This marketing material, designed with prospective undergraduate students in mind, highlights the biggest advantages of attending the University of North Dakota College of Engineering & Mines. For the past two years, I've developed similar booklets for this purpose. They are effective recruitment tools during career fairs and campus tours, given to prospective students and parents of prospective students. Because of its "by-the-numbers" approach, this material is shared with alumni and industry partners to communicate general information about the college.
The 2022 Approach
In previous years, most emphases was put into advertising our flexible online options. As the student count rises within the college, we see consistent growth in distance learning. For this year's annual booklet, I shifted our focus to the on-campus experience, emphasizing the student life experience of our engineering, computer science and geology students. Prioritizing photos of our beautiful campus and vibrant interactions with students, the booklet visualizes the energetic and impactful experiences that our students benefit from.
Power in Images & Statistics
Studies have shown that our prospective students gravitate towards direct, brief, yet effective messaging complimented by action-oriented imagery. As with last year's booklet, I worked down the copy from more than half of its original length, emphasizing statistics and results over flowery descriptions.
Why It Works
Hands down, this is the most effective marketing piece that I enjoy developing every year. The secret lies in the presentation. At college recruitment fairs, flyers and trifold brochures are still the most common items distributed at college booths. Consequentially, our competitor's marketing materials are the most common promotional pieces that find their way into the trash, whether during the fair or shortly after returning home. By investing in a more substantial format, students think twice before tossing it aside. Paired with the photography-heavy narrative and flowing readability, it's a piece that they tend to keep picking up time and time again to browse through. This results in more traffic to our website, online program finder, and online application than any other media we distribute.