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Posts Tagged ‘St. Catherine University’

MKTG 2350 Integrated Marketing Communications

Posted in Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, MKTG 2350: Integrated Marketing Communications, Sales / Professional Selling, St. Catherine University, Students, Teaching, tagged , , , , , on January 10, 2013 | 3 Comments »

Since potential students are discovering this blog, I thought I should post what we do in this class. It’s fun, it’s relevant, and it will help your marketing and sales career.

Course Description

“Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)” continues the study of Marketing introduced in MKTG 2300 Principles of Marketing, by focusing on the Promotion element of the marketing mix. The model of IMC recognizes that brands benefit from an integration of all elements of the marketing mix, including advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion, sponsorship, interactive marketing, and other marketing channels.

The course will provide the theoretical underpinnings of a set of concepts, approaches and tools in integrated marketing communications that students will apply not only in their work for the course, but also in their career endeavors. The course presents not only the strategies of traditional marketing programs, but also the growth and influence of new media, alternative methods and approaches, and the challenges and issues faced by marketers in the context of a changing marketing communications discipline.

Most importantly, however, this course is built on experiential education where by students work on real world projects for actual clients. These projects should not only give students good practice on how to approach an IMC campaign, but it will also help them understand how to successfully manage a project, how to develop a flourishing relationship with the client and all project stakeholders, and how to ‘sell’ themselves or their ideas. As a writing intensive course, students write individually and as a team a wide variety of marketing communication pieces.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course students should:

  1. Demonstrate a clear understanding of the basic concepts of integrated marketing communications (IMC), as well as to display knowledge of key marketing communications components.
  2. Understand how integrated marketing communications is used in various organizations (IMC) and in business as a whole domestically and internationally.
  3. Develop a basic integrated marketing communications (IMC) plan showing applicable target markets, use of the marketing communications mix, and an appropriate understanding of market research.
  4. Identify key marketing communications elements and show a level of understanding of these elements. These include
    1. the marketing communications process
    2. advertising and media buying
    3. public relations
    4. promotions and trade promotions
    5. interactive marketing
    6. direct or person-to-person marketing
    7. marketing communication evaluation and measurement
  5. Create, write, or utilize basic interactive marketing tactics including:
    1. social media, search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), websites, blogs, podcasts, email campaigns, video sharing, online communities, and content publishing
  6. Show marketing problem solving skills through analysis and environmental scanning.
  7. Show improved practical oral and written communication skills demonstrating sound critical thinking.
  8. Posses a fundamental understanding of what it takes to work in marketing communications.

My favorite part of this course are the assignments. I have taught just about everything related to marketing. My students have written exceptional marketing plans, done fabulous research and analyzed every product under the sun. These are great tools for students to apply what they are learning and for me to assess whether they did or not. New marketing graduates rarely get to create a marketing plan at their first job unless they join a really small company, but it’s still important to know how to write one. In this class–more than any other I teach–I feel the assignments perfectly capture what my students need to know about communicating and marketing.

Blog – Keep a blog on WordPress.com. Write weekly (or more) about anything you find that has to do with promotional communications (and to a greater extent marketing).

Individual Assignments (200 points)

  • Look around your home or office, and find a favorite possession, or at least one you regard highly.  This could be anything from a piece of artwork, an electronic reader such as a Kindle, a book, a piece of jewelry, a book, a hat, a postcard, a food item…you name it.  However, this object must be transportable, as I want you to bring it to class. During class you’ll promote this object to your classmates—in essence persuading us to want to “own” this object.  Come to class prepared to verbally persuade us.  Also, think about other techniques (beyond verbal persuasion) that could be used to promote this object to others and briefly mention some of those techniques in your oral presentation.  Plan to spend about five minutes making your presentation. (25 points)
  • Segment your brand – Analyze your internet presence. What can people (friends, family, potential employers) find out about you on the web? Go to http://www.scottmonty.com/ and click on “Where to Find Me.” If you don’t have a LinkedIn account, make one.  Build your network (ask me, your classmates, etc. to join your network). Write a 1-page analysis of your personal internet presence and be prepared to talk about it in class. (25 points)
  • Design and write an ad for your favorite thing. Come to class prepared to informally present your ad. You may create the ad however you wish (drawing, using a computer, cutting and pasting images, or any combination). For 10 points of extra credit, write a radio ad for the same product. (50 points)
  • Based on our discussions and your readings, create a Social Media Plan for a favorite product of a trusted adult in your life, such as your mother, mentor, religious leader or manager.

Integrated Marketing Communication Plan – As a small group of 2 to 4 students, develop and write a one-year communications plan–based on a product or service of your choice.  Give an oral business presentation of your final project during the final class session. Each component of the plan, as noted in your syllabus is worth 15 points for a total of 150 points. The final 50 points is based on your oral presentation and your final written report.

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Awesome Student Writing: Best Buy– Where You Can Exchange Stuff or Change the World

Posted in Higher Education, MKTG 2350: Integrated Marketing Communications, St. Catherine University, Students, Video, Writing, tagged , , , on July 2, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

My integrated marketing communications students write amazing blogs about advertising, communications, social media, and our local business landscape. Below is a stunning excerpt analyzing a series of videos from our local company, Best Buy.

Enjoy.

Post #4: Best Buy– Where You Can Exchange Stuff or Change the World.

My overall impression of this commercial was dashed by the poor advertisement at the end, but all of the innovators featured in the commercial were things that I wanted to know more about so, of course, to the Internet I went. On YouTube, I immediately found the Best Buy channel, where all of their full-length commercials are archived. All of their “Future Innovators” are featured as well as the slightly older commercials “Mobile Innovators” (remember “we created Words with Friends”?). When you take the time to watch the longer features, they end with something so much more appropriate! “Making technology work for you,” “When the technology is right, anything can happen,” “A better way to a better world,” are all slogans that both identify and solve a consumer problem and create a significantly stronger ad campaign. See?

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Summer 2012 Classes at St. Kate’s: Interactive Marketing, Social Media and IMC

Posted in MKTG 2350: Integrated Marketing Communications, MKTG 3300: Interactive Marketing: Social Networks, Multimedia, and SEO, Social Media Marketing, St. Catherine University, Teaching, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

No Minnesotan’s summer is ever bland. We have three short months to cram in as much outdoor warm-weather living as we can. This summer, I’ll be on the water, in the classroom, on the mat (yoga), and field-side cheering for at least four different sports teams. Thankfully I’m only coaching one of them!

I’m grateful for all my marketing students who sacrifice a warm summer evening to spend 3.5 hours mostly inside with me at St. Catherine University. Maybe it’s the yogi in me, but I learn so much from my students–especially in the summer–because I know they want to be there and that they sacrifice sacred summer free-time to be with me.

This summer, I’m teaching an awesome new class entitled MKTG 2992 Interactive Marketing: Social Networks, Multi Media, and Mobile Applications, which is a 2-credit topics course.

This is a hands-on course. Yes, we have a text-book, but the majority of our time we’ll produce podcasts, publish videos, and dive into the interactivity of multimedia marketing.

What, pray tell does “the interactivity of multimedia marketing” mean, you might ask? It’s the idea that there are thousands of social media tools some with broad and some with narrow applications. Today’s marketer must both produce content for popular tools such as Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook and know about application development, infographics, and the next big thing on the horizon (Prezi.com anyone?).

Lastly, consider the word “citizen.” Here’s a snippet from Merriam-Webster online:

citizen, subject, national mean a person owing allegiance to and entitled to the protection of a sovereign state. citizen is preferred for one owing allegiance to a state in which sovereign power is retained by the people and sharing in the political rights of those people citizen>.
As citizens, we have responsibilities. As social media producers and citizens, we must honor intellectual property, copyright infringement, and civil discourse. We’ll hit this subject hard and heavy, as well. I don’t want any of my students to receive a “cease and desist” letter because of something they published.
Interactive Marketing: Social Networks, Multi-Media, and Mobile Applications meets on Tuesday nights during Summer Session I (June 5th – July 3rd). Capped at 12 students, this class will fill up soon. Register today.

I also have the pleasure of teaching Integrated Marketing Communications (MKTG 2350), from June 5th – August 9th. This is one of my favorite classes to teach. I developed it in 2010 after a fun stint of technology consulting in North Carolina. In this class students master the promotion element of marketing which includes advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing. Interwoven throughout this class is the mulitplicity of social media.

“Multiplicity of social media?” Is Facebook direct marketing? It fits that definition, but what about Facebook Ads? How about Pinterest, is that public relations? or is it sales promotion? or both? See what I mean? Social media bring a new dimension to classic IMC theory. Please note the fall section of this class is full.

To learn more about this class, read what students have said:

Measuring the return on my investment requires minimal reflection and thought. Naturally, the most tangible measures will be my final grade and the completion of four more credits toward my B.S. degree, but perhaps the most valuable benefits will be intangible:

  • The confidence I developed in sharing my voice online – that others might think what I have to say is worth the investment of their time to read.
  • The enthusiasm I developed for social media and how to leverage it to make my life easier (enter my new favorite crowd-sourcing GPS app: WAZE!)
  • The interest I’ve developed in Marketing itself. I am beginning to believe I have untapped talents for marketing and selling that I can leverage in my next career step.
  • The personal fulfillment that results from developing friendships and network relationships with the peers, professors, and speakers from the class.

Promotional Communications – a relevant course [former course name]

As part of your coursework for this class you are required to write an IMC plan, in a safe, non-threatening environment (a much better way to go, then having your boss ask you to write one and not having a clue).  This plan includes familiar sections like: Company Overview, Marketing Segmentation, SWOT and Marketing strategies and tactics, but it also includes sections like: Media strategy, a Creative Brief, an Interactive and Social Tools section which highlights what social tools you will be using and why, followed by a time-phased spreadsheet that culminates all this information together.

When we met for the first time the thought of writing an IMC plan was a daunting thought for me, but Sara (Sara Kerr), breaks up the process in several manageable steps so, at the end, you are impressed and surprised with what you have created.

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The One Mile Project — Dining in a One Mile Circle in St. Paul

Posted in Cool Things in St. Paul, Eating & Drinking (aka Restaurants), One Mile Project, tagged , on July 10, 2011 | Leave a Comment »

I have to credit my husband with this idea.

We were (once again) talking how much we loved St. Paul and he suggested we pick an area and try something new from there each week.

Given that I already spend a lot of time at St. Kate’s, we opted for the area around Macalester College instead.

Being the marketer, I’ve christened this adventure “The One Mile Project.”

Here’s our area, it’s not exactly a mile and not at all circular.

Google Maps doesn’t show a scale and Bing lists hardly any restaurants. Maybe business are not “claiming their space.”

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I Need a Hashtag for the @stkate Leadership Institute – Please Advise!

Posted in Cool Things in St. Paul, Getting the word out, Social Media Marketing, St. Catherine University, Twitter, tagged , , , on July 5, 2011 | 2 Comments »

I’m a member of emarketing team for the St. Catherine University Leadership Institute.

My colleagues — brilliant women from all over Minneaplis-St. Paul are developing a social media plan to raise awareness of the Leadership Institute and bring in more students.

We’re sharing the love with social media instead of keeping one of the best kept secrets in town.

Once we’re on Twitter we want to communicate and be recognized.

Do we pick some initials such as #LISCU?

Or should we be evocative and use something like #GR8Lady?

Should our hashtag be short  like #lead, so we can write more or long and tell everyone what were about, such as #LadiesWhoLead?

Or mysterious and random, such as #LI1905 that might make the curious who stumble upon it to Google it…

What do YOU think?

P.S. For further reading on Hashtags, check out Mashable.com

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Single Gender Education, MPR and St. Kates – Tune in Thursday, March 31st at 9 am

Posted in Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, St. Catherine University, Word of Mouth, tagged , , , , , , on March 30, 2011 | 3 Comments »

I love St. Kate’s.

When I teach — almost always women only — I know we talk about subjects that some students would find uncomfortable if there were men in the room. Is that enough of a reason for single-gender education? No, so tune in to MPR on Thursday, March 31st at 9am, to find out more.

Here is some information about tomorrow’s show, from Julie Michner, the Media and Public Relations Manager at St. Catherine University.

MPR’s Midmorning show with Kerri Miller will discuss single gender education this week as part of a week-long dialogue on educational issues.

The pro and con discussion of single gender education will feature:

Janet Hyde, Ph.D.,

Hyde is a Professor of Psychology and Women’s Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.  Here’s a link to a study she co-authored that said there was no gender-based differences in math performance. Here’s her page at University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Leonard Sax, Ph.D.

Sax is the founder and executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. His first book, Why Gender Matters: what parents and teachers need to know about the emerging science of sex differences was published in hardcover by Doubleday (2005) and in an expanded softcover edition by Random House (2006). His second book, Boys Adrift: The five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys, was published by Basic Books in 2007; an expanded softcover edition was published in January 2009. His third book, Girls on the Edge: the four factors driving the new crisis for girls, will be published by Basic Books in April 2010. More information about Dr. Sax is available on his personal web page.

Interesting to me, from any point of view (Marketing, Educational, or otherwise), is that no one from St. Kate’s will be on the show, given that we are the largest college for women in the United States.

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St. Kate’s Marketing Students Reach out to Potential Students

Posted in Communication Tools, Getting the word out, Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Students, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 16, 2010 | 3 Comments »

Today’s INDI 2090 Promotional Communications class discussed how we could reach our “buyers” with news of our social media plan.

Again, this was a hypothetical discussion using our university as the tool to facilitate my students’ mastery of one of their text books, The New Rules of Marketing and PR. From a teaching and learning perspective, it’s much easier to apply a new idea to something you already know well. For my students and me, our common knowledge base is St. Catherine University.

But first, I should define what I mean by “buyer.” From a marketing point of view, a buyer is anyone whose problems are solved by your product or service. That problem, in our case, could be anything from just wanting to catch up with your alma mater (alumnae), checking in what’s happening on campus (current students, faculty, and staff), or trying to decide on which college to attend (potential students and their families).

When you try to solve a buyer’s problem, you need to speak like your buyer — use their language, their phrasing, their style. We ran into this last week in class when searching for St. Kate’s in various social media.

The problem is that most people — all of my students, in any case — refer to our school as “St. Kate’s.” Our official name is Saint Catherine University. Our former name is the College of St. Catherine. On June 1, 2009 the school changed names to better ‘reflect its comprehensive nature.’ It makes complete sense to me. However, being known by multiple names to multiple buyers means people seek information differently.

Last week we couldn’t find the Flickr stream because we searched for “St. Kate’s.” This week we had trouble finding the YouTube channel because it’s listed as “StCatherineU.” However, when we searched for St. Kate’s on YouTube, we found some great videos, although many had nothing to do with us. When we searched for “St. Catherine University” having learned with our Flickr error, we found some really interesting videos from random Katies and university departments.

Our favorite is a rap from the Nursing Department.

It’s funny. It’s real. It’s unprofessional. It’s about patient safety — another interest of mine. It’s the kind of media that would make someone want to be a nurse and study at St. Kate’s. But it’s nowhere on the official St. Kate’s website (that we could find).

Our discussion today began as a way to get people talking and seeing our (hypothetical) work from last week. How could we use news releases — frequently, with content all our buyers wanted, on our website, and distributed through a newswire service — to tell people what we were doing if our work didn’t naturally go viral?

Our first step was to focus our website for our buyers vs. by categories (athletics, student life, outreach, admissions etc.) Our buyers are probably interested in all those things, but maybe not every part of each category. What if, instead, we had a prominent section labeled “Potential Students?” But, oops that’s probably not the best wording, it’s what a marketing instructor would call current high schools students. We’d be better off asking them what they look for on a website. Or at the very least, we could scout around (secondary research) other college websites to see if they are buyer or category focused.

A site I really like is Duke University’s. It’s photography vs. text heavy. The main picture changes every 2 to 3 seconds. In the large blue box in the bottom right hand corner is the tagline “Watch the videos. Read the stories.” The topic featured in that blue box changes along with the main photo, from things like “Outrageous Ambitions” to “Research Changes Lives.” Click on one of those and you jump to a brief, professional slideshow narrated by a current student obviously passionate about their subject. It’s brilliant–the students tell and show you why they are there.

Another great example of reaching out to “potential students” is Macalester College’s “Life at Mac” section of their website. Like Duke’s, it relies heavily on video and student voices. It’s very current as well, with photos of snowball fights from 3 days ago.

This week, my students will blog about marketing St. Kate’s. I can’t wait to see and hear what they have to say.

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Photos, Photos, Photos! St. Kate’s is on Flickr

Posted in Communication Tools, Getting the word out, Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Students, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

An update to my post from yesterday.

St. Catherine University is on Flickr.com, we just couldn’t find it last night. Here is the link to see some Katies in Action. One of my favorite sets of photos is here,– when St. Catherine University President Andrea J. Lee, IHM, sent the opening convocation to the Minnesota State Fair, all decked out in St. Kate’s Purple.

To learn more about St. Kate’s, just go to their News Page. In the upper left corner, there is a link to “Photo Collections.” Yeah, it’s there. We couldn’t find it yesterday, but we only took about 10 minutes to search on the web for St. Kate’s. We were scanning multiple web pages, going to likely sources (Facebook.com, Twitter.com etc) and we didn’t find this. We completely missed the Photostream on  Flickr.com. I think we must have searched for “St. Kate’s” in “groups” on Flickr instead of the more accurate St. Catherine University. Our mistake.

The photos are awesome, but they need to be findable. They need to be obvious. It’s these kind of images that bring the campus to life. My students would and did say, they need to be where prospective students are looking. Parents might go to the news page, but high school students would probably go to Student Life or Admissions.

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What if my Students Marketed St. Kate’s…

Posted in Blogs, Communication Tools, Getting the word out, Minneapolis / St. Paul Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Students, tagged , , , , on November 11, 2010 | Leave a Comment »

Today I challenged my INDI 2090 Promotional Communications students to apply the principles of their textbook, The New Rules of Marketing and PR to our school, St. Catherine University.

We began with the Mission of the University because all marketing must support an organization’s goal. We chose a section of the Catholic Identity:

From its social tradition, with its consistent commitment to the poor and outcast, we value and reach out to those marginalized by our society and churches, and in particular, we seek to promote women’s leadership.

This belief infuses the university from the vision statement to the curriculum. From an admissions perspective, St. Kate’s reaches out to first generation college students and under-served members of the population. As a class, we chose to focus on this segment of the university’s mission, or ‘objective’ in marketing terms.

I challenged my students to create a viral marketing rave. We analyzed the current efforts — a fairly generic Facebook page, a private Twitter account, a variety of blogs (not cross linked), but no Flickr stream.

This is what we came up with.

Give Flip Cameras to 100 students:  athletes, admission ambassadors, student leaders, international students, and first generation college students

Ask them to record videos about

  • Their experiences at St. Kate’s
  • Day to Day Life at St. Kate’s
  • Just show their college life
  • Favorite parts of the campus
  • Social Life at the university
  • Answer the question, “What about boys?”

“Boys” always come up during tour groups. Someone always asks. Shouldn’t the answer to this be somewhere easy to find? Again, my students thought videoblogs of “where the boys are” (at the other ACTC schools) and where students socialize (on campus, in the Highland Village neighborhood etc.) would be helpful. Prospective students, if not their families, want to know where to find them. And they also want to know what it means to be in a single gender academic environment:  less distracting, easy to roll out of bed and go to class, and able to speak their minds.

Since we were reaching out to prospective students, our videos should also be “in language” — the tongue spoken by families at home. They should reference what’s also important to parents, such as safety, support, small class sizes, affordability and academic excellence.

My students theoretically created some great content, now they want to spread the word. Students suggested a more interactive Facebook presence, a YouTube channel, a directory of St. Kate’s voices via a blog directory, and frequent Tweets. They want to hear from Sister Andrea J. Lee, the President of St. Catherine University in a blog about what it means to be Catholic today.

Speaking of blogs, many people should be writing them. They should be easy to find on the website. There should be blogs about The Reflective Woman and Global Search for Justice and blogs from popular faculty, student leaders, athletes, international students, and staff about their life and work at St. Kate’s.

There are many proud and passionate voices at St. Catherine and this was just the work of 8 students and their instructor, this afternoon. My evening section took on the same passage and went a completely different route. I’ll write about them, tomorrow.

Lastly, my students agreed, all of these tools need to be linked and integrated. We found some information in a lot of different places on the web. It would be hard for  prospective students, employers, or donors to get a true feel for St. Kate’s as it is currently marketed on the web.

For instance, Monday, November 15th is “a one-day online giving campaign.” Donations up to $50,000 will be matched on a 1:1 basis all day long. It’s on the homepage of the website and as a faculty member, I received an email inviting me to donate. But it’s not on Facebook. It’s not being Tweeted. A Google Blog Search didn’t find a single blog mentioning it.

This is news! This is Big! People need to donate. I am, aren’t you?

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