Print & Web Communications for Education
MBA Program Communications Audit & Recruiting Campaign
Michigan State University Broad School of Business
Award Winner
Admissions Marketing Report Awards
A full communications audit focuses intensively on school-wide issues. Such audits usually involve conversations with anywhere between 20 and 50 people and take several months to complete.
In some circumstances, a more limited discovery/audit process will focus on a single component of a school, such as program admissions. In this way, Zehno and the school can assess the strategic strengths and weaknesses of a current system before making decisions and recommendations on what a new project’s goals and emphases should be.
In our work with the MBA Program at Michigan State University’s Broad School of Business, we completed this kind of mini-audit prior to developing a viewbook and redesigned Web site. We talked with the core team from the MBA admissions office to identify the goals of the project. Then we reviewed the existing Broad and competitor admissions communications. Our resulting strategic recommendations included new message points, visual identity direction, and a tag line — Hands-On Leadership — that were used to organize the admissions campaign.
Then we executed the agreed-upon plan by creating a design concept, commissioning a photo shoot, and building the viewbook and Web site to launch for an impending August deadline.
The new viewbooks flew off the tables at admissions road shows, and the Web site received praise from both internal and external constituents. Applications for the MBA program’s first round were up 20% as compared to the previous year.
Our partnership with the MBA Program has continued with the development of print and e-mail newsletters and PowerPoint presentations to support the admissions flow.