Consider Your Audience
To effectively engage and connect with each unique audience, we must align our messages with their interests and our goals.
How We Position Ourselves in the Market
Words convey meaning. They set standards and can change lives. At Ole Miss we take language and our ability to communicate seriously. In the marketing world, "positioning statement" describes a company's product and explains how it fills a need in the market.
In the world of higher education, Ole Miss is unique and stands out from the rest of the crowd—all of us already know this.
Here's how we convey that to the world:
- We are empowering Mississippi to propel the world forward through impact and lasting connections.
As a campus communicator you can use our positioning statement as a guide for your writing. Every word, every sentence, every web page you use should always help our wonderful university propel the world forward, create meaningful impact, and form lasting connections.
We're lucky to have a wide-ranging, diverse audience. We get to communicate with people from all types of backgrounds and from all over the world. That also means that we have a bunch of different ways to get our message across.
Keep on reading to learn more about:
Who is the campus community?
The campus community includes current students and families, faculty, staff, administration, and everyone at the UM Medical Center.
What do they need to know?
The campus community needs to know that:
- They're an integral part of the Ole Miss story, and they belong here
- It's important to recognize the past, but we should always be looking to the future.
- They're the university's most important ambassadors
- They're making an important impact on Mississippi, the country, and the rest of the world.
What's the role of the campus community?
The campus community's role is to:
- Advocate for Ole Miss and its evolving brand story
- Understand how to tell the Ole Miss story consistently
- Share their personal success stories
Who is our extended community?
The extended community is made up of alumni, donors, Oxford residents, employers, IHL, friends, and fans.
What do they need to know?
The extended community needs to know:
- That their support is critical to the university's success
- That Ole Miss remains committed to serving the state, even as things change and progress
- How Ole Miss has helped shaped their journey (especially alumni and donors)
- That this our evolving brand identity is meant to reflect how far Ole Miss has come and where the university is headed
- The stories of people who make Ole Miss great
What's their role?
The role of our extended community is to:
- Be passionate brand champions
- Tell the brand story
- Promote the university's benefits and value
- Share their stores
- Give their time, talents, and funds to Ole Miss
- Connect with, mentor, and hire Ole Miss students and graduates
Who are prospective rebels?
Prospective rebels are prospective students, faculty, and staff.
What do prospective rebels need to know?
Future rebels need to know:
- The full, complicated, vibrant Ole Miss story—beyond what's on the news
- The university's distinctions, especially in academics
- The value of an Ole Miss degree and why it's worth the investment
- How the unique systems of support Ole Miss provides will help them succeed on and off campus
- The exciting and ever-changing outcomes of our alumni's
- That this is a place where they'll be able to create and find their community
What's the role of prospective rebels?
The role of prospective rebels is simple. We want them to:
- Deeply consider making Ole Miss their home
- Identify Ole Miss as a top-choice institution
- Take the next (or first!) step in visiting, applying, or enrolling
- Recommend Ole Miss and recruit best-fit students (counselors and coaches)
Who makes up our public audience?
Our public audience is made up of peer and competitor institutions, the media, national employers, government agencies, the state of Mississippi and beyond.
What does the public need to know?
The public needs to know:
- The full Ole Miss story, beyond what's on the news
- How Ole Miss is improving the lives of its students as well as the state of Mississippi
- That Ole Miss continually strives for academic excellence
- That the accomplishments of the university, its students and its alumni, are meaningful and important around the world
What's the public's role?
The public's role is to:
- Recognize the university's impact and value
- See Ole Miss as a leading academic institution both in an outside of Mississippi
- Give Ole Miss honest, positive news coverage
- Elevate the university's reputation in their minds and influence others
- Invest in Ole Miss and its students
Craft the Perfect Message for Your Specific Audience
To get the most out of your message map, follow these four steps.
- Determine your audience and objective. Identify whom you need to reach before you decide what to say. Be as specific as you can, because people won’t care what you have to say unless you say something that matters to them.
- Determine the brand attribute. Align your topic with specific attributes. When possible, connect supporting points with a secondary message to strengthen your point.
- Determine the benefit. Once you’ve established that your topic links to a brand attribute, you need to identify the benefit or benefits. In many cases, your audience cares more about the benefit than the attribute.
- Craft your content. You’ll want to ensure that your content has a focus — say one thing and say it well. Any supporting benefits should act as talking points, complemented by the facts, data and proof points of your topic.
Those with Digital Accessibility Needs
Keeping a few basic principles in mind while we create content and experiences will help ensure that we do not exclude anyone from the information our sites provide – and you will also find that these methods provide a better user experience for everyone.
- Headers are used to create logical read order and not for styling text.
- Tables are properly used to present tabular data and contain accurate text-based descriptions.
- Content is presented as a webpage whenever possible, posted documents are in an accessible format.
- Hyperlinks are provided using appropriate and accurate descriptive text.
- Images have minimal to no text on them and include appropriate and accurate text-based descriptions using alt text of on the website alongside the image.
- Posted videos and other digital media are captioned to 99% accuracy.
- Third-party information and content posted on UM websites are accessible.
- Web forms are provided using an accessible forms tool and fillable PDF forms are checked for accessibility prior to posting.
- Highly customized websites or websites used as part of a UM-developed program or system are built and checked for accessibility, and any issues remediated prior to publication.
- Websites and webpages are accessible when published and sites/pages will be regularly audited to assure overall accessibility.