Completed: Winter 2021
Team: USC Annenberg Office of Communication and Marketing
USC Annenberg Admitted student print and web pieces
Getting accepted to USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism is a big deal – and what newly accepted students receive to congratulate them and welcome them to the school can determine whether they choose it as their academic home or not.
In the past, USC Annenberg would send a packet of printed information to its newly accepted students to give them the final push to confirm their enrollment. However, the 2020-21 recruitment season, coming during the most virtual year of any of our lives, was the perfect time to rethink this approach. My team and I created a light and elegant print piece which then directed recipients to a microsite designed to lead them through the experiences that await at USC Annenberg.
Print piece mailer
The mailer was the first piece of communication newly accepted students received directly from USC Annenberg. I conceptualized and designed this piece which included:
A die-cut pouch with foil logo. It feels exclusive, is graphically impactful, and lets you peek at and discover what’s inside USC Annenberg.
Dean’s note/illustrated card. I chose to illustrate symbols of communication and journalism studies in a city to represent the vibrant academic community. The illustrated side includes a QR code and link to the microsite, which is also mentioned in the dean’s note.
Microsite
The microsite uses language and design elements illustrating the academic journey of the user (the newly accepted student) as a path, starting, of course, at USC Annenberg (“Point A”). My team and I worked together to determine the most critical content newly accepted students need, and broke it into steps of the journey connected by a dotted path.
I fully designed the website mockup, determining text styles, layout, and overall look and feel. Sections include calls to action, links to news stories and student work, and illustrations. The ultimate goal of the site is for users to confirm their enrollment, which they have opportunities to do within multiple sections and through a pop-up.
I created illustrations for a few steps of the journey, tying into the illustrations from the printed dean’s note. Visually, these differentiated the microsite from USC Annenberg’s regular school website and were appropriate for a virtual school year where we had no current photos of students physically together. Our developer brought them to life with soft, energetic animations.
Results
My team’s print and microsite suite was a success for our new students and for the school.
Through marketing codes on the QR code and links, we recorded high traffic coming from the print piece to the microsite, and tracked high numbers of users clicking on links and stories throughout the microsite, meaning they found the journey through the content interesting and meaningful. We also saw high click rates on the microsite’s enrollment confirmation buttons – the ultimate purpose of the site was reached!
As print pieces were mailed out, we saw newly accepted students excitedly tagging the school on social media with pictures of their letters and pouches. This confirmed to us that mailing something printed and tactile is still important, even when we want users to spend most of their time exploring digitally. In future recruitment cycles, updating the print piece and microsite will be a lighter lift than print production was on for a packet of materials, with added data we could never receive based on printed materials.