CENTERS Expert Shares 10 Key Strategies to Elevate Your Marketing Game
Matt Schmiedl, CENTERS Enterprise Marketing Manager and frequent guest columnist for Campus Rec – This Week shares key strategies to optimize the marketing of your Campus Center.
Many campus rec professionals and administrators find themselves tasked with marketing duties or oversight without a formal background and/or limited marketing experience. If this is you, fear not. This article breaks down some essential marketing strategies into 10 digestible tips you can apply to build your marketing knowledge base and boost the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. Let’s Dive In!
1) Marketing Equals Communication: There is no one-size-fits-all approach in marketing; the key is to tailor your communication to fit your audience’s needs and preferences.
2) Create a Brand Via a Style Guide: To support your brand and a consistent representation of it, a style guide defines and details all of your brand elements to ensure every piece of content and collateral you produce supports and enhances your overall brand identity.
3) Be Proactive vs. Reactive: Proactive marketing involves planning and foresight. Take the time to develop marketing plans and strategies for programs, products, campaigns, events and your organization as a whole.
4) Identify Your Audience: Different projects may target different audiences, and it’s essential to tailor your marketing strategies accordingly.
5) Connecting is Key: In an era where authenticity is becoming increasingly valuable — especially by Gen Z and Gen Alpha — genuine communication is more important than ever.
6) Utilize Multiple Platforms: Multi-phased and multi-platform marketing campaigns are a great way to strategically accomplish the repetition needed to achieve marketing goals.
7) People Don’t Like to Read: Use graphics, images and videos to communicate your message more effectively. Visual content is not only more engaging but also easier to digest quickly.
8) Social Media is an Awesome and Fleeting Tool: By maximizing content that focuses on connection and minimizing overt selling, you can build a loyal, engaged following and maintain a strong, positive social media presence.
9) Feedback is Your Friend: Effective marketing is an iterative process. Gather and analyze data from your campaigns to understand what worked and what didn’t.
10) Marketing is More than Advertising: Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, understand marketing encompasses more than just creating flashy flyers and posting on social media. It touches, supports and can enhance just about every aspect of a business or operation if you let it.
About the Author:
Matt Schmiedl has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and graphic design working in a variety of industries and sectors, most notably higher education and publishing. He has been working with CENTERS, LLC for more than a decade at Cleveland State University (CSU), leading marketing and business development on behalf of the University Recreation and Wellbeing department. He has developed and launched a number of initiatives to catalyze business growth and implemented new marketing strategies to build engagement with both the CSU and Cleveland communities. Most recently, Mr. Schmiedl was tapped to lead Enterprise marketing efforts for CENTERS as he brings his marketing expertise to new and existing CENTERS’ clients. Matt is a nine-time NIRSA Creative Excellence Award recipient, the recipient of the CENTERS Quest for X Award in 2017, and the winner of an APEX Award of Excellence and Magnum Opus Honorable Mention Award, both in 2011.