Examining College Marketing to Help with Your School PR

In my marketing studies I try to examine all industries as I develop the best course of action for our School PR and marketing for CFBISD.  I have been very impressed with the college marketing targeting high school students in our district. Colleges and universities in the United States have begun to embrace modern marketing including two of my favorites, Inbound and Content Marketing.

In the following post, I will break down the components of a mail campaign by Baylor University in Texas.  Many of the top universities have similar personalized mailers going to millions of high school seniors.

The letter below is a great use of Inbound and Content Marketing. At the end of my article I will post a better view of the letter.

1. College Logo

College and universities always have to be thinking of their brand.  Students and alumni are very passionate about their schools.  Word of mouth and family traditions can play a big role in the decision making process.  However, branding (and how well your football team plays on Saturday) can be a big factor as well.  Make sure to develop a logo and brand that sets you apart from the competition.

2. Advertise Your Lead Magnet

Content marketing is not just for big corporations with 20 blog writers.  College use it, and so does our district.  In Baylor's letter, they waste no time introducing their piece of content.  Baylor's contents is called, "5 Strategies for Choosing a Major".  What a great piece of useful content for high school seniors and juniors.  How does a 17 year old kid really know what they want to do in life.  Baylor is attempting to help them. And help is all what Content Marketing is about.

3. Personalized Greeting

This is not 1978.  Computers and computer programs have made it very easy to personalize your letters. A generic form letter is not going to cut it. Always, always make sure you address the letter to the student. And make sure to spell their name right.

4. Landing Page - Get Their Email

The key to Inbound Marketing is to get their permission to send them more stuff.  Baylor does a great job setting up a simple "Landing Page" website for students to get their Major Guide, and at the same time collecting information about interested students in their school.  We use LeadPages in our district to create slick micro-content websites to build our email database.

5. Personalized Password - Make them Feel Special

This is a great way to add more exclusivity to your marketing.  Giving each student their own password makes them feel special like they our in a secret, exclusive club.

6. Strong Introductory Sentence

You need to spend a great deal of time developing your opening sentence of your letter.  many students won't read pass your first couple of lines. Make sure they are strong to keep them reading.  Tell them how you are going to help them.

7. Formally Introduce the Lead Magnet

Baylor teased the "Free Prize" earlier in the the letter.  Now it is time to expand on what you can offer them to make the best choice when choosing a college.  You must tell them why your content marketing piece is so useful.  How is it going to change their lives?

8. Discuss Your Benefits

Hopefully Baylor sold their recipients on the benefits of downloading their lead magnet.  Now it is their opportunity to sell the students on their university without getting long winded.  It is a great idea to tie-in the lead magnet you are offering.  Baylor uses two paragraphs with a couple of sentences each to sell their school.  This is not a dissertation. The whole point is to get them to take the next step, and then send them additional content in the future.

9. Close with Your Lead Magnet

Just like a good English paper, always restate your opening paragraph to close your letter.  Baylor uses the last paragraphs to once again remind the reader about their awesome college major guide.  Hopefully, one more reminder will encourage the readers to take advantage of the free content.

10. Personalized Signature

Take the time for someone important to offer a signature.  It doesn't have to be fresh ink, but it better look that way.  If students think the Senior Director of Admissions at Baylor took the time approve this message, it might feel a bit more important to the student. Have your superintendent or principal sign your letters.  They are more important than you... haha.

11.  P.S. Remind them How Great You Are

Baylor takes the opportunity to remind the reader how great they are and reminds them of the "Lead Magnet".  And to tell you the truth, the post script might be read first by some students.  Make it strong, and sell your program.

12. Contact Info

Make sure you give them some contact information for your program.  It won't be read much, but some of your more anal students will take advantage of knowing your address.

Colleges and universities are starting to spend big bucks to market to high school students.  It is a great source of inspiration for K-12 School Public Relations and Marketing.

Here is a closer look at the Baylor letter:

5 Things I Do to Start my Day to be Successful

I am a morning person.  I like to get to the office by 6:00 a.m. each morning.

Getting to the office this early allows me to get things done before most of my staff arrives to start the day.  The quiet time with no disturbances from co-workers means I can get a lot done.

Here is my morning ritual during the first two hours when I arrive at work.

1. Energy Boost for the Day

I do not dive into my work when I first walk into the office. I have to have my morning coffee.  Walking to the break room allows me turn on all the lights around the administration building while I take a deep breath before I dig into the day.

I always fix my pecan-flavored coffee with no sugar and a bit of cream.  After my levels are correct, I crack open my laptop and begin my workday.

2. Current Events and my Love of Marketing

I am obsessed with news.   I want to be in the know.  This is why each morning I read the headlines and jump over to my favorite blogs to see what is trending in marketing and social media.  It is crucial to stay current with your industry and see what is hot. 

Here are some of my favorite blogs to read in the morning:

Social Media Examiner

CMO by Adobe

Content Marketing Institute

Hubspot Marketing Blog

I highly recommend bookmarking these pages to get your daily dose of marketing and social media tips. They are great reads by industry professionals.

3. Moneyball my School Marketing

My second obsession is data.  I love numbers and I love spreadsheets.  That is why I always check my website and social media analytics each morning.  My big three are Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and Twitter Analytics.

Google Analytics is my go to analytics platform for my website visitor data.  I use Google for both our main district website and our School-A-Hoop parenting blog.

My favorite dashboards and numbers to look at are:

• Content Analysis- what were the most popular sections of my website
• Referral Traffic- how did people get to my website
• Bounce Rate- are they exploring more of my site, or one and done?
• Location of Visitors- where do my visitors come from? Local?
• Navigation Summary- what did they do once they made it to our site?

Most of our parents are on Facebook. This is their social media platform of choice.  That is why it is crucial that I check Facebook Insights each morning.  It gives me a great breakdown of how people are engaging with my content.  It also lets us know what content is working and what is not working.

My favorite insights are:

• People- who was my audience for the last seven days?
• Reach- how far did my content go? Did it go beyond my fans?
• Engagement- did my post cause the audience to take an action
• Competitor Analysis- always check to see what other districts are doing

Although Twitter is not as powerful when it comes to audience engagement for our district, I still like to analyze the numbers to see what content is working for us.

Here are the statistics I look at:

• Tweet Impressions- how many people saw my post
• Follower Count- check to see how my content pulled in new audiences
• Engagements- see how people are interacting with my posts and my CTA’s

Remember, numbers are your friends.  They can help prove the effectiveness of your campaigns and social media content.

4. Social Media for the Carpool Crowd

Every morning during the school week, I plan a Facebook post and a tweet to be delivered during our morningcarpool.  It’s a great way to target a captivated audience as they wait for the school doors to open.  

My morning ritual for social media is to find engaging content that is most likely going to be shared, and then write a eye-catching headline for the post.  An awesome visual is a must for my posts.  I never post on social media without a visual.

The content always determines what time I schedule my post.  If it is an elementary school story I post during their carpool.  If it is a middle school story I post during their drop-off.  If the morning story has to do with one of our high schools, I will post about 15 minutes before the first period bell rings.  High school students love to hang with their friends and their smartphones before school starts.

Another great time to schedule a social media post is during the afternoon pick-up times.  Parents typically have to wait in front of the school much longer waiting on their child.

5. Exercise While I Podcast

The last fifteen minutes before my team arrives for the day is my daily walk around the board room.  This allows for me to get some steps on my Fitbit before I start my morning meetings.  It also allows for me to listen to marketing podcasts while I exercise.  Most of the time I finish a podcast that was not quite finished during my morning commute.

I love catching up on all the industry and marketing trends while I walk.  The majority of the time I listen to marketing or social media content, but occasionally I will listen to some MLB podcasts to get he latest headlines for my favorite sport.

*Creating Content Marketing Gold

The above rituals are the norm four of the five days of the week.  Wednesday is a tad bit different.  On Wednesday I put on my publisher hat and edit blog posts for our School-a-Hoop parenting blog.

Every Wednesday I will take an expertly written piece of content from teachers and administrators in our district and I will prepare it to be published on our blog.

Here the editorial steps I take to get it ready to be published:

• Read for Grammar- I always read for typos and grammatical mistakes
• SEO Optimization- I write my headline and create SEO tags for the post
• Photshop my Visuals- I always prepare visual content for my posts
• Prepare a Social Media Post- I create a separate visual and engaging copy

Writing the article is only the first step when you write for a blog.  You must prep your article to be seen by the masses.

My First Morning is Now Complete

The stuff above is usually accomplished before my co-workers hit the office.  I am tired by the end of the week, but I always feel accomplished. Luckily I have my own key and alarm code for the building.  It would be pretty lonely waiting in the parking lot trying to find a WiFi signal.

In 20 Years… A School District Will Buy a Local Newspaper

Don’t laugh. This is not too far out of left field.  Over the past three years there has been a resurgence of the journalism occupation.  Not necessarily in the form of a traditional newspaper, but the need for people who can tell your story has become very important.  With the increasing popularity of blogs and content marketing, we will need these storytellers more than ever.  And we need someone who can do it at the local level.

For example, Red Bull, the energy drink company, is more of a publishing house than a drink company.  It has its own record company, magazine unit, video production studio, and a slew of content journalist covering extreme sports.

American Express has its own content creation-publishing unit in the form of American Express Open.  Even John Deere publishes it’s own magazine called The Furrow.  It’s actually been in existence for over 100 years.

So I ask you this… Why should education be any different?  Why can’t we stay ahead of the trends? Why do we have to always be two steps behind?

Things will change.  We will adapt.  And in 20 years there will be a school district that purchases a local newspaper.

Why would MY DISTRICT would I need a local newspaper?

Because engagement trumps everything.  You need to deliver a personalized, local experience to your audience.  You need to deliver exciting stories at a consistence pace.  And you need to do it well.

Joe Pulizzi in his book ContentInc. lists 10 content roles a company needs to be successful in content marketing (Content Inc. p. 111 – 114). 

They include:

1. Chief Content Officer - Someone to set the overall editorial and content mission for your company.

2. Managing Editor- Someone to execute the content plan

3. Chief Listening Officer- This person is here to maintain the conversation on your content channels.

4. Director of Audience- Someone to monitor your audience to find their passions.

5. Channel Master- Someone to get the most out of each one of your channels.

6. Chief Technologists- Someone to make sure technology is used in the proper manner.

7. Creative Director- Someone to design the look of your content.

8. Influencer Relations- Someone to maintain relationships with influencers in education.

9. Freelancer Relations- Someone to manage your “Expert” content teams and networks.

10. Content Curation Director- Someone to repackage and re-purpose your content.

Other jobs to consider that a paper has are graphic designers, online specialists, headline writers, editors, sports reporters, photographers… the list of experts you need goes on and on.

Content is going to be king in the future if it is not already.  Your district needs to be prepared for the revolution.  You will need talented content creators who know your local audience.  What better way to fill the jobs above by tapping into the experts who are trained in storytelling and know your local audience?

Who will be the first school district to buy a local newspaper?  Will it be you?