Jessica Bendzick/Winonan

Winona State University has been named a gold winner in the Education Digital Marketing Awards, sponsored by the Higher Education Marketing Report. This award came in the category “New Media Content: Prospective & Accepted Student Conversion.”

Winona State’s director of marketing Brett Ayers, along with the Winona State Marketing and Communications staff, created and submitted a series of electronic templates and messages addressed toward prospective and admitted Winona State students to guide them through the recruitment and enrollment process.

Vendi Advertising, an advertising and marketing agency out of La Crosse, Wis., helped with the development process.
Ayers said the templates and messages were designed and developed as part of the “Purple is the New You” recruitment marketing campaign. Other pieces of this campaign included admissions materials, such as view books and divisional guides, broadcast advertising, print advertising, billboards, and web and social media placement.

The Higher Education Marketing Report is a popular publication read by educational marketers. It has been the most widely read educational marketing journal for more than 28 years.

Each year, the Higher Education Marketing Report invites schools to enter in the Education Digital Marketing Awards. Awards are presented to the schools with the best educational websites, digital content, electronic communications, mobile media and social media.

There are 30 different categories to enter in, but only 14 are judged based on creativity, marketing execution, message impact, technology application and innovation content. All educational institutions are eligible to submit.

Ayers and Cristeen Custer, Winona State’s assistant vice president for marketing and communications, both stressed how important it is for Winona State to reach out to prospective students.

Custer said, “We continuously adapt our marketing efforts to find the best approaches for reaching prospective students. It is common for students to apply to several universities now. These electronic messages were created to continue the conversation with students who have already applied.”

She said these messages give students additional information and resources to gain insight on what it will be like to attend Winona State.

Ayers said, “We have been successful in developing effective and high quality pieces that represent the university authentically, while communicating with prospective students who have the potential to be successful at Winona State.”

This isn’t the first time Winona State has been named a gold winner. Ayers said this is the university’s second gold award from this organization. It has been fortunate enough to win several awards for marketing materials over the past few years.

The Marketing and Communications staff is already brainstorming what to submit next year.