What is STORY 360™?
STORY 360™ is a comprehensive communication strategy that uses targeted storytelling to connect with students at the right story, in the right place, at the right time.
How can STORY 360™ help my community college?
STORY 360™ can boost enrollment, retention, and transfer rates by delivering personalized, relevant messages that resonate with prospective and current students.
What makes STORY 360™ different from traditional marketing approaches?
Unlike traditional methods, STORY 360™ focuses on segmenting your audience and tailoring messages to each group, ensuring higher engagement and conversion rates.
How does STORY 360™ address the unique needs of my institution?
We first clarify institutional goals, analyze the current landscape to uncover challenges, then develop your communication and marketing strategy. From there we leverage student data to create customized campaigns that speak directly to the needs and concerns of your student population.
What kind of results can we expect with STORY 360™?
Clients have seen significant improvements in engagement, enrollment, retention, and transfer rates, with some experiencing enrollment records and over 317% higher conversion.
How does the STORY 360™ process work?
The process involves sending us your priority student lists and campaign goals. We then build and launch your STORY 360™ Campaign. We report weekly on results and work in real-time with your communications team to update and refine the campaign to maximize outcomes.
If you seek professional development and capacity-building training and workshops, see the FAQ section labeled STORY 360™ Training & Workshop Questions.
What does the Done-for-You service include?
Our Done-for-You service includes everything from building, launching, and managing your STORY 360™ campaign from start to finish.
After sign up, how does the process work?
General workflow follows the below three phases
PHASE 1: Pre-Campaign Planning
•Discovery: Understand your institution’s goals, challenges, and target audience through comprehensive discussions and analysis.
•Diagnosis: Assess your current communication strategies and identify areas for improvement.
•Design: Develop a customized campaign plan tailored to your specific objectives and target demographics.
PHASE 2: Campaign Build Out & Launch
•Right Story: Craft compelling stories and messages tailored to each segment of your audience, including campaign messaging, story creation, and audience segmentation.
•Right Place: Prepare and integrate campaign content across multiple platforms such as email, text messaging, social media, and direct mail.
•Right Time: Map out the student journey and sequence calls to action to ensure timely and relevant communication.
•Testing & Quality Control: Test all campaign elements to ensure accuracy and effectiveness. Conduct quality control checks to guarantee a seamless launch.
•Launch: Execute the campaign, ensuring all elements are in place and messages are delivered at the right time to the right audience.
PHASE 3: Campaign Management & Support
•Monitoring: Continuously monitor campaign performance and engagement metrics.
•Optimization: Make data-driven adjustments to optimize the campaign’s effectiveness and reach.
•Reporting: Provide regular updates and detailed reports on campaign performance, including insights and recommendations for improvement.
•Ongoing Support: Offer continuous support to address any issues and ensure the campaign’s success throughout its duration.
How do we send you our priority student lists?
You can securely share your priority student lists with us through our encrypted data transfer system or your Microsoft 360 Teams File Share.
What happens after we send our student lists?
Once we've completed the discovery phase to align institution goals and received your priority student target lists, we begin developing our research and communication strategy. Once completed, we share it with the institution and then proceed to build and launch your STORY 360™ campaign, taking care of all the details so you can focus on other priorities.
will build and launch your STORY 360™ campaign, taking care of all the details so you can focus on other priorities.
How long does it take to launch a campaign?
Generally 2-3 weeks. But for rush campaigns we can launch within 72 hours.
Do we need to provide any additional information after sending our student lists?
We may request additional information to ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of your campaign message. Besides small information requests, we will send out a request form highlighting a checklist of items we need. For example, your logo, color palette, fonts, point of contact to send interested students to, etc.
What does STORY 360™ training and workshop include?
We have a three-phase delivery system
Pre-Training Phase: Discovery, Diagnosis, and Design
- Discovery: We begin by understanding your institution’s unique challenges, goals, and target audience through in-depth discussions and analysis.
- Diagnosis: Assess your current communication strategies and identify areas for improvement.
- Design: Develop a customized training and workshop plan tailored to your institution’s specific needs and objectives.
Training Phase
- Strategy Development: Learn how to create a robust communication strategy tailored to your institution’s goals and target audience.
- Campaign Building: Get step-by-step instructions on designing, building, and launching effective STORY 360™ campaigns.
- Tools and Technology: Understand how to leverage various tools and technologies to enhance your marketing efforts and streamline your workflow.
- Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Develop SOPs to ensure consistent and efficient execution of marketing campaigns.
- Hands-On Guidance: Receive personalized support from experienced communication strategists and trainers, ensuring your team gains practical skills and confidence.
Post-Training Phase: Ongoing Support, Coaching, and Consulting
- Ongoing Support: Access resources and support to help your team continuously improve and stay up-to-date with the latest marketing trends and best practices.
- Coaching: Regular coaching sessions to address any challenges and reinforce training concepts.
- Consulting: Expert consulting to assist in the execution of learned strategies and to ensure the continued success of your marketing campaigns.
How long does the training program take?
The Pre-Training phase takes between 1-3 weeks. The training period, depending on the package, can take between 1-6 weeks. Post-training support varies but can last between one full term and an entire school year.
Who will conduct the training sessions?
The Pre-Training and Post-Training support phases are generally facilitated by one of our experienced communication strategists and trainers. X generally handles all hands-on training experiences.
What skills will our team gain from the training?
Your team will learn modern marketing techniques, effective storytelling, campaign building, and how to use relevant tools and technologies to improve communications (for example, how to leverage AI in your campaigns).
Can the training be customized to fit our institution’s needs?
Yes, we tailor our training programs to address the specific challenges and goals of your institution.
How do we get started with the training program?
Start by completing your Registration of Interest Survey. This short survey helps us to determine if you are a good fit and officially adds you to our waiting list.
And yes, we know waiting lists suck. However, given the depth of our custom work with Community Colleges, we have limited capacity. So, we are very selective and have waiting lists for many of our core services.
The good news is that the Registration of Interest Survey is only 5 minutes and it officially connects you with X and Lead Your Story. At a minimum, it will get you a call with X to discuss your school and how we can help.
