Michigan State University attracts 200% more interested students using Sitecore’s CMS

Michigan State University (MSU) is one of the 15 largest universities in the US, with 51,838 students. Like many higher education institutions of this scale, MSU’s individual colleges and departments—comprising 400 areas of study across 17 colleges—were independently managing their own websites, resulting in numerous separate digital experiences. This caused disjointed user experiences across the organization, making it difficult for prospective students, faculty, alumni, and other stakeholders to find accurate, consistent, and relevant information.

With fragmented legacy platforms and marketing tools, the university’s digital teams also struggled to meet modern expectations for personalization and impactful engagement. The lack of shared infrastructure and strategy resulted in an inconsistent brand presence and limited the university’s ability to deliver scalable, audience-focused content.

Recognizing the need for a more strategic approach, MSU’s central marketing and communications team initiated a digital transformation. “We decided to implement an enterprise-wide platform rooted in an audience-first, research-informed strategy,” explains Carmen Crist, Assistant Vice President for Marketing Operations at MSU. “The goal was to empower marketers, foster collaboration across departments, and reinforce a unified brand identity throughout the university’s digital ecosystem.”

To support a unified and scalable digital strategy, MSU embarked on a major platform consolidation project. Partnering with Sitecore Platinum Partner RDA, MSU migrated more than 100 departmental websites running a range of legacy content management systems to a modern, headless architecture powered by Sitecore.

MSU and RDA took a strategy-first approach to the digital transformation, developing a comprehensive marketing technology roadmap, auditing user experiences across multiple websites, and refining consolidated wireframes and designs. A cross-functional agile team was established to manage component conversions, API integration, content migration automation, and ongoing maintenance.

The team created a foundational site architecture that serves as a repeatable blueprint for individual colleges and departments. Called a ‘model home’ it provides a shared framework that balances autonomy with alignment. The template library that the team established within Sitecore’s CMS also streamlined the development process and ensures visual consistency, enabling decentralized content teams to launch sites rapidly while adhering to best practices in accessibility, performance, and SEO.

Integrating Sitecore’s CMS with Sitecore’s DAM capabilities provides a robust, centralized hub for managing digital content. “We’re able to simplify content reuse, support brand consistency, and make it easier for teams to collaborate,” said Crist. AI-powered personalization capabilities enable users to quickly access the most relevant information.

“With a centralized platform, we were able to establish a shared taxonomy and governance framework across departments, ensuring that content adheres to university standards and best practices,” explains Crist.

With Sitecore’s CMS, MSU was able to transition away from a patchwork of legacy CMS platforms to a unified, cloud-native solution while maintaining high standards for accessibility, performance, and user experience. The university decided to add Sitecore’s DAM capabilities to help streamline collaboration across teams and ensure brand consistency at scale.

“We believe we now have the tools we need to meet our strategic goals of unifying the university’s digital presence, delivering optimized content experiences, and empowering content authors with the flexibility to efficiently create and manage digital content,” confirms Crist.

MSU’s digital refresh transforms user experiences, creating more intuitive, accessible, and engaging digital journeys across more than 100 websites. “With unified digital foundations on Sitecore, we’re delivering on our strategic vision as a university, which will help us attract more students, enhance engagement with our online audience, and maximize operational efficiency,” says Crist.

Streamlined user journeys and audience-first content strategies make it easier for prospective students, current students, employees and alumni to find the information they need and strengthens engagement. This has led to a 200% increase in requests for information (RFI) form submissions increasing prospective student leads, and 20% more people signing up for virtual tours. The university has also achieved a 44% improvement in SEO visibility.

The new environment also empowers marketers to create, update, and publish content more easily. With fewer technical issues, marketing teams can now focus on strategic campaign planning, content creation, and engagement instead of issues. As a result, units that once required dedicated martech support have been able to re-allocate those resources toward higher-value initiatives.

Using its new site blueprint, marketers have reusable templates and centralized tools to launch new sites faster and with less effort, for projected savings of 60%. So far, 114 websites have been migrated with minimal disruption. With its consistent design architecture, MSU has improved performance and accessibility, which is reflected in higher Google Lighthouse scores and enhanced SEO.

By adopting an enterprise-grade solution, the university also reduced the risk of knowledge loss, ensuring long-term sustainability and maintainability regardless of team turnover or platform expertise. “With the foundation we’ve built, we can support ongoing innovation, personalization and strategic growth,” adds Crist.