was launched in October 2008 to increase new and repeat student enrolment by providing easy access to engaging and informative content, reduce capacity on courses by highlighting late availability, publicise new products and offers, and capture enquiries for future targeting and tailored communications.

New features including the last minute availability search, which reflects the time-poor status of adults nowadays and is one of the most popular pages on the site, has helped to increase online enrolment figures by 55%. Enhanced SEO has also increased the number of visitors to the site by 46% and the contact information captured for future targeted communications has increased overall by 458%.

Liora Ives, director of marketing and communications at City Lit, commented, We are delighted that the site has been such a hit with students and played such a fundamental part in our strategy for growth. In a climate of public sector cuts, where adult education has been hit hard in the last few years, it is vital that we continue to innovate to attract more students, fill classes to capacity, capture data for future enrolment targeting and maintain high levels of repeat business. We were 100% focused on developing a site that supported these business objectives and so were Underwired Amaze. Winning an award is the icing on the cake.

Felix Velarde, managing director at Underwired Amaze, commented, "City Lit is an important institution, and the biggest adult education college in Europe. Creating a website that makes it really easy to choose the right course from over 3,000 was a great challenge, and the results we've seen since launch have been fantastic.”

Simon Bracewell, Client Services Director at Heist, said, “These have been the best entered and attended Heist Awards ever. The entries were of a consistently high standard and the judges had many long deliberations over the eventual winners. The judges found the City Lit website thoroughly managed and implemented, and very easy to navigate with a useful summary of innovative features.”

About the author

Naomi Stern is Senior Account Manager at Westgate, the PR agency for Underwired Amaze. Contact details: 01732 779 087 or naomi@westgatecomms.com.

About City Lit

City Lit is an adult education college in central London. It enjoys a national and international reputation as a leading provider of part-time learning for adults. Established in 1919, the college today offers over 3,700 courses to 25,000 students a year. The courses on offer range from visual and performing arts, languages, computing, counselling, health & movement, humanities, professional development & training, D/deaf education, speech therapy and provision for adults with learning disabilities.

In May 2005, City Lit moved to a new 21m headquarters in Covent Garden, the first purpose-designed home for adult learning to be built in 40 years and the largest in Europe.

City Lit holds Beacon status for the quality of its provision, received an overall grade 2 (good) in a recent OFSTED inspection, with several areas, graded outstanding, and in 2008 was awarded the Queens Anniversary Prize for outstanding work in the field of speech therapy.

Famous alumni include singer David Bowie, actors Steven Berkoff and Richard Wilson, authors Jake Arnott and Jenny Colgan, comedian Jimmy Carr and Britains first female Muslim comic, Shazia Mirza. Many of its teachers continue to be distinguished professionals including well-known authors, artists, actors, broadcasters, musicians and academics.

About Underwired Amaze

Underwired Amaze is a UK's eCRM (Electronic Customer Relationship Marketing) agency, delivering eCRM programmes using email, mobile and social media, online campaigns and websites. Underwired Amaze works for heavyweight brands including McCain Foods, News International, Laithwaites Wine, The Economist and AAR. Established in 1996, the agency is headed up by Felix Velarde, Managing Director, and Jason Holland, Creative Director a business partnership in its fifteenth year.

Felix Velarde is one of the digital industry pioneers, having set up one of the UKs first digital agencies (in 1994), and is an authority on eCRM. He is a DMA (Direct Marketing Association) Awards judge and teaches the eCRM course for the IDM (Institute of Direct Marketing). Velarde is a Fellow of the RSA and the IDM and has won BIMA, Marketing and DMA Awards. He was recently listed in Creams Top 100 Innovators.

Jason Holland has won a huge variety of major design, advertising and interactive awards, including three appearances in the D&AD Annual, EPICA, World Media Festival and IPPA Golds, and a Cannes Cyber Lion for his personal website. For more information, case studies and screen grabs, please visit http://www.underwired.com and www.ecrm.co.uk.