USM Marketing and Brand Management

As Marketing and Brand Management’s secretary, working in this department provides opportunities for me to interact with the campus community. Occassionally, I’ve had the chance to leave my desk and help out with not only a TV commercial in the past, but photo shoots as well.  It’s great to focus on marketing USM, thus taking a break from paying all those printing and ad bills.  I enjoy working with students and recruiting their help. Even in the midst of finals, students were willing to be in the photographs while typing papers in the Computer Lab at Luther Bonney. Living in Portland gives me the opportunity to meet many students in the community and after all, working in Public Affairs and Marketing, it’s hard not to become an advocate for USM.

Here’s a photo from the shoot in the computer lab.  Enjoy!

USM communications created deliberately within a brand, ones that have that special USM feel and look, will help promote your unique program.

Here’s how it works: Those you reach out to—prospective students, parents, colleagues, and friends—will also see USM on TV or hear about USM online. Those efforts will remind them of you and what you do here because it will have that same USM resemblance that your communications have.

When your communications reach out to your target audience, it becomes part of the USM “grouping” (to steal from Twitter) and will enlarge not only your program’s profile, but that of the entire University.

As we move forward with the new web site and beyond to help each area of campus get the word out about what they offer here, our public image will become clearer to those new to USM.

If you did not know already know, the university is in the midst of a content management system (CMS) migration. By the end of spring, the university will have a new “look and feel” that includes a new way of creating and managing content relatively easily. Each department retains direct control over the content of their site.

What are the benefits?

Content management systems, in general, are great for search engines and SEO (search engine optimization). The more unique, relevant content your site has about your topic, the more visitors you will potentially attract. Make it easy for visitors to explore your content and update your site often.

No longer will you need to know HTML, nor have expertise in software such as Dreamweaver or Frontpage. In the future CMS, you will simply login with your UMS User ID and Password, then navigate to either create a new page, edit a page, or “publish” a page.

What kind of content can be posted?

• News particular to your college, department, office, or unit
• Calendar events unique to your college, department, office, or unit
• Student, staff, or faculty achievements
• Slideshow photo gallery of outstanding students, alumni, or faculty/staff
• A podcast, video, or other post you wish to share

How do I get started?
You may have met with or will be meeting with Marcus Fairbrother of Greater Good Marketing. These meetings, scheduled through April 2011, are focused on assessing the content of your existing site, then determining what content is relevant for your new CMS site. At minimum, you should also have the following page content ready:

• About Us or Mission page
• Location/Office Hours
• Individual Staff Bio page(s) with photo
• Contact Us info (address, phone, emails)

To setup a content authors meeting, email Marcus Fairbrother at mfairbrother@greatergoodworks.com.

An exciting part about working in The Office of Marketing and Brand Management is the variety of interesting programs, lectures, and events that make a higher education setting the enriching place it is. Many faculty are at the top of their field and share their knowledge and expertise with the greater community. One such event is the East Meets West big band jazz concert in April, by the Portland Jazz Orchestra, comprised of some of the best jazz artists in the state directed by Dr. Chris Oberholtzer, USM School of Music faculty. It is truly inspirational to be a part of USM.

The University has seen many changes this past year and the USM Office of Marketing has not been left out. Administrative duties have changed and more recently I learned to navigate in the new method of processing purchases in MaineStreet Marketplace, a system-wide process which I find to be very efficient. What used to take days, now takes minutes and without a paper trail (less trees killed)! An easy system to navigate and I’ve taught others how simply it works.

Change, although not always comfortable, is good in this situation. As John F. Kennedy said, “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

As USM continues it’s latest marketing/recruitment campaign, we are planning an upgrade to our online presence. The USM Web site will be overhauled to fit into a user-friendly Content Management System. We are also in the late planning stages for a new Facebook page, to be called ‘USM Connects.’ The page will serve as an open discussion board to promote the USM brand and connect the internal USM community with the external communities that are interested in interacting with USM. The Facebook page will focus on success stories of USM students, faculty, and staff who are engaged in the community, told from a personal perspective and inviting others to comment. The page is intended to help highlight and enhance existing community connections as well as to create new useful connections. Stay tuned for launch dates and the opportunity to contribute to this new page.

USM colleges are now named:
The College of Science, Technology, and Health, formerly red college
The College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, formerly green college
College of Management and Human Science, formerly purple college
now join with Lewiston-Auburn College and the University of Maine School of Law.

While naming the newly formed colleges, naming considerations were:

• Clarity – how well it conveys the college purpose and programs
• Simplicity
• Coherence with the names of other colleges within USM
• Communications – how easily the name can be communicated in materials that represent USM
• Signficance – any possible associations that either support or detract from the message we are trying to convey about the college and USM

Look at your web pages and other recruitment materials to replace the old college mentions and affiliations with the new.

At the Office of Marketing and Brand Management, we look forward to promoting the new USM!

Ellen Barry, USM School of Nursing

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s an opportunity to review and reflect upon our accomplishments. Over the past year, marketing launched the media campaign “Connecting You With Tomorrow” that elicited 458 views since it launched in September; highlighted scholarship opportunities such as Creating Maine’s Future–The Campaign for Scholarships on the Scholarship blog site; and promoted courses of interest to working adults and non-degree students.

What’s next for 2011? Indeed, connecting with current and prospective students, alumni, and community members continues to grow through social media avenues. Mashable notes that Facebook Surpasses Google As Most-Visited Website in 2010. Marketing remains committed to continuous improvement in service to you via the multitude of various messaging options.  For more information, visit our Website, send us an email, or give us a call in the new year at 780-4094 to find out how we can help you reach your strategic initiatives.

USM offers a number of summer camps, which are offered to the greater community at very reasonable prices. The Office of Marketing is currently developing materials for the Music and Theatre camps that occur every year on the Gorham campus. This year’s goal is to promote the camps by incorporating a splash of social media, in addition to more traditional materials. Materials highlight the fun that attendees have and draw upon attendee testimonials to tell the story.

The Office of Marketing is working with the Division of Information Technology to implement the new marketing focus, “Connecting You With Tomorrow,” with the new content management system (cms). These two important projects will merge to help USM project a consistent and therefore more powerful message. Recently while working on marketing the new science and math honors program, Pioneers, I became aware of how different the web pages for each department of the science and math majors related to Pioneers were from each other. The message we send by using various designs, even a difference in font usage, is that USM is not working in concert with itself. This is not to say that the designs are not good and done well by themselves, but the various designs dilute any message or consistent communication about USM. My hope is that the new design and message for USM with the new content management system will create a less confusing, more deliberate message about USM that will resonate with students and the community.