Public Relations Plan

Conestoga College Waterloo Campus Public Relations Plan

Opportunity statement

Since its inception, Conestoga College Waterloo Campus has witnessed tremendous growth since its inception characterized by growth in learning facilities, improved academics, and student life which have resulted in its ranking among the top ten best colleges in Waterloo thus increasing its popularity. The college is interested in generating more interest through registration and admission of new student admissions to reap the benefits emanating from the college. The institution intends to increase the number of freshman admissions, especially in the Waterloo region as a way of fulfilling its corporate social responsibility. This Public Relations Plan seeks to increase awareness about the college to the general public in the Waterloo area. Research shows that the college has a positive societal reputation and therefore by sensitizing high school students together with their parents can help in increasing the number of new freshman admissions in the college.

Secondary Research

Education in Canada is compulsory  until the  16^th birthday  in all Canadian provinces  apart from Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba which have passed a compulsory age of 18 or as soon as one attains a high school diploma(Epperson et al. 2019). However, some provinces allow for exemptions starting from the age of 14. Private High school enrollment rose from 2016-2017 with approximately2.0%. In 2017, more than 5.5million students were enrolled in high school and elementary programs in Canada and the year accounted for approximately 380,000 high school graduates. However, upon completing high school, not all graduates advance to colleges and universities and majority of those who join are challenged with getting the most appropriate study institutions and opportunities (Lessard & Crespo, (2017).

Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning is a public college situated in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. The college was started in 1967 and serves around 23,000 students through training centers and campuses in Waterloo, Kitchener, Guelph, Cambridge, Brantford, Stratford, and Ingersoll with approximately 30,000 part-time students 20,000 full-time students, and 3,300 apprenticeship students (Conestoga College, 2019).

Every year millions of students are always on the search looking for colleges where they can be admitted to upon graduating from high school. Some students prefer studying locally while others prefer pursuing their studies across other branches or even globally. However, these choices are determined by a myriad of factors such as parents’ economic status, education exposure as well as the interests of the child. Mathew and  Dixit (2018) shows that students’ careers and study locations can be influenced through early interventions such as awareness creation on the available facilities and opportunities which can be achieved through behavioral and emotional appeals on the target audiences. These responses can be cultivated through social and print  media marketing, as well as conducting education trade fairs. It is through this background that we decided to conduct a Public Relations campaign towards increasing the Waterloos’ residents interests  on Waterloo Conestoga branch towards increasing the number of new enrollments through targeting high schools including Blyth academy, St. John’s-Kilmarnock School, Waterloo Independent Secondary School, and Vanguard High School

Survey Questions

1. What is your age?
2. What province do you live in?
3. Are you considered a “mature student”?
4. Do you intend to study in Waterloo?
5. Which career would you like to pursue after high school?
6. How did you hear about Conestoga College’s Waterloo Campus?
7. Will you be using any government assistance to pay for your education (i.e. OSAP)?
8. In your opinion, which is the best college in Waterloo?
9. What, if any, extracurricular activities are you interested in?
10. What kinds of majors/minors/areas of study attracted you to RWU?
11. What do you wish RWU had that other schools have? Are there any improvements you wish to see?
12. Do you attend any on-campus activities? (events, speakers etc.) If so, which events do you attend and why?
13. How many social events have you attended in the last 6months?

Public Relations Objectives

 

1.      To create awareness about  Conestoga College Waterloo Campus among 1,000 parents and their high school children attending Blyth academy, St. John’s-Kilmarnock School, Waterloo Independent Secondary School, and Vanguard High School by December 2020.

2.      To have 200 high school students from Blyth academy, St. John’s-Kilmarnock School, Waterloo Independent Secondary SchoolVanguard High School apply to Conestoga College’s Waterloo Campus for the 2021-2022 undergraduate intake by February 2021.

Stakeholder Analysis

Primary Stakeholders

These will include parents of private high school students attending Blyth academy, St. John’s-Kilmarnock School, Waterloo Independent Secondary School, and Vanguard High School. We will target parents with children attending the above mentioned high schools in Waterloo. The private high schools have been chosen with the assumption that the parents have a great desire to see their children succeed in life, they are well informed, educated and have a great interest in investing in their children’s education meaning they have a higher probability of taking their children to college.

The messages conveyed to the parents will stress the  Conestoga College education quality including the attention given by professors to the students. For instance, the student-faculty ratio of 12:1 will be emphasized in the messages. The conveyed messages will also convey promote the college study abroad program to interest them to apply for admission through emotional appeals.

Key message: Conestoga College cares about your child -12:1 student to faculty ratio!

This message will be relayed to the student’s parents through the internet specifically through Greatschools.net which is a website that provides parents with information about potential public and private schools for their children. Since most parents seek guidance concerning their children’s education from the website, we will run front-page ads on the website at $2,000 for the overall period. This website will be used together with the college board which provides information concerning different colleges and universities citing their demographics, strengths, and weaknesses. On this website, we will publish posts on college search tips on the Conestoga college page to raise more awareness about the school.

We will also run college fairs in the targeted high schools to sensitize parents and students about Conestoga College. During the trade fairs, we will use flyers and brochures which will capture the school’s statistical information and peripheral cues. To instill a sense of curiosity to the audience, the flyers will be designed in a slightly ambiguous manner with limited text on-page and this will lead the audience to seek more information regarding the college. The statistical information will be very crucial for parents since they are more concerned with getting factual information on the potential schools for their children. The brochures issued to the attendees will provide the audience with a tangible connection with the school. They will provide a brief overview of the school outlining the positive attributes that Conestoga college will bring in their children’s education including the institution’s images, the student-faculty ratio, and different exciting college opportunities and events.

Secondary Stakeholders

These will comprise of private high school students attending Blyth academy, St. John’s-Kilmarnock School, Waterloo Independent Secondary School, and Vanguard High School. This category will include students aged between 14-19 years who are interested in having a bright future, attending college, easily influenced by peers, and love music, sports, trends, and fashion. Every year, there are millions of students searching and applying for college admissions. Some prefer to study locally while others prefer studying across the globe. In lieu of this, targeting students attending Waterloo high schools will help us to identify students who are determined in pursuing college education locally. Other students from the region are already enrolled in Conestoga college and therefore, this will make it easier to influence them to apply for admission in the school. The enrolled student’s testimonials will also help in promoting the college. The school’s guidance counselors together with our campaigners will help in recruiting students to participate in the college fairs from their schools whereby we will set up tables with information sessions burners and brochures for issuing to both the students and their parents.

Key Message: The grass is greener…on the other side of the school, learn to Bridge the World!

As stated by the College Board (collegeboard.com), high schools student are more interested in music, sports, trends, and fashion. Therefore, to convey the message to the students, we will use specialized print media through running ads on specialized magazines  including FAZE Teen and Motiv8 to reach the audience. A quarter-page ad for the two magazines will cost $5,000 for the overall period with an approximated audience of around 5,000 people. To reap the best out of these magazines, we will be sending them a press release from the college monthly. This will enable us to identify the reader’s interests and the teams’ success.

The second tactic that we will use to convey the message to the students is through social media platforms. In this case, we will use Face book since it is the #1 social networking platform globally for individuals aged 13years and above. We will create a Face book page to advertise different events targeted on high school students. Through running Face book ads, we will be able to target the audience based on what they report for their age, gender, location, interests among other keywords on any particular day.

Beside using Face book, we will also convey the message to the students through Twitter whereby we will create a Twitter account and post updates(Tweets)targeting students towards sensitizing them about Conestoga college. Twitter has more than 5million users and therefore there are high chances that our message will penetrate through our target audience. We will use these platforms to promote the school’s academic and extra-curricular activities strengths. For instance, when we have ongoing fun events in the school, we will be sharing this on the Face book page and also Tweet them on Twitter.

 

 

Timeline

August 2020

• August 1^st – Campaign roles sharing and preparation
• August 1^0th – Developing and running media ads
• August 15th – place Blyth academy, Tribune advertisement
• August 16^th – place John’s-Kilmarnock School Union-tribune advertisement
• August 17^th – place Waterloo Independent Secondary School Tribune advertisement
• August 18^rd – place Vanguard High School tribune advertisement

September 2020

• September 1^st– Update the school’s website
• September 15^th – Initiate contact with Blyth academy  guidance counselors for target audience recruitment
• September 20^th – Blyth academy, College Fair
• September 25^th    – Running media campaign  ads

October 2020

• October 1^st– Update the school’s website
• October 15^th – Initiate contact with John’s-Kilmarnock School guidance counselors for target audience recruitment
• October 20^th – John’s-Kilmarnock School College Fair
• October 25^th – Running media campaign  ads

November  2020

• November 1^st– Update the school’s website
• November 15^th – Initiate contact with Waterloo Independent Secondary School  guidance counselors for target audience recruitment
• November 20^th –Waterloo Independent Secondary School College Fair
• November 25^th    – Running media campaign  ads

December 2020

• December 1^st– Update the school’s website
• December 15^th – Initiate contact with Vanguard High School guidance counselors for target audience recruitment
• December 20^th – Vanguard High School, College Fair
• December 25^th – Running media campaign  ads

 

February 2021

• February 1^st – Conestoga college application’s are due

Budget

Item	$Cost
Greatschools.net ads	2,000 x3=6000
Face book ads	1,500
FAZE Teen and Motiv8 ads	5,000
Twitter and Face book accounts	0
College Fair table and registration	200 x4=800
Flyers and brochures	800
In house professional editing	100
Total	14,200

 

 

Evaluation

To assess the effectiveness of the college awareness creation campaigns, we will count the total number of flyers produced, distributed, and those that will remain. The number of college fair attendees, Face book and Twitter followers as well as the number of likes, shares, and retweets on the platform’s adverts will also help in determining the number of people that received the sensitization program messages. Further, the readership listenership media impressions will help in determining the number of people who received social media ads messages.

Through counting the number of applications received for college admission from the targeted schools, we can determine the number of people who took action and applied for college admission from the campaign.

 

References

Conestoga College. (2019). New Conestoga campus to open in Downtown Kitchener”.

Retrieved May 31, 2019.

 

Epperson, B., Baron, B., & Amrhein, C. G. (2019). undefined. The Oxford Handbook of Higher Education Systems and University Management, 267-280. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198822905.013.17

Lessard, C., & Crespo, M. (2017). Multicultural education in Canada: Policies and practices 1. Education and Cultural Differences, 471-507. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315211268-25

Mathew, N., & Dixit, A. (2018). Emotional branding and social media. Social Media Marketing, 579-592. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-5637-4.ch029