Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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my name's Christina Sanders.
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I'm the inbound marketing manager for Lucid Press, and today
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I'm here to talk to you about how to template
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ties, design on campus and seven tips for success of
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how to actually get the ball rolling and be successful
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for this.
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So let's dive in All right.
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So today's student really has their pick of the litter,
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meaning there are so many educational options out there for
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multiple universities Thio Alternative education.
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And so universities are, as you all know, are really
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facing an uphill battle to hit enrollment numbers and really
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meet their goals.
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So creating content to show up really isn't enough anymore.
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And there's a few reasons for this.
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One is that everyone is now a content creator.
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Everyone's adopted content, and it's spread across an entire university.
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You have your faculty, your staff, your students, alumni, all
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creating content, right, And because of this, creative teams are
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creating 10 times the volume of content that they were
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in the past.
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And because of this, it's getting really hard for content
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to break through the noise.
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If you look at these stats, just adds alone.
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1984 person would see an average of 2000 ads per
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day today.
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That's closer to 10,000 ads per day.
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So if you think about your typical student who is
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constantly on social media constantly online, the amount of messaging
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that they are bombarded with is tremendous.
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So what around?
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Talk Today is actually thinking about how we can transform
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your universities brand into a superpower, one that really works
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for you and helping you reach those enrollment goals and
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other marketing goals that you have.
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Okay. And a really important part of this is consistency.
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We found that consistently presented brands are 3 to 4
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times more likely tohave brand visibility.
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And so, if you're in a situation where you're having
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a hard time to stand out, a really strong brand
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can actually be a huge, beneficial thing tohave at that
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at this point, Prezi.
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But of course, brand consistency is so so hard to
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dio, everyone is a content creator, which, of course, by
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extension, means anyone in your university can impact your universities
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brand for good or for bad.
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So let's talk about where we tend to be out.
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We have this expectation over here, right that will create
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these brand guidelines will do these brand trainings.
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People usually receive them really well.
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Well, you just say Oh, great.
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I'll use this for sure.
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But then reality sets in over here and people go
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off and they create their own stuff.
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They forget about the brand guidelines.
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They use an outdated logo.
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They just make something that looks really, really bad.
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And of course, what you end up with is this
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really off brand?
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But then also really poorly designed content.
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And I want to take a second.
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When you look at this poster right here, what do
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you think of this event?
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Does it seem like a high quality event to you?
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And if you answer, no, you're not alone.
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And the point of this isn't to shame the person
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who designed this it Israel posted by the way A
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lot of people ask that.
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But the point is to show that even if this
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were on brand, this poor layout in this poor design
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really affects people's perception of the quality of the event
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or of the brand itself.
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And pretty much every company deals with this.
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88% of companies have seen content created and distributed that
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does not conform to brand guidelines, so you are definitely
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not alone in this.
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So let's talk about another situation that tends to derive
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from this issue of brand consistency.
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So you have your nice creative over here.
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He or she went into design, work, copy, work, marketing
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work because they want to work on really high impact
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projects. They wanna work on the things that will really
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move the brand forward and make an impact.
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But unfortunately, what ends up happening in a lot of
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universities inst.
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Instead, they get inundated with all of these minute edit
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requests from faculty, uh, creating a poster for a symposium,
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something really tiny and so so much time gets eaten
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up in these tiny, tiny edit requests.
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So what we're talking about today in template ing is
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a way to move away from this issue of centralized
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teams having to create all of this content for faculty,
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um, or faculty and staff creating road content on their
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own. And then, of course, there's also the issue of
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faculty and staff that a lot of the times they're
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using really outdated software like Power Point, and that alone
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is frustrating.
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And so what we want to do is move away
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from that and moved to a situation where we're getting
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more done as a team.
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We're creating the right content at the right time, setting
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content to the right places and people it ultimately boosting
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employee morale because everyone's getting what they need.
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And they're not spending time on things that they don't
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really want to be spending time on.
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So time to tumble ties.
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I'm going to run through what I mean by templates
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really, really quickly.
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And then we're gonna get to the seven tips of
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how to implement this.
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So templates.
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What do I mean when you start with this library
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of templates here?
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So what this is, is it's all your typical content
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that you create your posters, your flyers, your postcards put
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in a organized fashion so that people could go and
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find what they need by category and go in and
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update that content.
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And a really big part of this is something we
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call template locking.
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So template locking allows you to lock down certain pieces
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of the content so people can't mess it up essentially,
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so you'll notice there's this red lock near the logo
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that means it's completely locked down.
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Can't be changed, distorted, worked in any way, and you
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have the yellow lock.
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What the yellow lock does is it locks down certain
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components like, say, your font or your layout or your
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color, so that can't be changed.
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But the professor could go in and change what the
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text actually says.
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And then, of course, the third part is customization.
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So ultimately, this only works.
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If you're faculty can actually go in and use it.
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And so this is the part where again, those yellow
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locks that can go in and make small edits.
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There's also the component of making assets readily available.
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So you're logos, your colors, your fonts all there and
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ready to customize this template.
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All right, so let's talk about how to actually accomplish
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this university's air.
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Huge. It takes a lot of work to get people
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on board.
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So maybe seven tips for success when you are template
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izing your content.
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Tip number one focus on time saved, and what I
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mean by this is just take a minute, Thio like
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meditate a little bit and ask yourself, man, what could
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my team accomplished if we didn't have all these external
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content needs, and as you think about that, you probably
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start to get really excited and say, 00 there is
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a huge opportunity cost for all of the time that
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we spent doing this.
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You can also take this the other way and think
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about the faculty and say, You know, what could you
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do if you weren't having to constantly submit these requests,
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wait for these requests or go off and create stuff
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on your own?
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That doesn't look very good.
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And what if this could be just really simple and
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easy for you?
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And ultimately, uh, this component of it can really give
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people a reason to say Okay, yes, I want to
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do this.
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Alright. Tip number two is sees a timely opportunity, so
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change is hard for anyone but typically changes a little
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bit easier when we're already in a position of experiencing
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change or something new.
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So there's generally two times when you can benefit from
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this one.
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Is your refresher rebrand?
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So if your university is planning a refresher or rebrand,
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you're already planning this huge change.
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People are getting up for it.
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They're ready to learn something new and so that's the
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perfect time to come in and see.
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All right.
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At the same time, we're template sizing, and this is
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how you can access this new brand, and it actually
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makes adoption of the rebrand a lot easier and more
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seamless. The second way is obviously the beginning of a
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new year or semester.
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Everyone's kind of used to All right, New Year.
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There's new policies.
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There's new procedures, just a new fresh start.
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And so it's a good way toe.
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Just jump start on that change as well.
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Alright, Tip three is start with a pilot program, so
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universities are huge.
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I recognize that, and so a lot of times it
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can be helpful to start with a smaller group, test
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this out and really get it operating smoothly before rolling
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it out to the entire university.
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And what this means is generally think about your frequent
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flyers. So the ones who just love making those content
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requests via just because they need a lot or maybe
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they just really need help.
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But group those frequent flyers and come together with them
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and launch a pilot program and the feedback and input
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that you get from that initial program will make it
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a lot easier to then say all right, are frequent
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flyers like this.
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So we're pretty confident we can roll it out to
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everyone and it will work pretty well.
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Okay, Tip for is train, train, train.
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And I say that three times because you need to
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hold at least three trainings.
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Training number one is what you're talking about.
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Why we're doing this again.
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This can go back to the time saving component that
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I talked about before.
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But it can also be where you talk about the
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importance of your brand.
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You can talk about why branding matters, how it impacts
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the goals of the university and get people on board
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with that idea.
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The next one is your actual hands on training.
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So obviously it's hard adopting a new technology that's always
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a barrier for people.
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And so this is where you basically say, Alright, come
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in. We're gonna help you overcome that initial barrier of
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logging in and doing this for the first time.
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We'll show you how it works, and that will hopefully
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spur people to say All right, I can do this
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now. I can do this on my own.
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Yeah, third session is questions and feedback.
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So at this point, you've had your program going for
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a little bit of time and you're wanting to get
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any other questions that have come up answered and then
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get feedback on things like, Do we have the right
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templates? Do we need different templates?
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Are things locked down too much or are we seeing
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still way too much for content?
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We've gotta lock this down more.
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So this is where you can adjust it and make
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sure that your template program is actually accomplishing your goals.
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Yeah, Alright.
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Tip number five is create a starter pack of templates.
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So what this is, is it's some initial templates people
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can use that represent the bulk of the content you
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create. So think about your most common requests.
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Maybe start creating a list of like, oh, yeah, happens
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all the time.
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Happens all the time.
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Ah, lot of the times and hired.
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What we see is digital signage tends to be a
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really big one, along with flyers and social media, and
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so creating those not just those types of template, but
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the types of content that tends to be the in
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them. For example, if you get a lot of lecture
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flyer specifically, creating a template for lecture fires would be
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a really good idea for that starter pack.
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Okay, tip number six bill templates to be edited and
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not designed.
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So ah, lot of the times when we think about
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template ing.
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In the past, we've probably seen these templates where it's
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basically like a three panel brochure layout, and it's pretty
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blank. We want to move away from that.
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We don't want people to have to figure out how
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delay something out themselves.
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We wanted to be mostly done so that all they
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have to do is tweak it.
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So here's an example of a template I really like
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from a university.
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They do a couple of things.
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One you see the logo on the top is positioned
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scaled. It's also completely locked down.
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They provided approved photography, and so if someone didn't wanna
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have Thio put a whole lot of work into this,
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they've already got a great photo right there.
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And then, of course, you notice the text is has
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the yellow lock down here.
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So again, what that means is the font is locked
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down the layout is locked down.
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That can't be messed up, but the copy can be
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updated thio be relevant to the upcoming event.
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Okay, Tip number seven is provide interchangeable assets.
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So this is really important, especially at a university where
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you have so many different departments, so many different use
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cases. And this can range from anything from having all
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of your logos grouped right there.
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So that, for example, if you need to switch out
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from the university logo to a department logo, you just
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slide it in really easily.
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If you have a couple different font options, you could
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provide that.
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If you want to give people a little bit of
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room for creativity.
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I also recommend always having your brand colors right there.
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If someone does have an option to a adjust the
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color in the template that way you know they're sticking
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with your brand palette, and then this can also be
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things like approved imagery.
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So maybe you have for the athletic department a group
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of approved images for the content that they can use
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eso. That way, it's really easy to just bring things
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and bring them out as needed.
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So what we've been talking about today is really the
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idea of how can we empower everyone at your university
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to represent your brand with the respect that it deserves?
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Because in reality, universities have some of the most long
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lasting and well known brands.
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They really do an incredible job.
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And so this is really just an opportunity to allow
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everyone, all of your faculty, your alumni to really embrace
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this and help contribute to it, which could be really
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exciting. We do have any book that goes through a
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lot of this, so if you like, you can go
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ahead and grab it at this bit Lee Link.
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It'll take you right to the E book and it
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will walk you through.
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Ah, lot of what we've just covered and thank you
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so much.
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And please let us know if you'd like to learn
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more either