SOH Center communications Plan
Building a Communications Strategy for a Research Center – Top Tips
I. Define your identity
Consider creating a mission statement.A mission statement combines your center’s cause (what matters to you), your actions (what you do), whom you serve and your impact (how it serves others).
This helps you build community around your center and make it easy to communicate to others why your center matters.
Examples:
UCI New Swan Shakespeare Center - Through performance, research and teaching across the university and community, the UCI New Swan Shakespeare Center builds spaces to discover and reimagine what it means to be human today.
UCI Center for Jewish Studies - The mission of the Center for Jewish Studies is to serve as the hub for the interdisciplinary and comparative study of Jewish and Israeli culture and society at UCI and in Orange County; to engage the wider community through public programs and lectures; to support cutting-edge research and to inspire undergraduate scholarship in Jewish and Israel studies; and to promote tolerance and appreciation of cultural and religious pluralism on the UCI campus.
II. Determine your key audience
Most UCI research center audiences will consist of all, or portions of, the following:- Internal stakeholders (SOH, UCI faculty, students & staff, administration)
- External stakeholders (regional and academic institutions and partners, alumni, the community, donors and donor prospects, similar centers)
Consider the following:
- How does your audience prefer to receive information?
- How frequently can you commit to communicating with them?
- What are your intended outcomes of any communication?
III. Build & engage your key audience
Create a flyer with your center’s events for the quarter and share it with your targeted audiences; ask co-sponsors and relevant groups and individuals to cross-publicize the event on their channels.Consider sending a quarterly newsletter to your mailing list with news on the center and upcoming events; communicate the impact of the center and any noteworthy accomplishments.
IV. Establish consistent communications via email
Do you want to manage an email list? Determine whether you’d like to use a UCI list-serve or an email marketing service to build a mailing list and send updates on your center.Sample Research Center Communications Plan
The following goals are samples only and intended to get you started in thinking about communications goals for your research center.Goal 1: Grow event attendance by 25%
Baseline: An average of 30 people show up for our public events
- Make sure your event is listed on the Humanities calendar as soon as you have scheduled it, and update as necessary.
- Ensure event publicity materials are prepared a month in advance.
- Create a social media-friendly image and ask that all co-sponsors and the School of Humanities share the event on their social media profiles.
- Send personal emails to key community members inviting them to attend.
- Send an event email to your mailing list and encourage recipients to share the event.
- If outside speakers or panelists are the draw of the event, ask them to cross-promote the event.
- At the event, have future event flyers on hand; have a sign-in sheet to capture contact information of community members and other attendees who are not on your mailing list.
- If event is of general campus interest, list it on the UCI Today campus-wide calendar.
Key performance indicators: Email response, event attendance, impressions & engagement on social media posts about the event.
Goal 2: Launch and build awareness for the center
Baseline: Zero.
Actions:
- Work with Communications to create a press release announcing the center.
- Build event co-sponsorships.
- Build a mailing list of similar academic centers and institutions.
- Build partnerships with related student groups.
- Create a flyer listing all special events for the year and work with Communications to send it across UCI via Zotmail.
- If applicable, work with the Development team to compile a mailing list of interested donors, alumni and community members
- Plan and host a launch event.
- Work with the Communications & Computing teams to launch a website.
- Write an op-ed, or public-facing article, that lists your affiliation with the center.
- Include the center name and web address in your UCI email signature.
Key performance indicators: website visits, relationships established, inquiries from the public, social media likes and follows, launch event attendance.
Please direct all questions to Callie Brazil, brazilc@uci.edu.