3. 3
RESEARCH
Potential Students:
• Surveys gauging previous knowledge of the Strategic Communication major at Miami
University.
• Same surveys would be sent out to prospective students at Ohio University and Kent State
University. This will gauge their knowledge about the subject at their respective schools.
Tour groups:
• Collect data from the admissions office about prospective majors from high school students in
tour groups. (Find out how many are interested in Business, Journalism, etc..)
Freshman and Sophomore Students:
• Conduct focus groups to learn the current opinion of the Strategic Communication major among
underclassmen at Miami University.
• Conduct focus groups with solely students who are undecided in the Farmer School of Business.
4. 4
KEY FINDINGS
Potential Students:
• 74% of potential Miami students did not realize that the Strategic Communication major was
offered.
• 32% of prospective Miami students know about the Strategic Communications major while
68% of prospective students at other schools know about their respective schools
Communications programs.
Data collection from the Admissions office
• 48% of prospective students that tour Miami University are interested in the Farmer School
of Business.
• 21% of prospective students that tour Miami University are interested in an Engineering
degree.
• 10% of prospective students that tour Miami University are interested in Journalism.
• 6% of prospective students that tour Miami University are interested in solely pursuing a
degree in Strategic Communication.
• 15% of prospective students that tour Miami University are interested are interested in other
degrees.
Focus groups with underclassmen
• 29% of underclassmen don’t fully understand the program or the benefits of having a major
in Strategic Communication so the have neutral feelings towards it.
• 74% of underclassmen feel that not every major at Miami receives the same amount of
exposure and recognition and that they don’t have time to fully explore their options before
they have to choose a track to follow.
Focus groups with undecided Business majors
• 48% of students that are undecided feel that the requirements to both get in and remain in the
Farmer School of Business are too high.
• 41% of students said they would be willing to find out more information about Strategic
Communication and fully explore their options.
5. 5
PUBLICS, GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Publics:
• Potential students
• Tour groups
• Freshman and sophomore students
Goals:
Our goal is to raise awareness of the benefits, role, and the faculty involved in the Strategic
Communications major to our target demographic of potential and underclassmen students here at
Miami University.
Objectives:
Our objective is to raise awareness of the benefits and overall role of the Strategic Communication
major by 30% among potential and underclassmen students here at Miami University by the end of this
one-year program.
6. 6
KEY MESSAGE
Strategic Communication is the study of how individuals and organizations use
communication and media to negotiate their role in highly mediated societies. Public
relations is a central aspect of strategic communication and involves the study of how
organizations influence opinions and the behavior of key publics (e.g., employees,
consumers, government, community, media) and how they try to respond and adapt to the
concerns of these publics. The curriculum emphasizes an ethical approach to public
relations and analyzes the impacts strategic communication practices have on societies.
7. 7
STRATEGY
• We plan to reach potential students by using school marketing
resources, social media outlets, and out reach programs in order to make
them aware of how successful the administration in the Strategic
communication department is.
• We plan to reach high school students on tours by using student-
marketing resources to take away some attention from the Farmer
School of Business and emphasize that Strategic Communications still
involves many similar aspects of business without the strict
qualifications needed.
• We plan to reach underclassmen at Miami University through social
media and resource allocation programs to bring awareness to the
variety if uses of the knowledge gained through the Strategic
Communication path.
8. 8
TACTICS
• Hire three Miami students to run our program and control media outputs.
• High School College Fairs
o Currently, when we conduct high school visits we tend to put more
emphasize on our Business and Engineering programs. We will restructure
our recruitment strategy and materials to make more room for Strategic
Communications to be advertised.
• Use the Farmer School of Business
o Create flyers showing how some fields of Business and Strategic
Communications are the similar.
§ Students could get a job in marketing and sales with both types of
degrees, but you don’t need to meet the requirements of getting into
the Farmer School of Business to be a Strategic Communications
major.
• Use of PRSSA
o Allow student organizations to be able to hire PRSSA.
o Would be extremely useful in the Greek community.
o The organizations would have to advertise that they use PRSSA.
• Social Media
o Twitter & Instagram
§ Have a professor of the month for the Strategic Communications
department. A picture would be posted along with their
accomplishments, career history, and a description of how they have
benefited from Strategic Communications.
9. 9
TIMELINE
September 3rd
-December 15th
: Use revamped recruitment materials at all high school college fairs.
September 6th
– Start bi-weekly distribution of flyers comparing several business majors with Strategic
Communication.
September 13th
– Start “Professor of the Month” posts on Instagram and Twitter.
September 20th
– Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
October 4th - Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
October 13th
- “Professor of the Month” post
October 18th
- Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
November 1st
- Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
November 13th
- “Professor of the Month” post
November 15th
- Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
November 29th
- Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers
December 13th
- Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers / “Professor of the Month” post
WINTER BREAK
February 6th
-10th
– Greek Week use of PRSSA for their events.
February 7th
– Continued Bi-Weekly Distribution of Flyers.
February 10th
– Continued “Professor of the Month” posts.
…
May 13th
– Campaign End
10. 10
BUDGET
Resources # of units Price Per Unit Subtotal
Student Worker @
$8/hr
4hrs/week for 30
weeks
3 $960 $2,880
Flyers 10,000 $0.10 $1,000
TOTAL $3,880
11. 11
EVALUATION
As Public Relations practitioners we spent time after the completion of our plan to
measure the success of our campaign. The objective of our plan was to raise awareness of
the benefits and overall role of the Strategic Communication Major by 30% among
potential and underclassmen students here at Miami University by the end of this one-
year program. We have evaluated our plan through social media, surveys and focus
groups conducted both at the beginning and our program. Our final evaluation showed
that awareness of the benefits and overall role of the Strategic Communication Major
increased by 37% over our 1-year program. The social media analytics showed that the
number of followers on both Instagram and Twitter increased by 200%. These results
show that our program was successful and our objective was surpassed.
