Strategy

Strategic Marketing

Ryerson's 10 on-campus incubators ("zones") were each launched and developed at different times and paces over a 6-year period. While many of them shared similar operational models, from a marketing and communications perspective, each used different visual languages and messaging from each other and from the university. 

Conducting surveys, focus groups and independent research, we built out the brand messaging and communications framework for Zone Learning, the body that oversees all 10 zones. As the first stage of the roll-out of that framework, we developed a short brochure that broke down definitions, the key messages, features and benefits of Zone Learning and used program members/alumni stories and testimonials as ways to exemplify those messages. This brochure acted as a central marketing material for multiple purposes - recruiting students as new members, persuading faculty and executives to participate as mentors and advisors, pitching to government and industry as new partners and even to recruit high school students to the university. 

Proving to be a highly successful, we replicated the brochure model for each zone - making sure to strike a balance between the zone's independent brand, while making them feel as part of a cohesive network. Each "zone book", as they would come to be known, was essentially a trojan horse for our group to refresh each zone's brand positioning, visual identity and communications to bring them all "on brand" and "on message". This, however, was truly a win-win scenario as each zone walked away with a refreshed brand, a high-quality marketing material and new content for social and web.

Communications Framework

Organizational growth is often celebrated for it’s successes but can often pose new challenges. In Ryerson’s case, year’s of exponential innovation and growth lead to multiple voices communicating the resulting success in competing ways.

With too many voices to try to enforce control, the strategy was to provide a communications framework that would empower those voices to communicate a message that was approved and on-brand. Of course, to serve a wide ranging number of stakeholders with equally ranging audiences, the framework had to be flexible, adaptable, and both easy to understand and work with.

In order to incentivize participation and adoption, I hosted workshops and presented the application of the framework to marketing and communications projects that were widely-recognized by the target stakeholder group.

Customer Segmentation Model

For this lifestyle startup, content engagement was central to the revenue steam. In order to curate content effectively, we leveraged market insights to develop consumer personas to define the expected behaviour for target audience groups.

Allowing this segmentation model to lead content development, we were able to experiment with different creative and messaging options to find the sweet spot that maximized engagement. Analysis of these test results helped inform channel strategy. The roll-out of this strategy lead to sustained growth in web traffic, user engagement and, ultimately, membership recruitment.

Organizational Alignment

A follow-up to the project above where we did some hand-holding to have all 10 zones be on the same page for marketing and communications, this project sought to empower each zone to move forward at their own pace. A major challenge with zones is high turnover among a primarily part-time staff. At many zones, the team we worked on a zone book had few remaining members the following year. Moreover, each zone's staff varies in skill level - some have established marketing teams while others have a small group of individuals all wearing multiple hats.

In order to draw some lines of consistency, we produced a marketing and communications toolkit. This one-stop kit evolved the university's brand guidelines document and customized it for this audience. In addition to brand and creative content, it included key definitions, contacts for developing websites using the university's platform and turn-key processes for promoting using the university's established channels (i.e. official social media channels and campus-wide media and digital screens). We also included customized templates for each zone for frequently produced pieces (e.g. posters, presentation decks, pop-up banners, etc.). The document was presented as a workshop for zone staff.

This not only aligned each of the 10 zones' marcom efforts, it operationalized them. Zone staff, regardless of skill or seniority, didn't have to think "how will I promote this" and could rather focus on developing stellar content. These turn-key processes also brought each zone onto the channels preferred by the university so, for example, a zone would work within the university's web development process instead of hiring an external vendor and creating something entirely new.