Babson College has been the top school for entrepreneurship for over two decades. Despite this niche focus, its position in the market place has not been as finite. With a crowdsourcing microsite at its core, the College’s first institutional branding campaign in nearly 15 years integrated multiple channels to increase brand awareness, engagement, adoption and advocacy with multiple constituencies. Extending its entrepreneurial core into a content marketing hub focused on those with a passion for entrepreneurship allowed the college to rally a community around a cause to extend the brand’s reach far beyond campus. This presentation will follow the path from crowdsourcing to cause marketing and showcase how one college in particular, as well as other institutions along the way, use these methods to extend the brand.

1. 1
FROM CROWDSOURCED TO
CAUSE MARKETING
The Evolution of a Brand Campaign
Gene Begin / @gbegin / #UBTech
Senior Director of Integrated Marketing / Babson College

2. 2

3. HIGHER EDUCATION AND THE NEED
FOR ADVOCACY MARKETING

4. HIGHER EDUCATION CONSTITUENCY MAP

5. Consider Evaluate Buy
Good
Luck? Alumni
HIGHER EDUCATION MARKETING’S RELATIONSHIP
WITH THE CONSUMER DECISION JOURNEY
Apply
Engage
Enroll
Register

6. 6
TODAY’S HIGHERED CONSTITUENCY JOURNEY
THE LOYALTY LOOP

7. 7
THE IMPORTANCE OF ADVOCACY MARKETING
https://gaggleamp.com/blog/employee-advocacy-infographic

8. 8
TODAY’S HIGHERED CONSTITUENCY JOURNEY
Secondary Audiences: Prospects (students, employees) and external
influencers at the top of the awareness funnel (recruiters, parents,
media, thought leaders)
Target Audience: Advocates (alumni, faculty, staff, current students)

9. MEET BABSON COLLEGE

10.  Small, private business college 14 miles west of Boston
 #1 in entrepreneurship for 22 and 18 consecutive years
 Approximately 2000 undergraduate and 1300 graduate students, representing more than 74 countries
 Undergraduate program (top 25 in business)
 Graduate program - MBA and MS degrees (top 50 in business)
 Executive education program (top 10 U.S. and top 20 in the world for custom programs)
 Babson Global, which works with corporate, university, government, and foundation partners to advance
entrepreneurship education and Entrepreneurial Thought and Action® worldwide
BABSON COLLEGE

11. HOW DO YOU DEFINE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

12. MISSION: REDEFINITION
The Brand Campaign

13. In doing so:
• Augment pride and engage our community in advocacy.
• Expand Babson’s application base, in turn expanding and enhancing our student and
alumni base.
• Generate more corporate relationships.
• Create greater attention with academic institutions, foundations and grants
organizations, and the policy community.
Increase brand awareness, engagement, and adoption for Babson, the educator
for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®.
Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®

14. 14
WHAT IS CROWDSOURCING?
A process that involves outsourcing tasks to a distributed group of people…an
undefined public rather than a specific body, such as paid employees.*
Benefits
• Connection to your audience
• Collaboration and competition
• Simultaneous market research and testing
• Lower cost
* Wikipedia

15. DEFINE.BABSON.EDU
Our crowdsourced
engagement hub
• Context video
• Definition submission
• Data capture (name,
email, country, zip,
occupation)
• Interactive search
elements
• Liking
• Sharing

16. LEVERAGING THE CONVERGENCE OF
MARKETING MEDIA
OWNED MEDIA = website(s),
multimedia, newsletters, SEO,
social media accounts, campus
environment
EARNED MEDIA = PR,
word of mouth, social sharing
PAID MEDIA =
traditional advertising,
display advertising,
paid search, event
sponsorship, content
advertising

17. SOCIAL SHARING

18. SOCIAL SHARING

19. 2750+definitions

20. DEFINE.BABSON.EDU (V2)
• 1-step form with 7 fields, including definition -- 1.4% video submissions
• 2-step form with video/definition on step 1, remaining 6 fields on step 2 --12.2% video submissions
• 45% completion rate of entire form

21. EXTENDED TO OTHER INSTITUTIONAL GOALS

22. REIMAGINE THAT CONTENT!

24. STORYTELLING
Extend the brand campaign via content marketing

25. <INSERT COLLEGE> NOW

26. <INSERT COLLEGE> TODAY

27. INSPIRATION FROM OTHER INDUSTRIES

28. FOCUS ON
THE FARMER
“Even the most technical subject has to have a human story
behind it. We’ve been able to convince the management that
the content shouldn’t be about John Deere equipment.”
David Jones
Publication Manager
John Deere
NOT THE
EQUIPMENT

29. IT’S THE CAUSE NOT THE COLLEGE

30. In doing so:
• Augment pride and engage
our community.
• Expand Babson’s application
base, in turn expanding and
enhancing our student and
alumni base.
• Generate more corporate
relationships.
• Create greater attention with
academic institutions, foundations
and grants organizations, and the
policy community.
Increase brand awareness, engagement, and adoption for Babson, the educator
for Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®.
BRAND CAMPAIGN GOAL & OBJECTIVES
Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®

31. To shine a spotlight on entrepreneurial leaders, brands,
and ideas that are making an impact in organizations
of all types and sizes and society-at-large.
Entrepreneurship of All Kinds®

32. INSTITUTIONAL STRATEGY = CONTENT STRATEGY
Content strategy must be hardwired to your institutional strategy

33. ENTREPRENEURSHIPOFALLKINDS.COM
EAK.ORG
There is a story behind every entrepreneur

35. LAUNCH AND LEARN

36. STORYTELLING ON CAMPUS
Any college is a busy place…
• Lloyd Blankfein: Goldman Sachs
Chairman & CEO on campus for Babson
Investment Banking Conference
• Gail Simmons: Top Chef judge and Food
& Wine editor is an entrepreneur in
residence, providing ongoing mentoring
and guest appearances
• Faculty consistently publish bestselling
books like Worthless, Impossible, and
Stupid
…with a specific point of view:
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Goal for EAK
Tell stories that are filtered
through a broadly defined
entrepreneurship lens

37. Big Names
on Campus

38. Faculty
Thought
Leadership

39. Annual
Institutional
Events

40. Alumni
News and
Stories

41. Timely
Community,
National, &
World News

42. Contributions
from Guest
Writers

43. BEYOND THE BRAND
• Diversity of sources from other universities (i.e. MIT, Harvard,
etc.), startups and industry
• For every Babson quote, balance with external example
• Extends social sharing well beyond Babson community
Source by the Numbers
Babson Alumni:15
Babson Faculty/Staff: 29
Babson Friend/Guest: 22
External Influencer/Expert Quotes: 26
Guest Authors: 3

44. BUILDING A STORY PIPELINE
• Mine the events calendar for campus speakers
• Collaborate with campus centers and organizations
• List the platform on PR databases to receive pitches and ideas
• Maintain an ongoing, shared list
• Hire freelancers

45. YEAR TWO
• 50+ Articles
– Insights from Google Analytics and past
performance help direct new stories
• Advertising (BizEd, Content sponsorships, etc.)
• Built Subscriber Database
 Define Campaign outreach, faculty/staff, current /
prospective students, alumni, interviewees
• Quarterly EAK Newsletter
• Celebrating Entrepreneurship of All
Kinds – Boston event
– Partnerships with local sponsors (Chamber of
Commerce, Citizens Banks)
– Bring the concept of EAK to life

46. RESULTS MUST MEET OBJECTIVES

47. MOST POPULAR STORIES
5. Accounting for Entrepreneurship Inside
4. Swimming with the Sharks
3. How an Alpine Adventure Inspired a Business
2. Investing in Women: A Conversation with
Tory Burch
1. Helping Teen Mothers Step Out
of Poverty

48. IMPACT ON
COLLEGE GOALS
• 1,489 new user sessions driven to WWW
– 4.1 pages per visit (38% higher than average)
– 6:08 time on site (94% higher than average)
• Goal Conversions
– 7 Graduate
– 3 Executive Education
– 2 Undergraduate

49. EVOLUTION OF BRAND MESSAGING

50. BRAND CAMPAIGN EVOLUTION
FY12
WRITE IT
FY13
SHOW IT
FY14
LIVE IT

51. FY15 & FY16
ACT IT

52. THE ENTREPRENEURS:
A TRUE BABSON STORY

53. 53
ACTION.BABSON.EDU

54. 54
EARNED MEDIA

55. LESSONS LEARNED FROM AN
EVOLVING BRAND MESSAGE

56. SHOW, DON’T TELL
Is there a catchphrase or tagline in your boilerplate or
mission statement that needs less tell and more show?
Use it as your hook for cause marketing

57. POSITION DIFFERENTLY

58. WORD OF MOUTH IS YOUR
MOST POWERFUL BRAND MESSAGE
• Social media = word of mouth reinvented
• Community Passion
• Use Your Advocates
• Presidential / Senior Leadership Buy-in
• Use Your Network and Their Networks
• Share with 10 people, they’ll share with 10 people, who will share with 10 people, etc.

59. THANK YOU!
WWW.SLIDESHARE.NET/GBEGIN
GENE BEGIN / @GBEGIN
SENIOR DIRECTOR OF INTEGRATED MARKETING / BABSON COLLEGE