Marketing and Communications

Marketing and Communications (Marcom) is one of the four main service areas of the PEAK Initiative.

Prior to PEAK, Marcom resources varied between campuses/colleges/units. This led to inconsistent quality of services, inconsistent adherence to branding standards, inequitable access to services, and duplication of services.

Not all campuses/colleges/units experienced all of these challenges, but through surveys and interviews with UMN Marcom professionals and leaders, we found that there is more room for consistency and equity in Marcom service delivery.

New positions for existing staff will be created to support specialization in:

Account Services
Creative Services
Digital Communications
Measurement and Analytics

This will create equitable and inclusive opportunities via clearly defined roles with corresponding standardized responsibilities, classifications, and compensation. Alignment between University Relations (UR) Leadership, Marcom leads, and local Marcom professionals will be enhanced to formalize accountability between the groups.

Marcom resources are listed below.

How is the Work Changing?

Digital communications, creative services, account services, and measurement and analytics support will be centralized in teams within UR that will provide common good services to the system. Local Marcom leads will be empowered to connect with high-level strategy, and will continue to direct unit-specific work.

Individuals performing work in the common good services team will benefit from:

Opportunities for career advancement through clearly defined opportunities for professional development
Developing expertise in a certain area
Working in a community of similarly skilled professionals

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Work Today

Staff and resources across campuses/colleges/units can vary widely, which can lead to:

Inequitable access to services
Duplication of services
Inconsistent quality
Inconsistent adherence to brand standards

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Work Tomorrow

Campuses/colleges/units will have:

Equitable access to Marcom services
Clear roles and responsibilities
Consistent quality
Consistent branding

The UR teams providing common good services will support projects that directly:

Relate to the website development of primary campuses/colleges/units and related publicly facing center/institute websites
Support the campuses/colleges/units or University strategic goals
Achieve clear marketing objectives

If additional consideration is needed to determine if a website/webpage is in-scope, UR will employ a common framework to evaluate the work. UR will not support secondary or tertiary website development that may be related to departmental, faculty, or administrative matters.

Common Good Services and Campus/College/Unit Specific Services

Some Marcom work will be performed through the UR common good services teams and some Marcom work will continue to be done at the campus/college/unit level. Below we have listed the distinctions between each.

Common Good Services

Marcom work that will be performed through UR includes:

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Account Services

UR is responsible for raising the University’s profile externally, for promoting the President’s priorities/broader initiatives, and for providing guidance across college/campus/units in these service areas:

Brand Management
Marketing Planning & Strategy Consultation
Paid Advertising & Freelance Management
Social Media Strategy
User Experience*
Digital Strategy & Consultation*
Project Management

*Indicates service must be provided by UR if a website is considered to be in-scope

Creative Services

Graphic Design*
Multimedia Production*
Written Content*
Digital Creative & Production*

*Indicates service must be provided by UR if a website is considered to be in-scope.

Digital Communications

Web Development*
Knowledge Transfer*

*Indicates service must be provided by UR if a website is considered to be in-scope.

Measurements and Analytics

Measurement & Analytics Strategy, Consultation and Training
Small-Scale Surveys
Strategic & Vendor Support for Large-Scale Surveys

*Indicates service must be provided by UR if a website is considered to be in-scope.

Campus/College/Unit Local Services

Marcom work that will continue to be performed locally includes:

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Account Services

Brand Management

Routine enforcement of the brand locally (e.g., centers)

Marketing Planning and Strategy Consultation

Developing and implementing the actual unit-specific plan
Blogs and vlogs production not supported for SEO

Paid Advertising and Freelance Management

Implementation of college-specific advertising (brand, reputation and recruitment)
Implementation of strategy (though UR will facilitate this work through a vendor as needed)
Contract facilitation (including invoice management, etc.) on unit-specific work
Relationship management with local or selected freelancers
Commercial filming contracts

Social Media

Content creation, management, and posting to local accounts

User Experience

Resolution of smaller day-to-day accessibility issues identified through testing
Management of accessibility tools (offered by OIT)
Actual usability testing (performed by Usability Lab)

Digital Strategy and Consultation

Unit-specific paid search strategy
Unit-specific search engine optimization strategy
E-commerce
Digital marketing automation

Creative Services

Graphic Design

Annual reports (including giving reports)
Print magazines
Alumni magazines
Recruitment viewbooks
Event materials
Dean/faculty requests
Facts and figures sheets
Powerpoint presentations (UR provides templates)

Multimedia Production

Non-Twin Cities photography and videography (not including editing)
Blogs and vlogs production
Audio production (including podcast production)

Written Content

Grant writing
Donor letters
Stewardship documents
Scientific writing
Departmental and operational information (non-feature work) included in annual reports, magazines, and newsletters
Viewbooks
Event materials
Website content that requires specialty knowledge
Creating and maintenance of best practices documentation

Digital Creative and Production

Digital asset management for unit-specific libraries
Day-to-day needs (content updates, changing images, etc.) that can be done with quick turnaround by the local unit
Writing for recruitment marketing
VR
Photo + Video for non-Twin Cities campuses

Digital Strategy and Consultation

Unit-specific paid search strategy
Unit-specific search engine optimization strategy
E-commerce
Digital marketing automation

Digital Communications

Web Development

Website development for intranets, faculty lab sites, transactional sites
Day-to-day content updates
Private restricted data, ticketing, and fee collection

Measurement and Analytics

Market Research

Develop and execute large-scale surveys (UR can offer strategic and vendor support as needed)

Insight and Analytics

Data collection, measurement and analysis
Data visualization
Pulling data

How will roles change regarding Marcom work?

It depends on individual and the needs of the campus/college/unit. Let’s take Andres for example.

Andres is a campus communicator who performs a variety of marketing and communications responsibilities. He is currently focused on internal and external communications. Andres enjoys being in his department but would like to specialize in website development and have a more holistic understanding of the work at UMN.

There will be some parts of Andres’ work that will stay in his campus communications office, and some may be supported by other groups providing common good services. These will also be determined, in partnership with his local Marcom leader, through the PEAK Initiative workforce transition process.