If you are a big college football fan, you may have seen one of the savviest marketing campaigns this year during the Sugar Bowl in January. In order for Allstate to boost awareness of thieves' ability to get valuable information from what you post on your social media account (and for Allstate to presumably sell more insurance), the company launched Project Aware Share. The ad campaign premise was simple: Mayhem, the main character of all of the recent Allstate commercials, discovers that a young couple has posted that they are on vacation at the Super Bowl. He then breaks into their home while they are out of town and steals their stuff.

The campaign could have been effective if that was all Allstate did for the commercial. However, they took it one step further. Allstate created a real website, where Mayhem put a bunch of household items he had stolen up for sale, Ebay style. Individuals could actually go online and buy a tv, a lamp, rugs, etc that Mayhem had "stolen" from the couple. The campaign was extremely successful, increasing Allstate's Mayhem Twitter following, and getting millions of impressions on Mayhem's Facebook page. All of this presumably leading to a bump in new business for Allstate.

How could a similar campaign be created in Higher Ed? Could a school create a fundraising site, where specific spots on campus are available to "purchase", like a monopoly board? Could a student's dorm room have price tags affixed to different items that a donor could then make a donation to fund?

Allstate was at the forefront with a unique marketing idea that drove potential customers to pay attention to the company's message, and then motivated the customers enough that they visited a micro-page for the company as well. What can higher ed organizations do to create the same level of encouragement?

Many annual giving departments have an employee program, or at the very least an annual employee appeal. Some schools are quite successful and have a high percentage of alumni making a gift. Most struggle with convincing staff to contribute to their employer though. But is this the best way to engage university employees in annual giving? Employees of a school can be the most important ambassadors of their institution. Many employees are the first people that an alum or donor speaks to when they get to campus. Employees are the ones that solve problems for alumni when they call up. And, some employees are the long time connections to campus for alumni, regardless of what development field fundraiser they have been assigned to.

Does your school have a brand ambassador program, guidelines, or annual training? Many companies who place a strong emphasis on customer service know that this starts by making sure that their employees, whether they be administration or front line, have to be completely bought in to their company’s mission. Starbucks is one company that believes strongly in making sure its employees represent the coffee company’s brand.

Make It Your Own: Joseph Michelli, author of The Starbucks Experience, wrote about how Starbucks’ strategies and philosophies can be whittled down to five key principles. One of those principles, “Make it your own”, is focused on finding ways to engage employees by allowing them to personalize experiences at Starbucks through living out

Savor and Elevate: Starbucks doesn’t just want its employees to like their jobs, the company wants its employees to love coffee making. Michelli, in his other book on Starbucks, called Leading the Starbucks Way, discusses how Starbucks not only trains employees on how to make coffee, but also how coffee is procured, roasted and brewed, so that employees understand why coffee tastes as it does and why different types of coffee have varying tastes.

Starbucks Annual Conference: Each year, the corporation hosts a conference for its store managers (about 9,600 people), that costs the company over $35 million. Starbucks shows off actual coffee trees, information on the coffee production process, a leadership lab, and improve actors playing out the parts of challenging barista experiences. Creating an experience for your employees where no expense is spared shows the employees just how much Starbucks cares about them.

Lessons for Your School:
·Educate your front line employees about up and coming information on campus. Was there a recent announcement regarding a new building being constructed, a new professor being hired, or a new All American being named? Don’t assume that everyone on campus knows this information. Send updates to your front line employees to make sure they are aware of what’s happened on campus, and what is about to happen (athletic events, theater performances or academic talks). Having employees who are able to give a quick update from campus, or answer a question without transferring a donor is something that can go a long way when it comes to loyalty.

·Ask for feedback from all levels of your institution. Great ideas come from everywhere. Have an easy way for employees to give feedback, and make sure to ask for it. When you do get feedback that you act on, share that broadly. It will encourage more employees to provide feedback in the future.

·Brainstorm across levels and departments. Often, departments host a number of regular meetings, and just give updates. Take time in these meetings (or take the entire meeting) to discuss a strategic challenge, a weakness in the organization or an opportunity. Again, great ideas come from everywhere, plus employees will feel more engaged and bought in to the organization if they feel that they have input into the future of the organization.

·Provide development opportunities. Resources are always scarce for annual giving and alumni relations departments. However, make sure to give development opportunities to all employees. Some employees may want to go to a conference. Others may want to take a class at your school, but there may be employees who just want to learn a new software, or take a webinar. Find out what everyone’s interests are, and even if you can’t fulfill on all of these requests each year, try to make sure to share the wealth.

Leveraging your employees as ambassadors and donors:
Once you have employees who are acting as ambassadors of your institution, are there ways to turn this pride into fundraising action?

LaTrobe University in Australia – Most, if not all, colleges and universities require employees to have an ID card to be used to access campus facilities. The more secure and connected your campus is, the more likely individuals are to wear these cards on their belt or around their neck. LaTrobe decided to maximize the passion that their biggest staff ambassadors had for the school by providing them with a  way to publicly show their pride for LaTrobe. Any staff member who made a gift of $20 or more, received a free, gold LaTrobe lanyard.

Giving this gift served multiple purposes. It provided a functional gift to those who donated. It provided those who donated with a way to show just how much they care about their school. And, it provided the school with a way to make public the act of donating for staff members. Staff giving is a hard nut to crack, partly because many staff members don’t believe it is necessary to make a donation when already working for the school. By providing these lanyards, this made it very obvious that there are a lot of staff members that give.

How can you leverage your proudest staff members, to give them an opportunity to show off their love for their school?

How can you ensure staff members, especially those speaking with alumni on a day-to-day basis, are matching those alums’ passion for their school, with their own passion?

Red Bull is a company whose primary business is energy drinks, that is the company’s main source of revenue, that is what they are known worldwide for creating. Yet, you may have seen one of Red Bull’s many extreme sports videos. The company sponsors the Air Race World Championships, Formula 1, cliff diving, ice climbing, rugby, snowboarding and even break dancing. All of these sponsorships drive the content Red Bull creates and pushes out through its Youtube channel and on its website.

Red Bull wants to establish and maintain an image of its company in the eyes of its potential consumers. It wants to exude an aura of confidence and risk-taking. It also wants to stay top of mind with its customers, and knows that by having a content strategy of focusing on extreme sports athletes, hopefully these same individuals will become brand ambassadors, as they are also likely to be trend setters among a younger age demographic.

Content marketing is starting to become more popular in higher ed. Annual giving and alumni relations departments are typically focused on immediate goals (raising attendance at reunion, obtaining a certain percentage goal in alumni participation rate, etc.), and as such their strategies and budgetary decisions are driven by these goals. However, there is value in creating some content that simply builds brand awareness, recognition and loyalty.

Michigan State has been working on creating content that helps to promote the MSU brand. “Spartans Will. 360” was the President’s Report created in 2013, but it was unlike most, if not every, typical President’s Report put out by a major college of university. The digital report combined in-depth, touching stories showing how MSU was contributing to the world, or as Lou Anna Simon, President of MSU stated in the report, “to advance the common good, in uncommon ways”. There are stories about faculty and students who are making a difference in MSU’s backyard by creating a new heart monitor, finding ways to detect Parkinson’s Disease, and growing new industries in Michigan; but there are also great stories showing MSU’s international impact: finding energy in the refuse of Costa Rica, working with India’s educators to make them better teachers, and protecting China’s pandas. 

These videos do not make an ask or feel like a solicitation in any way. However, the effect on the viewer is to have a better understanding of how MSU is making an impact on the local and global community.

Georgetown has also been at the forefront of higher ed content marketing. The school’s Georgetown Stories program (www.georgetownstories.com) brings student stories direct to alumni, parents, friends and prospective students. What is unique about this program is that Georgetown finds students who are willing and capable of managing their own production schedule, shooting their own videos and editing those videos into short, digestible pieces that can be easily shared on social media. The videos are focused. There are a variety of categories, including Academics, Jobs/Internships, Daily Life and Service, to name a few. Again, there is no ask at the end of the video, and there really is no push to make a donation, or apply to a program, or request more information on the Georgetown Stories site, it is simply about connecting more people with the University.

The videos do a great job of pulling the Georgetown alum, parent or fan into the daily goings on of the University. They help reconnect alumni with how Georgetown has changed, and how it has stayed the same over the years.

Ultimately, the more connected and engaged our alumni feel, the more likely they are to make a gift. These videos all do a great job of keeping that connection alive. Many alumni do not have a chance to come back to campus each year, but watching these videos helps alums experience the very best that their alma mater has to offer right now. And, because of the way each of these video campaigns was created, the videos can serve multiple purposes. They can be used by Admissions, by Public Relations, by the Alumni Association, in addition to being beneficial to annual giving.

Key Questions to Ask:

-What content marketing materials and tools do you have available for your annual giving campaigns?

-Are there existing content marketing pieces being created by other departments that you can leverage?

-How can you work across departments to create a content marketing campaign?

-What stories are out there that need to be told?

-Does your school have a story bank that you can pull ideas from?

-Can you create a campaign where students are utilized to create the content?