2009 Marketing & Communications Conference

Secrets of secret shopper surveys
Dave Weber, chief of strategic operations
Rochester Community and Technical College

How Rochester Community and Technical College has used results from customer surveys to measure quality and assess areas for improvement.

Also includes results from the recent systemwide Customer Service Survey conducted by Noel-Levitz on how to make a better first impression with prospective students.

System update
Linda Kohl, associate vice chancellor, public affairs
Office of the Chancellor

An overview of the marketing and communications work being done on behalf of the system by public affairs staff at the Office of the Chancellor.

eDynamic campus
Rahul Khosla, eDynamic
Carmen Shoquist, director of marketing, North Hennepin Community College

North Hennepin Community College, working with eDynamic, recently completed a new employee intranet built with SharePoint that connects with a new Sitecore content management system. The system allows people to collaborate and communicate more efficiently, adding a host of streamlined Web applications.

Running lean
Winona State University Communications Department

The communications team at Winona State University share tips for stretching your marketing and communications budget during lean times. Topics covered: media relations, market research and internal marketing.

Two video examples are spotlighted on pages 16 & 17 of this presentation. The first spot (on left) uses language more appropriate for speaking to youth in an urban environment and the second (on right) focuses on speaking to youth in a more rural setting.

Five elements of perception
Susan Kirtland, Propellor Communications

Susan Kirtland is a nationally respected marketing strategist for higher education specializing in brand positioning, strategic planning, media preference research/planning and brand implementation.

The five elements of perception that impact your current students, prospective students, faculty, staff, and community at large. Internal and external key messaging points and appropriate positioning strategies for your college are considered. Embracing what is meaningful, credible and differentiating, you will gain the knowledge of how to posture your college and to communicate more effectively and consistently for all media and touch points.

Easy way to develop a marketing communications plan
Susan Kirtland, Propeller Communications

Dispelling the myth that marketing plans have to be labor intensive, 300 pages long and placed in a drawer where they are never to be heard from again. How to get stakeholder buy-in, how to prioritize and budget and, most important, how to create working documents that are actually used. Sample communications plan using realistic, measurable goals and tactical options is used to demonstrate how easy this process can actually be.

DIY: Social media marketing
Jeff Crandall, Web Communications Coordinator
Office of the Chancellor
Nancy Lee, Independent Web Consultant

The Office of the Chancellor plans to integrate social media and Web 2.0 tools into communications and marketing strategies over the coming year. Hands-on (Do It Yourself) tutorial to introduce participants to the interconnected world of RSS feeds, blogs, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and other emerging social media.

Additional handouts

• Social Media Marketing
  Single page discriptions and URLs for the related pages and sites on the Office of the Chancellor site and around the Internet.
• Hands-on Workshop
  A short tutorial on setting up Twitter and beginning to configure Twitter to interact with other social media sites.