As we announced in our May e-newsletter, our recently redeveloped Strategic Messaging Alliance (SMA) has been hard at work building out strategies for CU Boulder recruitment and reputation communications, in close alignment with priorities shared by our deans, vice chancellors, athletics director and senior leadership team. In fact, the SMA working group has made significant progress during the past few months.
Our key outcomes to date include: 1) Consensus from campus leadership to pursue a prototype national content distribution model this academic year in support of our reputation goals, which involves close collaborations between our Strategic Relations and Communications (SRC) team and our college and school communicators. 2) Agreements to pilot marketing campaigns for specific college and school undergraduate recruitment goals within the existing campus undergraduate student recruitment model (a partnership between Admissions and SRC).
Additionally, our SMA team focused on campus retention and engagement communications has begun to examine our current campus communications and content delivery model for student and faculty/staff based on a growing understanding of the unique roles and responsibilities our campus communicators play. And, with the recent arrival of Chandra Harris-McCray, the new executive director of marketing communications for CU Boulder advancement, we are excited to collaborate through the SMA working model on the development of a more coordinated approach to campus-wide alumni and fundraising communications in the coming year.
As we approach the start of the new academic year, now is a great time (if you haven’t already) to schedule a content planning and strategy session with our team to help align your priorities with our campus communications calendar.
I also encourage you to attend our Annual Campus Communicators Conference on August 9, where we will explore the current state of our integrated communications model in more detail and envision together what we want our future state to be. During the conference, we will also share resource materials and new opportunities to collaborate on storytelling, web communications and strategic media relations in the coming year.
As always, we are here to support you and your unit with tools, networking and best practices you can use to help advance CU Boulder’s reputation while achieving your communications goals.
Be Boulder and Go Buffs!
Frances