C H A L L E N G E S
Amarillo College is a minority majority community college with a higher than average student age, lower than average student income level, and 70% first-generation college students. As such, our institution has struggled to convey the accessibility and affordability of Amarillo College, while also demonstrating the excellence of our academic programs and faculty. To overcome this challenge, we needed to create content that felt aspirational yet relatable, academic yet unpretentious, elevated yet approachable, and inspiring yet empathetic.
G O A L
The goal of our 2018-2019 digital marketing campaign sought to address the challenges of our institution by fostering a feeling of connection with the institution and promoting the benefits of learning from our high quality faculty. To do this, we had to create an online presence that is encouraging, inviting, and engaging while addressing the barriers to our students' success and connecting them to resources and opportunities.
T A R G E T A U D I E N C E
At Amarillo College, we have created a hypothetical amalgamation of our student demographic averages which we refer to as "Maria". Maria is a 28 year old female first generation college student with ≈2 children who attends part time. In addition to prospective students similar to Maria, we also sought to reach a younger generation of future college students and their parents.
This younger audience has recently become more important than ever due to a groundbreaking new local scholarship program offered through a collaboration between AC and several other local organizations which offers all new graduating seniors from Amarillo Independent School District the opportunity to take 60-hours of course work at AC without paying a penny toward tuition, books, or fees regardless of family income. Since many of these students come from higher income-earning families with more of an ability to afford tuition at a 4-year institution (without a scholarship) than our average student, the perception of quality and academic rigor are particularly important in encouraging these students to attend AC.
R E S O U R C E S
The vast majority of all of our digital content – including blog posts, video production/editing, graphics, animations, and photography – is created by a small in-house team of two designers, a writer, and a part-time content producer which is then published and analyzed by our digital communications coordinator. The small size of our team, however, gives us the ability to communicate our message efficiently without losing focus on our objectives.