The Distance Between You and Me

Good day everyone! Welcome to another WIN Firm post by me, Chris Teague. Prior to posting today, I had the privilege of listening to one of my favorite bands, Against Me! Yes, I like punk rock very much and am influenced by its underground culture, especially the bands trying their best to make us think a little bit. So, today's post is all about closing the distance between consumers and you, or better, the distance between you and me.

"Well there's a lot of things that should be said, so we're hammering six-strings..." -Against Me!

Reflecting upon the above line a moment, I want to express how important it is to connect with your audience. Yes, we all learn about reaching "our" audience in marketing 101, but learning and doing are completely different, aren't they! Think of how many times you spent late evenings, losing sleep trying to create that dynamite campaign to boost your profits. What if you had simply looked beyond profit margins and went out looking for your audience instead? If you're not following me, you will soon will, so keep reading.

We have a client in the higher education sector that is absolutely one of the best small schools in the country. In fact, this college ranks among the nation's top 100 schools as voted on by students versus the "paid for" voting that exists. What does this mean? It means that our client is great at customer service as clearly demonstrated by student voting. So, why am I talking about connecting to an audience when it appears our client connects? Keep reading...

First of all, our client does connect with its current student population. However, the need to connect to future generations of students is very important for obvious reasons. Therefore, I want you to see how you can connect to your audience by the way we help clients connect. Imagine being able to close the distance between you and me!

Step 1: After reviewing all sorts of marketing collateral from colleges and universities across the country, my team and me at the WIN Firm discovered that the messages to attract future students pretty much said the same thing: "Come be you at our school, because we know you." Really! How is it that all of these colleges know you? I'm not quite sure, especially since many students we met with said they never saw a representative from these schools at their high school dance, pool, sporting events, coffee shops or anywhere else these fine individuals spent their time. So, there is an obvious disconnection with an audience. On a side note...what is the deal with the "mountain top theme"? Okay, back to helping you. Take a look at our approach to connecting to future college students.

Step 2: Following up on research many schools rely on for decision making, we knew there was a huge disconnection between schools and students. No offense to our fine colleges and universities and their marketing departments, but come on, do you really think that a student taking the ACT or SAT is going to give you accurate answers to why he or she chose the college they are planning on attending. Realizing that schools don't know their students, a team of us at the WIN Firm decided to go out amongst the young populace and "get to know them." Our findings? Check out the next step.

Step 3: Yes! We have done our marketing research in step one and we have knocked out our secondary market research in step two. Now it is time to follow the Apostle Paul's approach to ministry, and "walk with the people" to gather our primary research to help us with our concept development. Did you know that future college students are not just in middle school and high school? This is important to know if you are trying to actually connect to future students. We at the WIN Firm have collected a lot of information on what various generations of future students do that makes them unique and allows us to know which future students fit into various colleges. Would you like to know one of our discoveries?

Step 4: We learned that future students, no matter the generation, have one common theme they share about going to school. Today, these students want to be significant. Is it that easy? Yes, it is. However, the message to connect with these students isn't as easy as you are probably thinking right now. You can't simply say: "Be significant at the COOLEST COLLEGE EVER!" Why? Everyone else is doing it and they are attracting new students. We need to keep up with them, right? Wrong! Being status-quo is not significant. If you want someone to reach students that desire to be SIGNIFICANT, then understand them, and connect. Read step five.

Step 5: Think for a moment. What makes you significant? How do you evaluate and determine significance? If you can't answer this for yourself, there is no way you are going to connect to an audience desiring to be significant. What is your winning solution? We at the WIN Firm craft many messages to reach various audiences, so here is our approach to being significant. I, Chris Teague, am significant because: I am a child of God (my own belief, and I respect differences); am a devout husband and father; still play soccer competitively despite my age; run almost everyday; have a passion for music and attend live concerts on a regular basis; helped start a marketing firm; and have helped shape the WIN Firm to being cause-oriented to promote human compassion. Does your college or university have a curriculum for me? I bet you do, so come get to know me a little bit and show me how I can do all of these things that make me significant.

Have a blessed day everyone. See you next Wednesday!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm