In late 2015, North Greenville University had suffered from some bad press. That’s when our Marketing and Communications team was born, in part to turn the narrative around.
To me, one of the greatest tools in our arsenal that we weren’t fully utilizing yet was storytelling — highlighting the countless positive stories of the impact our employees, alumni, and current students have on campus and beyond.
Thankfully, we already had an incredible asset in place to use in communicating these stories to our more than 30,000 constituents: the bi-annual “North Greenville University Magazine,” later rebranded “1892 Magazine.”
Strategy
- Develop human interest stories about our most successful faculty, staff, alumni, and current students.
- Create an integrated editorial calendar to share those stories both in “1892 Magazine” and NGU’s dedicated News webpage.
- For each magazine issue, feature an integrated theme that connected the stories.
- As editor, reimagine NGU’s magazine to feature an improved flow, style, and content focus.
- Encourage the NGU community to interact with the brand by taking our Magazine Reader Survey and sharing future positive stories through a new “Share Your News” form.
Example Pieces
Outcomes & Results
- Increased Media Coverage: Many of the human interest stories we’ve highlighted in our magazine have subsequently been picked up by local media outlets (including “TOWN Carolina” and WSPA), which in turn spreads the positive stories related to the NGU brand.
- Award-Winning Design: After we reimagined “1892 Magazine,” the Spring 2018 issue won the “Best of Category in Newsletters (4 or More Colors)” award from The Printing Industry of the Carolinas.
- Improved Constituent Feedback: Most importantly, our magazine readers were happier than ever, based on the feedback we received in the reader survey. From the Spring 2016 to Spring 2018 issue, we saw notable gains in the percentage of readers who were reading most or all of each issue (from 68% up to 85%), readers who felt the issue strengthened their connection to the brand (from 25% up to 35%), and readers who felt the latest issue was as good as or better than past issues (from 25% up to 44%).
Testimonials
- “I thought the magazine was classy and professional, and I really liked the change in the title. The presentation of the magazine as a whole is a better product, I believe, than another alumni magazine I receive. Very proud to see how far it has come!” – Camilla Pittman, NGU alum
- “Congratulations on a superb issue! It was made clear to me as I read ‘1892’ that much work and creativity went into this issue. I have been looking at ways to improve our magazine [at an international teacher organization I am affiliated with]. When I received the ‘1892 Magazine,’ I was impressed with the content and the layout [so much that] I plan to send my copy to [our current association president].” – June Bellamy, NGU alum
- “This magazine is much, much better than previous [issues]. Attention-grabbing cover! Excellent layout! Lots more pictures of students, faculty, and staff.” – Steve Holcombe, NGU employee