1. Content Marketing in Education:
A Case Study

2. Content Marketing in Education:
A Case Study
Shane Haggerty
CEO/Director of Strategy
Great Heights Marketing + Communication
@shanehaggerty
shane@greatheightspr.com

3. Why the Shift?
Internal Surveys Guided the Way (2008 survey):
>65% don’t subscribe to a local newspaper
>85% have home internet connection
>99.2% have a least one personal email account
>75% visit OHP’s website frequently
>93% watch online videos
>81% have no idea what Twitter is
>75% never use Facebook

4. Why the Shift?
Internal Surveys Guided the Way (2010 survey):
>77% visit the OHP website frequently
>85% use Facebook
>40% use Twitter
>70% visit Hipointjourneys.com
>87% want OHP to use social media to communicate
>49% prefer their cell to receive information, 46%
prefer the internet

5. Why the Shift?
Other reasons:
>Newspaper readership is down (our local paper has
a mere 6,000 readers)
>Radio listenership is down and fragmented
>Technology allows our audience to skip ads on
television
>A press release won’t reach everyone

6. Allowing our students to tell our story

8. Full-Scale Strategic Plan
-Raise the visibility of our school district
-Make a contribution to our industry
-Give prospective students & parents a look at what life is really
like inside the classroom at Ohio Hi-Point Career Center
-Give our constituents a better understanding of how we really
are preparing students for college and careers
-Increase participation in campus events and recruiting activities

9. Full-Scale Strategic Plan
-Target audiences: Sophomores & parents, community-at-large
-Guidelines established including a contract with the bloggers
and their parents
-Utilized existing district use of technology policy
-Provided training to students
-Content control and management

10. Tactics
Hi-Point Journeys Social Media Campaign
>Students use FlipCams & Digital Cameras
>Students blog weekly for an entire school year
>Students able to post on Facebook (Year 2)
>Students make personal appearances and take part
in recruiting process

11. Method
>Built on a WordPress blog
>Customized by Oxiem
>Utilized InnoGage’s InnoBlogs plug-in
>Students were able to upload their own content

12. Integrated into marketing plan
Video created for online use & TV

14. Bloggers used in collateral

16. Integrated into social media
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr

17. Integrated into social media
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr

18. Building relationships
Students as spokespeople

19. Building relationships
Students as spokespeople

20. Content is King
>Various trainings for students
>Students provided with technology to tell the story
>Utilize media outlets to share their content
>Push it out through various channels

21. Results
>Hi-Point Journeys site visited by 2,500 unique
visitors and 5,500+ visits with nearly 20,000 page
views
>Hi-Point Journeys Facebook page has 460 fans
>In a survey, Journeys was #2 behind direct mail as
top way to reach out to sophomores
>70% of current students visit Journeys

23. What was learned?
>Students are responsible with social media when you teach
them how to be
>Parents are online and respond to social media
>There are stories to tell and they are more effectively told by
students
>Hand pick your students
>Less is more

24. Other Schools Inspired by Content
>EHOVE Career Center
>Madison Local Schools
>Upper Valley Career Center
>Apollo Career Center
>Delaware Area Career Center

25. Content Marketing in Education:
A Case Study
QUESTIONS?