Marketing Manual

Spring 2017

The State News Marketing team is a group of Michigan State students who
work to increase brand awareness among the local community and campus.
These individuals are typically pursuing a marketing career, and begin their
professional timeline at the State News.

As a student-run non-profit organization, marketing interns are given the

responsibility of suggesting and implementing ideas that fulltime marketing
employees are tasked with. These responsibilities include market research,
branding, event planning, social media thought leadership, sponsor relations,
and other items that particularly correlate with a newspaper. Though much
of the work completed by the marketing team will be in-house, there is also
an opportunity to take on clients. Clients who wish to enlist the State News
service of handing out fliers and utilizing other integrated campaign
techniques pay the Street Team.

Marketing interns join the State News team with the intent to learn
wholesome insight into the planning of marketing campaigns, as well as an
understanding of the media world they are soon to pursue post grad. From
management, interns can expect to receive overall business and
communication training, as well as receive guidance in executing weekly
tasks.

Weekly Responsibilities

A weekly social media calendar must be turned in every Monday to

management for approval. This calendar will be detailing the drafted
posts to be published the following week
Attend the weekly marketing and advertising meetings, and any
scheduled training
Arrive on time and fully complete every schedule office hour

Training

In order to effectively excel as a marketing intern, all hired individuals must

complete training that management schedules. These modules include:
New hire sales certification: covers general State News business
information, as well as the products we offer
Professionalism: maintaining business etiquette in and out of the office
 Effective Communication: overview of internal and external
communication expectations in the workplace
Market Research and Event Planning: a breakdown of the formative
research required before planning any event or external message, and
the precautions needed when organizing events
Business

Market Research

Market Research is defined as the action of gathering information about

consumers' needs and preferences. Applied to the State News, this means
determining whom the receiver of every message is in order to most
effectively reach target audiences. When branding or marketing an event, it
is important to determine who the State News is trying to reach, the
demographics and tendencies of that audience, and the best medium to
reach them (i.e. social media, the newspaper, etc.)

During the initial research phase, interns work on profiling the audience, the
message, the medium, and finally work toward a plan for implementation.

Branding

Branding is defined as the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or

design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products. Our
product is the State News, or the independent student voice via our print
newspaper, online website, social media channels, etc. In everything we do,
and every message we send out, we represent our brand and our mission.

Enveloped in branding is a term called brand recognition or the level in

which individuals recognize the State News. This is a goal of the marketing
team as new students or locals become integrated into the local community
and look to a source for the news.

Event Planning

Event planning, within the marketing world, is used for a number of reasons
whether it be brand recognition or a mobilization campaign. Regardless,
every event must have clearly defined goals to achieve a level of success
with predetermined measurements. Before every event, a white paper must
be submitted to management for approval that includes the event proposal
and details, goals, measurements for success, and potential sponsors.

All events must be proposed at least one month in advance to ensure

enough time to plan and market the event.

Social Media Thought Leadership

Social media has rapidly become a staple in modern marketing techniques

over the past couple years, and continues to provide the most efficient
communication medium. The State News currently has accounts on
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.

The newsroom uses these platforms to market individual stories that the
journalists write, and include links to the digital article. The marketing team
uses the mediums as both a tool to spread awareness about upcoming
events, as well as including fun fluff to avoid overloading our followers with
too much news content.

Fluff can be defined as content that is fun, and does not require too much
thought. It can include Twitter polls, local photography, student life and other
content to engage the community.

When scheduling social media fluff, it is important to remember that both the
newsroom and advertising department share the accounts. Running new
ideas by both departments ensure effective use of the platforms.

Sponsor Relations

Every marketing event being planned comes with a budget, and as a non-
profit that budget is next to none. Securing sponsors are key to ensuring the
success of an event, and therefore it is important to maintain a positive
relationship.

Sponsors may include local food vendors, banks, gas stations, etc. who pay
to be included on all marketing materials and donate food or other prizes for
the event. In doing so, these sponsors receive marketing to all the attendees
of the event and have a chance to showcase their business as well.

In training, marketing interns learn effective communication as well as

customer service in maintaining sponsor relations.

Before contacting potential sponsors, please consult with the Advertising

department that likely already has a relationship built with the client.

Newspaper Marketing

Newspapers rely heavily on pick-up rates, or the number of papers that get
picked up from the racks on every distribution day. Integrated marketing
campaigns are an excellent tactic to increase pick-up rates, and therefore
improve readership (the percentage of the local population that reads the
State News).

Integrated marketing campaigns are defined as a consistent brand message

delivered across both traditional (newspaper ads) and non-traditional (social
media) marketing channels using different promotional methods that
reinforce each other. Please read this article to understand this modern
marketing tactic.

Client Work

The Advertising department works with local businesses in forming a

professional relationship, and developing yearly marketing plans to achieve
business goals. Included in these plans are paid social media marketing,
event sponsorships, as well as handing out fliers. Occasionally the marketing
team will be enlisted to help draft social media posts, or work together in
securing sponsorship items for events. The Street Team will be in charge of
handing out client fliers, and will be paid for the client work.
 Spring 2017 Expectations

Social Media

a) Instagram
a. Draft a bi-weekly post to break up the continuous news content.
This should be a Michigan State, State News related post that is
modeled after the following categories:
i. Customer-centric photos: creating user generated content,
or engaging followers by posting photos that benefit them
ii. Employee-centric photos: enhancing the State News brand
by showing off staff personality and putting a face to the
corporation
iii. Contest photos: engage followers with contests to use hash
tags where they have the chance to win something
iv. Product-centric photos: Showing off the State News
products using the enhancing filters, clarity, and color
options Instagram offers
v. Click here to see examples of the above categories
b) Facebook
a. Draft three or four bi-weekly posts to break up news content.
Please read this article to get a better understanding of what
successful Facebook posts consist of and begin drafting.
c) Twitter
a. The State News Twitter account is used primarily to promote
individual articles, interspersed with paid for client tweets. Five
to six tweets a week to break up the pattern would be ideal, and
submitted the prior week for approval. These tweets can include
the following:
i. Upcoming event promotion
ii. Modern trends
iii. Funny jokes
iv. Twitter polls to engage followers
v. Please read this article that explains the statistics of
creating successful tweets
d) Snapchat
 a. The Snapchat account has room to grow, however for now it will
continue to be used primarily for broadcasting live events

Events

Each intern must select five events throughout the semester that the State
News may choose to pursue. These should include four smaller events, and
one large event with clear goals laid out. The proposed five events will be
presented to Advertising and Marketing manager as well as the Director of
Sales to begin forming a marketing calendar. All events must be at least one
month away, and the presentation should include:
a) Audience
b) State News goals
c) Measure of success
d) List of potential sponsors

Consult management to determine the date at which the presentations will

be due. In addition, one of the proposed events must have the goal of
increasing pick-up rates.

When receiving approval for events, the following steps should be taken to
see the event to the end:
a) Submit the event white paper that outlines the full details including
time, location, activities, and sponsors. This also includes the clear
goals and measures of success
b) Plan the event and organize all resources needed
c) Execute the event and be sure to live stream the activity on Snapchat,
and take several pictures to post on social media
d) Send out handwritten thank you notes to participating sponsors
e) Submit the event case study that audits the event, whether the goals
were met or not, and notes for improving the event