Direct Mailers | JMC3433 - PR Publications

Assignment 2- Direct Mailer

By Claire White in Assignment 2, Direct Mailers, JMC 3433 March 11, 2014

For this assignment, I geared my direct mailers to two different target audiences: Texas students who just graduated and have made advances to attend the University of Oklahoma and students that are considered National Merit Scholars.

For the direct mailer that I would plan to send to the Texas students, I made sure to talk about how this is their experience, that they would leave their footprint on this university. Sometimes schools forget that it is about that individual persons experience, that is why I put Begin YOUR Sooner Experience. I put the University of Oklahoma’s logo as the OU in your because I want them to start seeing that OU is in their experience. I made sure to use the photo at a football game because that is also what people think of when they think of the University of Oklahoma. It is an experience to attend one of the games, and an important experience at that.

I also used the same textures on both sides and used the university logo to add repetition.

For my direct mailer aimed at National Merit Scholars, I chose the picture of the seats to show that each seat is different. I used what seat will you take to emphasize that there are many things you can do at the University of Oklahoma, not all chair is the same because neither is every student. I made sure to emphasize the OU in you because that is what I want them to think about. When they look at the word you, I want them to immediately think of the University of Oklahoma. I made sure that the OU logo was faded behind the students address so that you can immediately know who it is coming from and it repeats the logo from the opposite side.

I learned a lot from the last assignment, that empty space is not wasted space, to make sure that your textures match, or at least don’t look like garbage, and to not be text heavy. I made sure to keep the texts the same so that way it all looks uniform. I also chose a text that I thought matched well with the University of Oklahoma text.

Originally posted at Claire White

Project 2 – Direct Mailers

By Makenna Rogers in Assignment 2, Assignments, Direct Mailers, JMC 3343 March 11, 2014

For our second project in my Public Relations publications class, we worked on direct mailers. Direct mailers for the sake of this assignment were postcards that would hypothetically be sent out by OU’s recruitment services to students and/or parents.

For my direct mailers I chose two different audiences. The first was high school seniors, who have not decided on a college or university that were from southeastern Oklahoma. The second mailer was targeted toward parents who have children in their senior year of high school. The purpose of my mailers was to inform students and parents about their unique opportunities at OU. For example, the parents’ mailer gave information about how they can join the OU community through the parent’s club or parents’ weekends.

I chose my first audience of southeastern Oklahoma students for two reasons. The first is that I am from southeastern Oklahoma. The second is that I wanted to highlight a unique student organization I am a part of called SEOK Ambassadors. This is a registered student organization ran by the southeastern Oklahoma recruiter for OU. We realized there was a significant problem in our recruiting from the southeast, and have set up this organization to fix the problems many students from this area face. We have think tank session as well as created a scholarship for students from the area and a mentorship program for when they get to OU. The organization is something I am very passionate about since I am from the area, and I know first hand the struggles these students face in regards to higher education.

I had a little more pressure added to this assignment. I had emailed our advisor about using our logo for the assignment, and he told me he wants to see the finished product because recruitment services might use it, and send it out to students. This is very exciting, but nerve-racking at the same time. I have uploaded a picture of the front and back of the mailer. You can tell me what you think!

I chose my second audience of parents because I thought it correlated with parents of the students I was targeting, as well as parents from all over the world who are sending their child off to college. When parents send their children off to college they are usually sad and wish they could just pack up and go with them. OU is unique in the fact that they kind of can. OU has multiple ways for parents to be updated on the happenings on campus. I used the front of the mailer to talk about our parents’ association and our parents’ day weekends. I used the back of the mailer to appeal to both their logical and emotional needs. I used buzzwords about the university highlighting some of the great aspects of our campus. I also used emotional language such as “your child belongs here” to really get their attention, and have them research the University of Oklahoma. I have attached the front and back of that mailer as well.

Through this assignment I have learned a lot about targeting specific stakeholders and what appeals to them. With our design assignment we also did a segmenting stakeholder matrix. This was a chart that helped us really think about who are stakeholders were and what they wanted. I was able to use this the most with my parents direct mailer. Since I am not a parent, it can be difficult to know exactly what they would want. With the help of the chart; however, I was able to discover and tailor a message specifically to them.

Overall, I found this assignment to be very enjoyable. I am excited to give my assignment to the advisor of SEOK Ambassadors. The idea of OU actually printing my work is very exciting…keep your fingers crossed!

Originally posted at OU Public Relations Publications

Assignment 2 – Direct Mailers

By Tori Beechum in Assignment 2, Direct Mailers, JMC 3433, JMC3433, Public Relations, Publications March 11, 2014

Over the last few weeks in my publications class we created direct mailers. This project was actually pretty fun, but I tell you I had no idea where I was going to start. The first thing was to identify the target audiences. For our project we had to use our school, The University of Oklahoma, and create something for an audience that could potentially be associated with OU.

I knew for sure that students would be the first target, but that is very broad so I limited the range to high school juniors. I chose to write about the educational options available at OU to help those in high school get acquainted with what the university has to offer and what they should look for when they apply next year as a senior. Here’s a look at the first direct mailer.

I wanted to stick with something that OU is known for doing design wise. The top of numerous mailers have the white ribbon bleeding off the page with The University of Oklahoma on it and they also use white horizontal lines to show what the focus is on. The only other thing I wanted to do with this mailer was stick to the colors and add a few drop shadows to the OU logos to make them stand out a bit.

For the second mailer, I chose to target parents who may have trouble supporting their child financially. I chose to write about the grants, scholarships, and Oklahoma’s Promise Commitment as available options parents can look into. Here’s a look at the second mailer.

On the design side, I wanted to make the mailer immediately target parents. I chose a photo that just capture the university and for the back I chose grid paper because I usually associate grids with math. So I figured since I was writing about financial options grids would fit well. Other than that I continued with the OU color scheme and tried to keep it simple.

I had a lot of fun doing this project. One last thing, I will say it is best to look for inspiration when designing a direct mailer. I used this mailer I found on Pinterest for inspiration.

I also used direct mailers that we’ve had in the past at OU. But yes, use tons of inspiration and figure out your audiences and narrow them as much as possible. Hope you all enjoyed this post and the mailers I created.

-Tori

Originally posted at Tori Beechum - PR Pubs

Assignment Two: Direct Mailers

By Nick Edwards in Assignment 2, Direct Mailers, JMC 3433 March 11, 2014

Our second major assignment for Public Relations Publications challenged us to create two different direct mail pieces aimed at stakeholders for OU Recruitment Services.

The two different demographics I targeted with my mailers were incoming University of Oklahoma freshmen from the North Texas metropolitan area and parents of incoming University of Oklahoma freshmen from the North Texas metropolitan area.

For my first mailer, I tried to create a piece that utilized photos to show how much fun OU students have and gave brief text summaries of different ways these prospective freshman could get involved on campus.

For my second mailer, I aimed to appeal to the emotions of parents letting their children go off to college, giving visuals referring to Oklahoma and using the tagline “Far away enough to visit… But still close enough to call home!”

I personally found this assignment to be much more challenging than the first. Arranging the different pieces of my mailers was a challenge, but I support my finished product. I utilized various clean, borderless photos for a clean look and kept my text font constant to invoke repetition.

I’m going to sleep now.

Prospective Student Direct Mailer

Prospective Student Parent Direct Mailer

Originally posted at Nick Edwards