Committee Meeting: Marketing & Institutional Advancement Date: November 17, 2017 Committee Chair: Trustee Kathleen Masiello Committee Members: Susan Swarts-Trustee, Rebecca Krakowiak-Student Trustee, Maria Carroll-Director Talent Management and Employee Engagement, Dr. Fabio Escobar-Vice Provost IRAAP, Lida Mosovich-Software Specialist, Michael Pietkiewicz-Executive Vice President of Operations, Dr. Steven Smith-Vice President of Enrollment Management, Philip Struebel-Director of Admissions, Nathan Wallace-Asst Project Coordinator, Paula Sandy- Director of Marketing and Communications Mission The Marketing and Institutional Advancement Committee is a collaborative, intercollegiate group assembled to advise the ECC Board of Trustees on matters pertaining to the marketing of the College, and the ongoing advancement of these promotional efforts. AGENDA 1. Call to order 2. Approval of Minutes Motion to approve the minutes of October 20, 2017 3. Old Business a. Signage and Wayfinding Paula Sandy b. Digital signs Paula Sandy c. Website Discussion - Paula Sandy/Amy Krasinski 4. New Business a. New Logos Paula Sandy/Jerome Williams b. Giving Tuesday Mike Pietkiewicz/Paula Sandy c. College Rebrand Workshop Report Paula Sandy 5. Next Meeting: December 15 @ 9:00 AM
Committee Meeting: Marketing & Institutional Advancement Date: October 20, 2017 Committee Chair: Trustee Kathleen Masiello Committee Members Present: Dr. Erik D Aquino-Vice President of Enrollment Management, Paula Sandy-Director of Marketing and Communications, Richard Washousky- Provost and Executive Vice President, Michael Farrell-Public Information Officer, Lida Mosovich-Software Specialist, Philip Struebel-Director of Admissions, Rebecca Krakowiak-Student Trustee, Katie Koch-Job Developer, Dr. Fabio Escobar -Vice Provost IRAAP Committee Members Excused: Susan Swarts-Trustee, Maria Carroll-Director Talent Management and Employee Engagement,, Nathan Wallace-Asst Project Coordinator, Michael Pietkiewicz-Executive Vice President of Operations, Erika Hendra-Senate Vice Chair Mission The Marketing and Institutional Advancement Committee is a collaborative, intercollegiate group assembled to advise the ECC Board of Trustees on matters pertaining to the marketing of the College, and the ongoing advancement of these promotional efforts. Minutes 1. Call to Order: Chairman Masiello called meeting to order at 9:01 a.m. 2. Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve the minutes of September 8, 2017 Motion: Richard Washousky Second: Erik D Aquino Passed unanimously 3. Old Business: Chairman Masiello opened the meeting by acknowledging that Erik D Aquino will be leaving us and noted how much he will be missed. She thanked him for his service on behalf of the Committee and wished him well in his new endeavors. Erik D Aquino thanked Chairman Masiello noting this was one of his favorite committees because it is a fun, positive group charged with helping the college to move forward. o Signage and Wayfinding Paula Sandy Paula Sandy provided an update on three areas involved with signage and wayfinding. The first consisted of Ernst Kihl and Shawn Deacon performing a walkthrough on each campus, noting locations and content of signs. That report is expected next week. The second component is review of the 2014 project for a signage and wayfinding master plan. Due to the projected cost, Paula Sandy wrote an RFP for consultant services and provided it to Michael Pietkiewicz. Operations staff is currently reviewing. Page 1 of 5
The final component is the purchase of a signage engraving system. Several staff members participated in a demonstration of a signage engraving system, which if purchased, would allow us to create all campus signs in-house. Paula Sandy and Fabio Escobar reported that they are working together to project total anticipated final costs, with Dr. Escobar noting that $22,000 has been budgeted for this project. Paula Sandy reported that the price for the preferred system is $29,000, but with a machine life of 10 years, she anticipates significant costs savings in outsourcing costs over that period. Erik D Aquino suggested performing an anticipated usage study to project costs savings for in-house production vs. rentals and outsourcing, to aid in the decision-making process. o Logo Contest Updates Paula Sandy After the public and internal committee votes, two concepts have been selected for use and two others have been developed. President Hocoy will introduce the logos to the Board of Trustees at their retreat next week. Paula Sandy explained she is planning the launch for faculty and staff, with the President ideally introducing the logos at the College Senate next month, and the launch for students taking place after that. The logos would be introduced as part of the rebranding initiative which will take several months to complete. Erik D Aquino suggested incorporating the new logos launch as we market the current academic year as a year of change, cumulating with the President s inauguration. This new branding will include a new website, which will take several months to develop and launch. Rebecca Krakowiak suggested a What do I do campaign idea, featuring signs on campus to answer common student questions, like I need to drop a class. What do I do? Answer: Stop in at the Registrar s. You have until this date. Trustee Masiello and Paula Sandy were both in favor of the idea. Paula Sandy noted we could leverage both social media and the new signage engraving system for this project. Trustee Masiello said it would be interesting to reach out to every club or athletic group to develop questions for the signs. Katie Koch asked about the possibility of renumbering the Oak Street facility because people don t know the difference between City Campus and Oak Street. Paula Sandy said that Oak Street and the Flickinger Center have been included in the RFP. Rebecca Krakowiak noted that she is interested in creating a student senate by the spring semester. Trustee Masiello would like to see a long-term strategy for keeping students engaged. Trustee Masiello inquired about the projected location of digital signs for each campus. Paula Sandy explained there are digital signs are on each campus now, but the current system is not stable. MarCom and ITS have discussed updating the system but there is a significant expense associated with it. Trustee Masiello questioned if this was part of the RFP for signage. Paula Sandy noted that it is not, since there are specialty companies for different sign types. Erik D Aquino commented that the system is useful to provide students with information. Richard Washousky inquired if the system is currently down Page 2 of 5
and whether ITS can fix the issues. Lida Mosovich reported some signs have stopped communicating with the main system while others are still functioning. Fabio Escobar suggested taking down the signs that are not working. Paula Sandy said she will follow up with Joe Lundin to determine which digital signs are down. Richard Washousky stated that if this is deemed useful it should become a budget priority. o Website Discussion Updates Paula Sandy Lida Mosovich, Joe Lundin, Helen Reiner and Paula Sandy met with a representative from OmniUpdate, which is a content management system company that specializes in higher education. Paula Sandy stated that she worked with this system at NCCC, noting it is a much more progressive system than our current one. A full demo is scheduled. Omni currently represents SUNY and 20 other SUNY Schools and is under state contract. This eliminates the need to go to bid and depending on our timeline, could mean a cost savings of $70,000 for implementation fees. After the demonstration, a decision will be made if we will go with them or go through a formal RFP process. We will need to decide whether we will limit the design service to current Omni partners. Omni will provide links to websites their partners have designed for our review. Trustee Masiello inquired whether any of the companies are local. Paula Sandy replied they are not, but are noted for their work in higher education. Trustee Masiello thought the RFP should be open to everyone because we should try to connect the local workforce and local companies to the College. Paula Sandy said she had reached out to two local companies but the results were not positive. Trustee Masiello said as this moves forward, expedience should not be our only goal. o Social Media Update Paula Sandy Paula Sandy reported that she had begun to employ the strategy she submitted to the Committee last month and noted that our Facebook and Twitter followers are up, in addition to the numbers of likes and shares. Next month, she will provide a full update on: how often and what content we re posting; what is working; and what adjustments we should make. Accounts have been created for SGA. Michael Farrell and Paula Sandy are working on launching social media accounts for the President, as well. Paula Sandy discussed building targeted custom audiences through Facebook using information from our student prospect database. Facebook uses the student information to search for the student s Facebook account, allowing us to place a targeted ad on the student s personal Facebook page. Paula Sandy noted there is some controversy with this tactic when colleges purchase database lists, but we would only target people who filled out an interest form requesting information from us. Erik D Aquino noted when we do Facebook ads, we already target groups. This strategy will allow us to target specific people with specific programs rather than random advertising. The information required for these ads is directory information. The committee s consensus was that we should move forward with this strategy. Further discussion centered on specific types of targeting and messaging. Trustee Masiello asked if we sell student lists and Paula Sandy noted we do not. We would create these ads in house to ensure student information was Page 3 of 5
not shared with external companies. Phil Struebel and Paula Sandy will work with Richard Washousky and his team to select the initial programs to target. 4. New Business: o Policy on the selection and support of Sponsorship Requests - Erik D Aquino Erik D Aquino reviewed the draft management policy on event sponsorship. He noted most sponsorships should be processed through the Marketing and Communications Department to ensure that the event coincides with our mission and will bring a return on investment to the College. MarCom will keep a database of all sponsorships for the College. Rebecca Krakowiak inquired if this is for external companies with Erik D Aquino acknowledging this is primarily for external use because in the past, there has not been a process to determine what we would sponsor. He said the other reason the sponsorship should go through MarCom is to ensure that messaging and visualization are aligned with our brand. Trustee Masiello suggested some changes to the Sponsorship Policy draft and said this needs to be put on the Policy Committees Agenda. Trustee Masiello also stated that she will explain the reason that the sponsorships go through the MarCom when she presents this to the Policy Committee. She asked if there were any other changes. None were offered. Motion to accept the Management Policy on Sponsorship Requests MOTION: Rebecca Krakowiak SECOND: Katie Koch Passed unanimously. o College Rebrand Paula Sandy In addition to the logo and website, the college is undertaking a full rebrand. Paula Sandy said the MarCom team will be leading a series of mini branding workshops beginning in November. The workshops will be promoted in ECC Today, with specific invitations going to faculty members and key stakeholders on each campus. She asked the Committee to provide her with the names of anyone that should be directly invited. Paula Sandy is also creating a dedicated branding subcommittee of ten to fifteen people that will meet over the next few months to review the results of these workshops and develop the full brand. She would like a diverse group of volunteers from faculty, staff and students to serve on the subcommittee, as well. The subcommittee will report back to this group to ensure the rebranding is a college-wide effort. Trustee Masiello inquired if there were clubs that could help with this process. Rebecca Krakowiak responded that there are not any at this time. Paula Sandy noted that as components are developed, there will be feedback sessions on each of the campuses, in addition to surveys. Katie Koch suggested that counselors may be able to assist with the feedback process when they are working with students. o Search Engine Marketing Paula Sandy Paula Sandy explained this is another advertising strategy similar to Facebook-targeted ads but these are driven by searches on Google and other search engines. An RFP has been written detailing requirements and responsibilities for the service. The selected Page 4 of 5
company will work with us on the creative piece and handle the specifics of the campaigns (ex. keyboards, bidding strategies, landing pages). We are utilizing an outside company for this service because it is a full time job, dedicated to this specific component of marketing. Paula Sandy said she anticipates a budget is approximately $1,500 to $2,500 per month for this service. Preference will be given to a company with local representation to ensure we can meet regularly to review campaign performance. We employed digital targeting most recently for the Pathways to Prosperity event and saw very good results. Trustee Masiello inquired if there is a way to get marketing students involved with this. Paula Sandy responded that she is looking into two internships for the MarCom office: one for marketing and one for visual design. Richard Washousky would like the campus community to know what we are doing for marketing. Paula Sandy noted the MarCom team would like time at convocation in January to provide a marketing update and she has also presented to various campus groups. o Trustee Masiello inquired if there was any additional new business. None was suggested. She noted the next meeting is November 17. Agenda items should be submitted no later than November 6. 5. Motion to adjourn: Motion to the meeting: 10:41 a.m. Motion: Katie Koch Second: Philip Struebel Passed unanimously 6. Follow Up Items: Signage & Wayfinding report Digital signs College Rebranding Workshop report 7. Next Meeting: November 17, 2017 at 9:00 a.m. Page 5 of 5