Showcasing Saint Mary’s continues

While the university unveiled its new brand earlier in 2022, the Marketing and Communication Department continues to look at new opportunities and effective ways to showcase our brand and get it in front of as many of our audiences as possible, with a particular eye on prospective students. This work includes radio spots, digital advertising, billboards, and continued branding efforts on the web.

“We are in a highly competitive market and prospective students have many choices for quality education,” said Kelly Shannon, vice president for Marketing and Communication. “Saint Mary’s strong brand visuals and messages create visibility, awareness and, if compelling and relevant to people, engagement and interest to find out more. We simply want to be a solid consideration when a prospective student is researching the best options for them.”

Billboards

In December, the university was offered a deep discount in the Twin Cities for 60 billboards in the market for the entire month of December, a heavy travel time for families with holiday activities and errands. The billboards targeted various prospective student groups with branded messages like “Meet life’s demands while meeting your goals” and “Our mission: Helping you find yours.”

Website update

Since the new website launched this fall, the university has experienced an increase in prospective students. More than 136,000 new visitors have gone to the website, with a 10% increase in returning visitors. This is a good indication of engagement, as it refers to new visitors who have viewed our website on more than one occasion. The website has also experienced an 80% increase in visitors who clicked to apply, which amounts to over 6,000 clicks to apply. Marketing and Communication will continue to monitor and analyze traffic to the website and make improvements to ensure a visitor has the best customer journey possible. The department is working closely with enrollment management to better track a prospect from the very first visit.

As the website is geared toward a primary audience of prospective students, we want to be sure alumni can also successfully navigate our site! When you click on smumn.edu, a key area for alumni is the upper right corner’s drop down menu (three lines). Here you will find links for athletics, alumni page, a current calendar of events, info on how to give and more — all in one easy-to-find location. We invite alumni to visit our site and see the new navigation and branding, but more importantly to stay connected with your alma mater.