The Mysteries of Marketing at TLU

Have you ever wondered what the marketing team at TLU does? 

          Sarah Story, Vice President for Marketing Communications, Terry Price, Director of Integrated Marketing and Emerging Media, Jenni Morin, Webmaster/Communications Specialist, and Ashlie McEachern, Marketing Communications Specialist, give insights on what they do in Marketing Communications and a little taste of what they have in store for TLU this semester.

          The new TLU website has been a huge success, according the Jenni Morin, so now the Marketing Team has shifted their focus onto new ideas for TLU.

“Now that the new website is up, part of what I’m doing is working on the new TLU blog. We have re-thought about how we’re doing it. There’s a component of the blog that’s based off of SEO, which is Search Engine Optimization. Those specific articles are all about bringing traffic to the website and what perspective students are searching for when they go to Google,” said Morin. “The other part is positioning our faculty and staff as experts in their fields and also thought leaders. Dr. Steve Vrooman in the Communication Department and Rick Roberts in Development have both contributed posts. We’re working with a bunch of the Vice Presidents across campus, but also various faculty and staff members for them to talk about not only what they do at TLU, but also basically anything that they’re interested in.”

          Because TLU is a smaller campus, the Marketing Team has to take a different approach with their ideas.

“I think with a school our size, we obviously have a limited marketing budget, so we have to work smarter than other colleges and recognize that a lot of perspective students are doing their college searches online and looking at their options and programs before they even get here,” said Story. “Terry and I are working with admissions on doing a virtual tour. We can’t have admission counselors and reps all over the country, but we can really extend our reach with our online presence.”

          Terry Price previously worked in TLU’s Dramatic Media Department but has now become a full-time member of the Marketing Team. He gave his view of what he does on the team.

“I just moved into full time with the marketing team, I was with faculty part time for the last four years, and previous to that I was a full time faculty member. I think that has given me some unique insight to the way the campus functions and some of the things that go on around campus that we don’t really see happening, they really enrich the life on campus but we don’t really see that,” said Price. “So to highlight that, we have started a weekly email news letter called ‘At TLU’ and it will bring those events, class visits, research projects, the really exciting stuff, to the more mundane stuff. It will let you know that maybe there is an organization having a meeting on Thursday. It will sort of cover the whole range of things like events and meetings that really help us focus our efforts and help everyone be pointed in the same direction as far as moving the mission of the university forward. Some of the video work I have been working on will be integrated into that occasionally.”

          Something new the Marketing team is working on is 7 Minute Lectures. Price elaborates on what exactly this entails.

“It’s an idea that grew out of some activities at other universities and from Ted Talks. The idea is, if you had unlimited resources and the freedom to do whatever you wanted to do, what would you do for the next two years. The idea is to have a faculty member and eventually a staff member talking about that, and they’re limited to seven minutes. It’s very concentrated, rather surfaced, it’s sort of a teaser for this deeper idea that they’re pursuing,” said Price. “There’s some really interesting talks coming up. Just to ‘tease it’ a bit, the idea of coincidence, for example, is one of the subjects, ‘Turn the Other Cheek’ is another idea being explored, and you probably saw this in your Freshman Experience class, ‘The Cognitive Miser.’ The idea is to gather together faculty members and staff members that have an interest that they’re pursuing that might be part of their discipline, but not necessarily. The plan is to shoot those and make them available before the end of the semester.”

          The Marketing Team does more for the community than you could imagine. “We market the university, but we also support every department on campus including academic affairs. So, at the same time we’re focusing on TLU, we’re also doing all the admissions materials, we’re supporting Development and all the campaigns they’re doing. We help Student Life, anywhere from stationary forms of business cards to huge campaigns, like Jenni did The Great Give with Development and did all of the social media,” said Story.

          One of the big events on campus is Empty Bowls. According to Ashlie McEachern, Empty Bowls will be taking place on Sunday, November 9^th from 11am to 2pm in Jackson Park Student Activities Center. You can come by and buy a bowl for $15, which portions of the proceeds will go to the San Antonio Food Bank.

          Some other events that will be happening this semester include Arte Fest, Family Physics Night, and Theater for Change’s film, “La Lorna.” The Marketing team is also working on “dressing up” the entrance to the new Bulldog Stadium.

          The Marketing Communications Team has been working hard on promoting events, getting TLU’s name out in social media, bringing new students to TLU and so much more. Start looking out for these awesome events throughout the semester!

Jennifer McCoskey, Reporter