Right Message. Right Audience. Right Time.
In today's digitally-driven world, we're surrounded by noise. How do we, as educators, cut through that noise to ensure our community is connecting with our messages? The answer: be more strategic.
That's Where Our Experience Comes into Play.
Whether it's copywriting or graphic design, we excel at creating exceptional content across all platforms. But it's our ability to be strategic about the WAY we craft content and when, where, and how we share it that sets our work apart - and helps you ignite the connections that build support within your community.
A Collaborative Approach
Our team will work with your district to understand what makes you ... you! Our five-step, collaborative approach to strategic communications planning will help us design a plan that is unique to the intricacies of your district and meets the evolving communication needs of your district.
1. Exploration
The CESA 6 Marketing & Communications team will work collaboratively with your district's leaders and stakeholders as we take the time to get to know your district, your values, and your goals. We will start by spending time on-site in your district buildings to better understand what defines your district and what your needs are. This will give you the chance to get to know us a little better too, ask questions about the process, tell us some of your most pressing needs and concerns, and help us develop a solution that will help your district thrive.
Following the initial exploratory meeting, we will interview representatives of additional stakeholder groups to include: employees currently involved in communicating with your audiences; your administrative team; school board members; school staff (teachers and other); students; and parents or community members. These meetings will involve improving our understanding of what these key stakeholders are looking for when using various communication platforms, and how they experience your district's current communication practices.
2. Audit
Step two of our process involves a comprehensive communications audit. Our team will research and analyze your district's existing communications platforms, procedures, messages and tactics. This will include a thorough review of:
- The structure, navigation, content and analytics of your website
- Content and engagement on your district's existing social media platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, other)
- Electronic communications such as e-newsletters, blogs, budget/annual reports
- Printed communications such as community newsletters, flyers, news releases, parent and family letters, school and classroom newsletters, signage
- Events and face-to-face communication events
- Your district's mass communication services, including voice calls, texts, and emails, as well as language translations and customer service protocols
- Local media coverage and public relations
- Any other formats the district uses to communicate with internal or external audiences
The comprehensive audit will allow us to evaluate the existing communication methods and procedures and formulate a strategy for improvement moving forward, highlighting the great things your district is already doing to communicate with your public, and supporting those that need improvement.
3. Collaboration
Our CESA 6 Marketing & Communications team will schedule a post-audit meeting, in which we will present our audit summary and evaluation, along with the high-level perceptions, expectations and needs of the community members with whom we met, and how the district is or is not currently meeting those needs.
The evaluation will include a content analysis report, focused on the areas that are working well and proving successful for the district, as well as the areas that could use improvement. The report will include some comparable resources and practices from other school districts similar in size and demographic to yours. It's at this point that we will begin our collaborative work to create your district's strategic communications plan.
4. Strategy
Together, your district and our team of communications experts will develop a comprehensive strategic plan to help your district effectively communicate and engage with your community to establish the district as a destination for prospective families and staff.
You can expect the comprehensive strategic plan to include recommendations for:
- Website design, navigation and content updates
- Social media strategy
- News release content and strategy
- Branding and voice
- Implementation of the designed plan using the district’s existing organizational capacity and using our team to help with the execution process
- Measuring the effectiveness of the changes and improvements to the district’s communication plan
You can also expect the following deliverables as part of the strategic plan:
- A written strategic communications plan
- A communications calendar, which will include dates, times and ideas for social media posts, news releases, promotions and other pertinent celebrations
- Several templates for future communications, as decided on by the team, to include some or all of the following: media release, slide deck, e-newsletter template, print newsletter template, board report template, social media templates, or others.
5. Implementation
The final stage in our process is implementation of the strategic plan. This stage begins with a review of the strategic plan document with district staff. Following approval, we will together discuss and decide how to implement the plan, whether using your district's existing communications support team, or our team of CESA 6 Marketing & Communications professionals. We will develop a proposal based on your district's individual support needs.
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