The Office of Marketing and Communications (OMC) at Elizabethtown College was recently presented with several Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) awards for its creative marketing work with multiple departments on campus, including the Office of Admissions, Office of Alumni and the School of Continuing and Professional Studies (SCPS).
The College was awarded a gold in the “Creativity on a Shoestring” category for the “Tag You’re It” campaign, a bronze in the “Best Practices in Communication” category for the “Share Your Moment” campaign, a bronze in the “Web Site: Student Recruitment” category for the redevelopment of the website for the School of Continuing and Professional Studies and an honorable mention in the “Illustrations” category for the 2012 Holiday Card.
The “Share Your Moment” campaign was run by the Office of Admissions. The project “was an effort to create a ‘moment’ for accepted students and encourage them to share that moment — as they opened their acceptance letters — on social media, with the #etown2017,” Debi Murray, the director of admissions, said.
Admissions and OMC work together on about 80 percent of the communication between prospective students and admissions. The officers meet bi-weekly to review different material designed for prospective and accepted students.
They also worked together to create a new and improved folder from which the students would receive their acceptance letter. “Last year, we pushed the “moment” concept, and students seemed excited to share the very moment they opened their acceptance letters,” Murray said. The campaign has created a more significant amount of social media buzz among incoming students as they began connecting with each other even before attending Etown. Murray notes that the goal of the campaign was to create a sense of excitement among the accepted students, and she believes this goal has been reached.
“Tag You’re it” was a campaign run by the Office of Alumni Relations during Homecoming. The idea came from a brainstorming session involving OMC and the Office of Alumni Relations. This was the second year running it because of its tremendous success the previous year.
The Elizabethtown E-team, the College’s social media team, traveled the campus Homecoming weekend “tagging” individuals with blue stickers. On the stickers was information about the social media sites including URLs and hashtags. People were asked to tweet, Instagram or post on Facebook pictures or statuses using the hashtags. Again, the goal was to generate social media buzz concerning the event.
“The ‘You’ve Been Tagged’ campaign has added a terrific dimension of interaction and ‘audience participation’ to our Homecoming and Family Weekend festivities. It has provided a way for participants and attendees to quickly and easily become part of the College’s documentation of the fun that was going on throughout the weekend—all in real time,” Mark Clapper, the director of alumni relations, said.
The School of Continuing and Professional Studies won an award for the redevelopment of its website. Etown faculty from several different departments, including OMC, ITS and the SCPS, worked together to create a smooth experience for potential and current students. Some staff helped to build the site itself, while others helped with design and content.
According to Barbara Randazzo, the assistant dean of Enrollment Management, the SCPS wanted three things from the new website. They wanted a clean and professional image, that displays the multitude of programs offered, encourage visitors to utilize the Contact Us option, which would drive more people to be introduced to Etown and offer content that visitors wanted as efficiently as possible.
“We have received very positive feedback from our various stakeholders, including current students, faculty and prospective students. We are committed to keeping the site up-to-date and refreshed with new student stories and positive messages about returning to school and accomplishing goals,” Randazzo said. The new updates have driven additional traffic to the site — another goal and positive outcome of this project.
CASE is split up into eight districts distinguished by geographic region. Etown is part of District II, which is the largest district, comprised of Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and West Virginia. District II holds an annual three-day conference in Baltimore, Md.
