C A S E S T U D Y
Utah Valley University
Utah Valley University’s (UVU) marketing and communications team is undergoing a strategic transformation. They’re focused on expanding brand awareness and developing a mission-aligned, outcome-driven strategy. Matt Serrao’s team is focused on brand health metrics for University Marketing and is leading the team in expanding their capacity to listen to and learn from their priority audiences as well as contextualize opportunities and risks.
“We discuss our Brandwatch dashboard, that was set up by Campus Sonar, monthly. We discuss trends month over month to see what is working and where we need to pivot. We also use the dashboards annually to set goals, and track progress year over year to see if our brand and reputation campaign is making an impact. Our partnership with Campus Sonar provides us the data needed to make decisions that make a difference.”
— Matt Serrao, Associate Vice President Marketing, Utah Valley University
How We're Helping UVU
UVU Marketing is aligning with the University’s vision and mission. The data-backed insights from the partnership will help them see where they’re making an impact and find opportunities to extend it. The team is working toward understanding four key aspects of brand health.
- Align the brand with the university’s vision.
- Track the brand’s impact, especially using messaging pillars.
- Develop deeper insights into audience engagement through new segmentations.
- Use additional insights to evolve UVU’s story.
UVU's Progress
UVU is evolving their brand strategy and student experience while driving ROI by aligning their enrollment lifecycle with their marketing funnel. Critical support enables them to make progress on their brand health goals.
Aligning the brand with the university's vision.
President Tuminez’s Vision 2030 focuses on three action commitments: Include, Engage, Achieve. The team uses their data and insights to understand audience perceptions and how their owned content aligns with their mission. They’re expanding on engagement opportunities, such as elevating campaign messaging at term for new students who are less familiar with it. Building the messaging into audience experiences and vocabulary strengthens the UVU brand, and they’re seeing it reflected in earned mentions as students adopt it.
Growing positive sentiment around the UVU brand and mission.
UVU has made tremendous progress on growing positive sentiment, moving the needle through owned content and engagement. As a barometer of how your audience feels about your campus, increased positive sentiment indicates that UVU is strengthening their brand perception and health.
They’ve shared and reframed content with strategic language to evoke emotion; celebrated successes by lauding the achievements of community members; and highlighted key partnerships as opportunities to drive positive sentiment and get audiences excited.
When the men's basketball team made the quarterfinals for the NIT tournament, President Tuminez received positive coverage for her enthusiasm at the games. The flagship accounts saw success with their owned conversation based on the strong foundation they had in place to boost mentions of UVU and President Tuminez.
Identifying engaging content.
The team has worked to increase the proportion of engagement with audiences in a way that keeps the interactions sustainable and meaningful. And they’ve been successful in learning to manage a brand where audiences feel connected, heard, and responded to—in line with their goals of building relationships and brand affinity.
- Engaging recent graduates as they celebrate their time at UVU and pairing it with a call to action—inspiring them to follow the university into the alumni online space and inserting alumni-targeted opportunities in main content helps them reconsider their new status with the university.
- Celebrating alongside individuals who express gratitude to UVU for contributing to their achievements helps community members feel seen and encourages others to add their voice to the conversation.
- Welcoming alumni back to campus when they visit for events or speaking opportunities boosts alumni engagement beyond recent graduates and supports affinity for those more removed from their time on campus.
Why It's Working
UVU is building capacity and expanding their capabilities as a team to reach their outcomes.
- University Marketing uses the dashboard to shift their messaging and boost brand pillars as needed to ensure all three are represented consistently and cohesively.
- Strategy sessions focused on driving positive sentiment help the UVU team deepen their understanding of creating content to drive engagement and establish how to effectively communicate with their audiences.
- Insights reports help the team identify unique storytelling opportunities and sustain growth in brand awareness as the largest public university in the state of Utah and as a campus with a dual mission that combines the rigor of a first-rate teaching university with the vocational programs of a community college.
