Edinboro University Communications and Marketing department: Content marketing, prospect research, University Advancement and event planning higher education

Introduction Edinboro University’s Communications and Marketing department has a variety of

responsibilities and a wealth of experiences. They handle all the marketing, branding with its

Graphic Standards Manual, university publications, including Boro Weekly, which is distributed

weekly over students’ emails, Edinboro University Magazine, which is published semiannually

chronicling the students, stories, accomplishments and alumni of Edinboro University and public

relations functions, including crisis management, media relations and the promotion of university

events to the students living both on and off-campus, the local community of Edinboro and its

surrounding areas such as Erie, Meadville and Albion (Edinboro University, 2016). The

department also develops content and maintains the university’s social media accounts such as

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat and the university’s websites. Through its strategic

communication plan, it ensures Edinboro University will receive state, regional and national

recognition emphasizing the value and quality of its education at an affordable and competitive

price compared to the other colleges and universities in the region (Edinboro University, 2016).

Any request by the local, regional or national media that want to do a story on Edinboro

University, its faculty or students or need an official comment from the University or want to use

an university faculty member as an expert source in a story, they must go through the proper

channels of the Communications and Marketing department to get the request approved.

The Communications and Marketing department works in conjunction with other

university departments, organizations and alumni to strengthen that message by detailing the

excellence and opportunities afforded to those with an Edinboro education. To this end, the

department has a strong and close relationship with the Admissions Office. The Communications

and Marketing department creates marketing campaigns for them such as the “Invest in Me,”

where select students write a short biography about themselves also provide their future plans,

aspirations and why a potential, prospective donor should consider donating to Edinboro

University, thereby helping and supporting the success of students like the one depicted.

The Communications and Marketing department is located at 210 Normal Street and on

the bottom floor of the Alumni House connected to Edinboro University. The department shares

the building with Prospect Research and the University Advancement division.

Key roles, functions and synergy

With such a diverse group of professionals under one roof, it is important to understand

the leadership within the Alumni House that made my internship enriching with plenty of

professional development in the fields of marketing, public relations, prospective research,

advancement and event planning. When I was talking with Jeffery Hileman, director of

communications internship supervisor about the opportunity to work under him, he emphasized

how all three branches of the Alumni House were suited to my strengths.

Content marketer and public relations specialist My primary role during the internship was as a content marketer and public relations

specialist. In this role, I wrote news releases, developed web content for both Boro Weekly and

Edinboro University’s website. I also sent professional emails to all my relevant contacts, wrote

a few pieces that will be included in the June 2016 issue of the Edinboro University Magazine,

where I combined visual and design elements such as high-definition photos and sidebars to add

to and supplement the main copy with a concise rundown of the people being chronicled in the

story, so readers can identify with them and connect with the alumni’s’ post-retirement stories

and perspectives.

While working tasks in this role, I identified and incorporated Jeff’s constructive

criticism. This process occurred more as a dialogue because of our mutual personal backgrounds

and experiences in print journalism. Because of our shared background, I was surprised at the

slower pace of my contacts getting back to me and the amount I had in between correspondence

with my contacts.

Prospect Research When I was in the role of prospect researcher, I worked alongside Brad May, director of

prospect research at Edinboro University. The majority of the workload in this role had me

filling in gaps of knowledge about certain alumni using Google and a few other investigative

search websites until I think I gleamed all I could from the available data and searches, I helped

Bad fill in the gaps about certain alumni profiles, so we could understand who they are and the

likelihood that they would want to give money to Edinboro University. We usually certain

alumni profiles when we found living close together based on where the Advancement division

was doing upcoming recruitment trips and fundraisers, so they could be more effective when

speaking with the alumni and that might lend itself to stronger appeals to donate to the

university because they would be relating to the alumni based upon their interest, work

experience and where they have donated previously, all of which would be informed by the

alumni profiles Brad and I construct. These alumni profiles were a great way to narratively get a

sense of the alumni we were looking at.

I also helped Brad with Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to research and generate new data

that could be later used to paired with our alumni database to perform new queries, that is to ask

the database new questions to yield new connections and insights that might drive a potential

story for the Communications and Marketing department in the form of a trend among alumni or

it might reveal more avenues for the Advancement department to peruse, in terms of which

group of alumni to segment for a certain fundraising effort. Back in January, the Advancement

division held a fundraiser and alumni get-together in Florida due to the preponderance of alumni

in that area. In addition to working with Brad May, I also used his division of prospect research

to help me figure out the value of statistics and trends among specific Edinboro University

alumni that I could use in my stories for the website. One such story involved highlighting

graduates, who have won a Teacher of the Year Award to emphasize the value and quality of an

Edinboro education and to show that these graduates are just a few enjoying a rewarding

successful career built upon the foundation of an Edinboro education. To accomplish this, Brad

had to contact Records and Registration to ascertain the educator’s graduating year and what

they studied while at this university. This illuminated some of the synergy within the three

branches of the Alumni House that I had a role with. It also revealed the shared functions and

responsibilities of each department and division within the Alumni House.

University Advancement With my role as a grant writer for the Advancement division, I worked alongside Julie

Chacona, director of development. My primary responsibilities were to research about Erie

County, examine how that would fit we were constructing for the specific grant we were

applying for, find funding and grant opportunities for University Advancement or any other

university department to apply for and to construct a narrative around the rationale for a grant’s

funds. The primary grant we worked on was the Erie County Greenways grant. According to The

Erie County Department of Planning, “The goal of this program is to improve the quality of life

in Erie County through the preservation and enhancement of the region’s natural, scenic and

recreational resources for public use and enjoyment” Erie County Department of Planning, 2016,

para. 2).

University’s Advancement’s vision was to use $50,000, if awarded, from the Erie County

Greenways Program was to create a one-mile multipurpose trail around the athletic fields, which

were going to be renovated into baseball, softball, and soccer multipurpose fields, with

multilingual signage in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Bhutanese and Russian to display distance

markers, historical facts and motivational messages along the trail. The vision also called for the

creation of an outdoor classroom and amphitheater to fulfill the need for an additional learning

space and host community health programs and yoga classes as well as meditation and entertain

opportunities such as concert for Edinboro University’s Porreco College. The narrative was

structured around Porreco’s moniker as “The Community’s College.” Since the Porreco College

was established by Edinboro University in 2014 fulfilling the need for an affordable education

opportunity for those in Millcreek Township and in surrounding areas. However, University

Advancement feels like it has fallen short of bridging the campus and community since it has

opened. With the highly residential and poorer communities of Millcreek, Edinboro University

Advancement wanted to show that with the grant they could accomplish their goals and vison

because with the Eerie County Greenway Program grant funds, the University would match

funds up to $99,000 in an effort to make their vision of benefiting the Millcreek campus, its

students, most of which are from the poorest zip codes in Erie county, and the community by

offering free amenities and services that they can use whenever they have time in their busy

lives.

With these renovations, the University Advancement wanted to create a fun, park-like

environment that would be appealing for students and give them a place to congregate and relax,

while giving the community a place to take their children to play and to take advantage of the

free health and exercise equipment and facilities and programs to promote and improve their

health and manage stress levels in their through physical activity and education. Julie and met

several times to make sure we were conveying the narrative in the way that we wanted to

because in grant writing, the narrative is just as important as the research supporting why the

funds from the grant are necessary in funding a particular project or endeavor, according to her.

This is why I felt I was important to explain the vision and most of the rationale behind the

project because it gives the reader a sense of the scope of the project and how it is going to

positively impact the students and community in the hopes of unifying the Porreco College as a

shared communal space that both of them can take full advantage of, thereby embodying their

moniker, “The Community’s College.” While we were working on constructing the narrative,

Julie emphasized the effectiveness and importance of humanizing the narrative in grant writing

because it makes the application stand out while selection committees are reading it. She even

joked that she writes it extra sappy the first time she writes it before cutting it back in future edits

to convey the emotionality of the situation and the necessity of the funds to improve the

situation.

In addition to grant writing, I also researched funding resources for other academic

departments, so they could write the grant proposal and get what they needed for their

department. One example of this was identifying funding sources for a new braille writer for the

Office for students with disabilities (OSD).

Event planner Although I did not get to direct be involved directly with the planning of any University

events taking place over the course of the semester. I did get to sit in on the first meeting

planning Boropalooza 2016 because I expressed an interest of pursuing event planning as a

career. Before the meeting, Tina Mengine, vice president of university advancement and head of

the homecoming committee, issued a typed agenda to everyone, which detailed what each

representative was going to speak about and contribute to the meeting. At the meeting, there

were representatives from Communications and Marketing, University Advancement, University

website designers, Edinboro campus police, Residence Life and Housing and Edinboro

University Student Government Association (EUSGA) as well as several other departments. As

we heard from each representative in the room, they gave preliminary budget information for the

event as well as what they would like to see as improvements over the event from previous years.

The group then voted on different changes to the format for this year’s event such as a change in

the provider of the event’s mobile application for scheduling information and a website map of

the campus. Then, they addressed how they would choose the speaker representing the School of

Business. Homecoming themes were also pitched and voted on, but were inconclusive, so that

was tabled until the next meeting.

Jeffery Hileman convinced me that having the internship with Edinboro University’s

Communications and Marketing department was going to be the best position for me to grow and

develop professionally. He was confident in this because of the diverse opportunities and

experiences they could offer in terms of strategic communication and marketing, prospect

research, University Advancement, including grant writing and research and event. Jeff wanted

to make sure I got the most out of my internship and that I could experience the full spectrum of

services, functions and operations that the Communications and Marketing department at one

time. This ensured that I always had something diverse and enriching to do in my internship

experience and professional development and it allowed me to showcase my proficiency in

executing public relations tasks such as writing press releases and preparing marketing materials

such as academic program sheets for several academic departments in the College of Arts

Humanities and Social Sciences College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences as well as my

strong researching abilities and compelling consumer profiles for the Prospective research

division and my strong ability to incorporate research with a specific narrative to convey in my

grant writing and research and my aspiration to be an event planner took a step forward with my

careful examination and helped in the coordination and decision-making in a Boropalooza 2016

Homecoming weekend meeting that helped move the event forward.

Content marketing and strategic communication In the digital age we live in today, marketing and its functions have changed along with

consumers to be able to reach on the media channels they congregate to. To this end, it has

become much more important to create content that attracts and appeals to the target audience, a

marketer is trying to reach. Ferell and Hartline (2012) argue that marketers segment their

audience to uncover their unique and identifying characteristics. It is more important today to

have a deep, solid understanding of the audience one is trying to target because there is a shift

towards content marketing. Content marketing can be seen as the marketing aligning with the

target audience’s needs, desires or interests to drive purposeful content and consumer action

(Headley & Chapman, 2010; Odden, 2012; Pulizzi & Barrett, 2009). In higher education, the

concept of content marketing is related directly to enrollment and retention. With the enrollment

numbers at Edinboro University down, there is a larger emphasis on recruitment (Edinboro

University, 2016).

During my internship, I engaged in content marketing on a daily basis. An example of

this was when Jeff Hileman were going over some edits on my Cultural Seasons press release,

Jeff emphasized approaching the piece from the right “angle,” how the story is positioned and

reflecting what target audience the story is written for, as if to sell the importance, significance

and appeal of the event to the University’s commuters, so would drive from Erie to attend the

event. This is because Edinboro University’s Cultural Seasons is programming throughout the

semester that is supposed to be celebrate “high” art. Plattner (1996) notes how high art is

designed to expand our cultural vision and usually enjoyed by the social elites. That is not to say,

the other programming is without merit, but the Cultural Seasons aim to provide a higher level of

quality, enjoyment and refinement.

When I was writing my article on Edinboro University graduates recently winning a

Teacher of the Year award emphasizing the value and quality of an Edinboro education for

educators, I was also dispelling the myth that teachers were not needed as much anymore, but in

fact, educators with an Edinboro education are still enjoying prosperous, fulfilling careers in

their respective fields. This is another example of content marketing because it is purposeful and

meaning content for current Edinboro University Education majors as well as prospective

Education majors who are trying to choose the right school for them to go to.

Strategic communication, in terms of the Communications and Marketing department of

Edinboro University, refers to the blending of pushing out news in a traditional journalistic sense

in the form of content for the website, Boro Weekly and the Edinboro University Magazine with

the public relations and management functions of University messages to be consistent across

media, so we can engage different target audiences in the way that is most appealing to them.

Strategic communication was used in my internship on a daily basis because even when I

was developing news stories to be consistent across the variety of mediums, I was relying on the

public relations and management aspects of communication to tailor the messages to specific

target audiences using a specific angle or focus to direct the messages towards my target

audience in a meaningful and purposeful way to them. In this way, Grigorescu and Lupu (2015)

view strategic communication and integrated communication, which emphasizes messages are

related and work together across mediums to create a comprehensive integrated marketing

communications (IMC) plan and strategies. According to Clow and Baack (2016) IMC is “the

coordination and integration of all marketing communication tools, avenues, and sources within

a company into a seamless program which maximizes the impact on consumers and other end-

users at a minimal cost…” (p.25). Clow and Baack (2016) explain that a company’s tactics and

strategies are dependent on the identification and profiling their target audience to get a sense of

who they are. The purpose of the news releases produced during my internship were intended to

both inform and persuade. The combination of these message purpose increased the effectiveness

of the message. For the larger Edinboro University Magazine articles, they tended to be more

persuasive in nature. During my internship, I wrote an article about how going away to college is

difficult and distressing and how this is only heightened for students with disabilities, but they

find success though the services and the sense of community they find at Edinboro University.

This article utilized an emotional appeal, affective message strategy and a testimonial

executional framework. An executional framework is in what format the message will be

presented. Clow and Baack (2016) contend that well-executed advertisement design for Edinboro

University emphasizing its commitment to diversity will be remembered and recalled later by

readers when they see or hear Edinboro University, so they might start associating positive

feeling with our brand.

Prospective research and alumni profiles With the Prospect research division I worked with Brad May to fill in the gaps in our

alumni database, so we could create profiles about our alumni to synthesize data we had on them

to make our marketing and donation efforts towards them more coordinated and effective. We

were able to do this combining the demographics, discernable characteristics of a target audience

such as age, gender and income level, psychographics, which are common activities, interests,

and opinions of the target audience to help understand why they feel or act the way they do and

geographics, which break a target audience based on where they live (Clow & Baack, 2016). We

construct alumni profiles to humanize the data in our database, so we can best target the

populations we hope to reach. Profiles make sure we are communicating and coordinating the

appropriate messages, beliefs and experiences with the appropriate alumni segments. From the

alumni profiles, we are “…providing relevant, valuable and timely information in order to

promote discovery, cultivation, solicitation and stewardship of alumni and donors” (University

of Louisiana, 2016, para. 1), much like the University of Louisiana. These alumni profiles are

very beneficial when the Advancement division is traveling on fundraises or just seeking

donations. Prospective research and University Advancement are more crucial now that

recruitment and retention are down at Edinboro University (Edinboro University, 2016).

University Advancement and grant writing Professionals working for University Advancement are in charge of strategically

managing relationships to increase understanding, trust and support for key constituents such as

students, alumni, government operations and policy makers, local media organizations, nonprofit

and corporate organizations as well as other philanthropic organizations. The main operations of

these professionals are public relations, alumni outreach, annual giving, brand management and

fundraising, including grant writing. Iarrobino (2006) asserts one of the most valuable resources

for nonprofit colleges and universities is their Office of Advancement because they help the

university reach its goals and its vision. Iarrobino (2006) is concerned about the amount of

turnover in Advancement offices all over the country because that means the university is a

professional that has strong relationships with alumni other donors and connections to other

funding resources that might lessen up if the university loses those professionals.

Brand management, in this case, refers to Advancement officials telling alumni about

what’s new with the university’s brand. For those alumni that have a strong affiliation with the

brand, they may develop as part of the brand community for their university’s brand.

McAlexander, Koeing and Schouten (2006) explain brand community refers to the result of

social relations where individuals recognize their common bond with one and feel a

responsibility to share the brand’s image and identity. This can result in donations and referring

others to the universities (McAlexander, Koeing & Schouten, 2006).

Grant writing allows an individual to express an organization’s vision, mission, brand

image and brand identity as it relates to a task, venture or initiative. Through writing a portion of

the grant proposal for the Erie County Greenways Program Grant for the Porreco College, I was

able to successful communicate the brand image of being “The Community’s College and its

identity as well as its vision of the new amenities, which would be provided through the grant

would be able to bridge and unify the campus and the community together. Schroeder and

Salzer-Mörling (2006) explain under branding theory, an organization’s brand “identity can be

defined, observed, molded and managed” (p.123). Brand managers are cultural engineers for the

brand and that inconsistencies between brand image and brand identity can be attributed to a lack

of knowledge about the brand (Holt, 2002; Schroder & Salzer- Mörling, 2006). At times during

the grant writing process, I had trouble emphasizing the brand image and brand identity because

of my lack of knowledge with Porreco College, but overall, it was important for me how those

elements interplay for the reader to visualize the task getting done or initiative being started. As

an IMC professional, I am acutely aware how to convey the organizational elements of vision,

mission, brand image and brand identity, but it was a new experience to operationalize and

narratively discuss them, in terms of improvements was new for me and help me grow as an IMC

professional, communicator and grant writer.

Event planning and group formation For my experience in event planning during my internship, I sit in and participating in the

first meeting of the year for Boropalooza 2016. At the first meeting of Boropalooza 2016, the

representatives from each department contacted to be a part of this meeting seemed at ease with

the rules and guidelines of the meeting because Homecoming was a big, annual event that most

of the representatives have been through already. Still, the group through Bruce Tuckerman’s

(1965) five stages of group development: forming, storming, norming, performing and

adjourning, which was added later in the 1970s (Tuckerman & Jensen, 1977).

As part of the forming stage, campus organizational representatives began with ‘testing’

different ideas and suggested recommendations after everyone was introduced and gave

preliminary information on the department of the event they were responsible for at the

beginning of the meeting. They showed a ‘dependence’ on the limited information,

recommendations and ideas they had (Bonebright, 2010, p. 113). Under this step, groups become

familiar with the task they have to complete, create ground rules for all the group members,

establish contact and relationships with leaders and the organization hierarchy of their clients as

well as other members in the group and test the interpersonal and task boundaries (Bonebright,

2010; Tuckman, 1965; Tuckerman & Jensen, 1977).

In the storming stage, group members resist entering interpersonal relations with new

clients, thereby favoring security of what is known and “causing intergroup conflict (Bonebright,

2010, p. 114; Tuckman, 1965; Tuckerman & Jensen, 1977). During the meeting, there was not

much intergroup conflict, rather critiquing of different theme ideas and suggestions were done by

several representatives. This was the case because Boropalooza 2016 was an already established

event, so they all favored security of proven success and opting to critiquing suggested changes,

rather than engaging in intergroup conflict.

In the third stage referred to as norming, the members come together, promote cohesion

among the group members, accept each member’s characteristics, to come up with an effective

solution to the task or at least figuring out the next step in the process of successful task

completion with the client (Bonebright, 2010; Tuckman 1965; Tuckerman & Jensen, 1977). In

the Boropalooza 2016 meeting, this stage was when representatives began agreeing on each

other’s suggestions and recommendations, doing so in a democratic fashion, and having Tina

Mengine using her influence as the head of the Homecoming committee to push for

representatives to push for frameworks in which these new approved suggestions could work and

to move the meeting along.

In the performing stage, representatives were able to set some parameters for the

approved changes under the guidance of Mengine and the combined efforts of the rest of the

group.

In the adjourning stage, which is the final stage for the investigated model of group

development, group members try to make sense of their experience both with the client and

group and anticipate and make improvement for future situations (Bonebright 2010; Gouran,

2003). In the meeting, the representatives set the time and date of the next meeting as well as the

expectations of what needed to have met or addressed before the next meeting. I will discuss

how the internship applied to the Masters of Communication Studies (MACS) program.

Overall impressions of the internship and applicability towards the MACS program My internship in the Communications and Marketing department at Edinboro University

was beneficial to me personally and professionally and extended some of the theoretical and

applied dimensions presented and investigated in the MACS program into a real-word setting.

My role as a content marketing, which blended public relations, marketing and journalistic

functions directly applied to the concepts investigated in Public Relations Management and

utilized my interview skills, which were heightened in Qualitative Communication Research. My

assistant prospect researcher role built on my knowledge I gained from the Public Relations

Management and Integrated Marketing Communication classes in consumer and prospective

research, the importance and utility of research in demographics, psychographics, geographics

and consumer/alumni profiles when trying to mine one’s resources. My role in University

Advancement in grant writing and was enlightening and c to my professional development going

forward. In this role, I was able to emphasize some of my strengths such as blending research

with the narrative I am constructing. I was able to understand how an organization’s vision,

mission, brand image and brand identity were illuminated when constructing a particular

narrative. This built upon the core concepts exemplified and illustrated in Integrated Marketing

Communication class and the construction of my IMC plan for a purposed business based in

Erie, Pennsylvania. As an event planner, I noticed Tuckerman (1965) and Tuckerman and

Jensen’s (1977) model for group development occurring in the five stages during the

Boropalooza 2016 meeting and analyzed the group and their development based on the model,

which I first applied to groups and their development in the Small Group Communication class.

Overall, the internship fed into a lot of core concepts investigated in the Integrated Marketing

Communications concentration and it provided professional experience that both supplemented

and extended my coursework in the MACS program.

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