Student Veterans of America Campaign Proposal

7/24/2019 Student Veterans of America Campaign Proposal

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Student Veterans of APROPOSAL // LANDMARK PR // DECEMBE


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Opportunity and Approach


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Table of Contents


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Our company

Landmark PRLandmark PR is a full service agency located in Washington, D.C.

Started in 2015 by five University of Maryland graduates, LPR prides

itself on its attention to detail and individual approach to every client.

In the past, LPR has created campaigns for several local and national

organizations, and continues to expand its reach.

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6 /LANDMARK PR /PROPOSAL


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Strengths

o Positive national reputationo Extensive peer-to-peer network for veteranso Employees that hold firsthand experience and advocate for student veteran causeso Powerful corporate partners (Google, Microsoft, Prudential)o Legislation that aids the organizational missiono Diverse representation of veterans across nation

Opportunities

o Many campuses with room for student group development and expansiono High volume of student veterans in the Maryland state school system that can jump start the programo Prominent ROTC programs at universit ies and community collegeso Desire from student veterans to become more informed about resourceso Ability to change the veteran narrative

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SWOT Analysis



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Seconary Research

To begin our research, we first looked at SVAsonline communications platforms. We found that SVA isvery active on their social media accounts and uses thesemethods to encourage engagement with their publics.We looked through the website, clicking on different tabsand reviewing the material they posted. This gave us agood idea of who they are as an organization and whatinformation they have already shared. We researchedSVAs mission and their current and previous programs.It gave us a good overview of the entire organizationsgoal and a look at what SVA chapters at a variety ofuniversities and colleges are doing. We were thenable to relate their mission and programs to frame ourapproaches to the problems student veterans face whentransitioning to civilian life.

After looking at the website, we looked at thesocial media efforts of SVA. We first looked at theTwitter account and saw that they are very active ontheir accounts: retweeting students, starting hashtags,posting photos, and tweeting consistently and regularly.When looking at their Facebook page, we saw that theyhad roughly 14,300 likes and were very active with theirposts. We also briefly looked at their LinkedIn, Google+and Instagram. They are lacking followers on YouTube,Google+ and Instagram, but on LinkedIn they have a solidfollowing and are generally active on there.

To successfully address the right campaign to ourtarget audience, we conducted secondary research oncharacteristics of todays student veterans. Accordingto the Department of Veterans Affairs, student veteransor service members are racially and ethnically diverse,and compared with non-veteran/civilian students, theyare older, more likely to be male than female, and morelikely to represent the first generation in their families toattend a college or university (Kim & Cole, J. 2013). TheVA Campus Toolkit, created by the National Center forPTSD, also highlights some key findings addressing thecharacteristics of todays student veterans and amount ofthose who are benefited from GI Bills.

Our team also found that for a veteran, makingthe transition from military life to college life can beespecially difficult. Beyond the stresses of the classroom,veterans must cope with a host of other issues, fromanxiety disorders to simply feeling like they fit in. Tenissues affecting the men and women whove gone fromthe service to campus: Post-Military identity, makingevery day-life decision, stress/anxiety disorders, campusengagement, feeling safe, paying tuition, relating tonon-veteran students, boredom, and physical disability(Wiener-Bronner 2010).

A brief used data from the 2012 National Surveyof Student Engagement (NSSE), an annual survey ofstudents enrolled in four-year universities, to assess

how student veterans/service members perceive their

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Primary Research



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GOAL:

To create a favorable environmentfor veterans to succeed academically,financially and socially

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Publics

Primaryo Student veterans

o Family members who are benefiting from the GI Bil

Secondaryo Civilian campus community

o Teachers and administrators

Moderatingo Legislators

o Veteran agencies

Interveningo Traditional and social media

Our first primary public is student veterans. Through our research, we created three profiles of different kinds ofstudent veterans that could be identified based on their wants, needs and problems. These profiles are explained on

the following page. In addition to student veterans, our campaign focuses on family members who are benefiting fromthe GI Bill. Benefits that can be transferred to spouses and children include compensation, education and training, lifeinsurance, pension, vocational rehabilitation and employment. Educating and informing this public is very importantbecause knowing how to navigate the bill and its benefits is no longer an individual need, but one that affects families.

The secondary publics we identified are the non-military campus community and campus administrators. Thenon-military campus community is an important piece of our campaign because in our research we found that Isolatedand frustrated veterans felt a disconnect with their civilian peers, which can be attributed to a lack of awareness andeducation about student veterans. Additionally, the campus administration is a crucial part of student veterans timeat universities. Our research showed student veterans feel frustrated or misunderstood by faculty, and neglectedand overlooked by counselors and other personnel. By informing this public, we hope to change the environment forstudent veterans in the classroom, and to make returning to school a smoother, more comfortable change.

Our intervening publics, traditional and social media, are important because they will help carry the messagesof our campaign on to local and national sources. Together, the media coverage we receive as well as the mediawe produce on our campaign website will help our moderating publics, legislators and veteran agencies, to see thatveterans are not broken; instead, they are impactful members of campus communities.

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The Road Ahead


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Strategy 1: Tactics



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We will implement a 30-week nationwide bus tour in order to interact with a diverse range of student veterans.

During the tour, we will visit 15 campuses, spending 2 weeks at each campus. The campuses we visit will represent

the many types of schools veterans attend, including traditional universities, community colleges, and trade or

vocational schools. The bus tour will be run by 3 full time SVA staff members: One program director and two program

coordinators. These three staff members will travel cross-country on the bus.

In our research, we learned that across the nation, there are very low awareness rates about the lives of student

veterans. We hope that the bus tour will help us to garner national attention about the lives of student veterans as we

move across the country.

STRATEGY ONE:TACTIC ONE

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We will create accounts for The Road Ahead campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. These channels will

share similar content that is shared on the website, including the blogs, videos and photos.

We chose Facebook and Twitter because through our social media audit, we found that these channels are already

popular among veterans. We chose Instagram as a more visual tool to share photos and short videos about our

campaign activities.

STRATEGY ONE:TACTIC THREE

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Strategy 2: Tactics



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In the planning stages of the campaign, the SVA will release applications in orderto find at least one Student Veteran Ambassador per target campus. After beingchosen, the ambassadors will participate in online training sessions with SVAstaff and the other ambassadors. SVA staff will help the ambassadors to plan,market, and implement the campaign initiatives on their respective campuses.Each ambassador will help to bring a local focus to the national campaign.Ambassadors will earn a $500 stipend for their work.

In our research, we learned that 57 percent of veterans would apply for an on-campus job if their campus offered these jobs specifically to student veterans.The responsibility level and stipend associated with this position makes itcomparable to an on-campus job. In addition to offering these job-like benefitsto ambassadors, the position will help to strongly empower at least one studentveteran per campus.

STRATEGY TWO:TACTIC ONE // PUBLIC: CURRENT STUDENT VETERANS

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GI The Road Ahead will sponsor one Veteran Life Workshop at each target campus.This workshop will help veterans to come together to discuss the similarchallenges they face. At the beginning of the workshop, three group leaderswill stand up and describe their experiences as students. One group leader willrepresent the frustrated profile, one the isolated profile, and one the thrivingprofile. These profile titles will not specifically be announced, they will simply bedescribed. Veterans will be asked to form groups depending on which profile they

most identify with. During the group discussion, the veterans will be able to sharetheir concerns as well as any helpful tools or strategies they have found to dealwith their challenges. After the groups discuss, all workshop attendees will cometogether to share important points from their respective group.

In our research, we learned that most veterans are not interested in joiningclubs or organizations on campus. However, our research also showed thatmany veterans feel alone in their problems. This workshop idea stemmed fromthe veterans desires to unite with relatable peers without taking on the timecommitment of joining a club.

STRATEGY TWO:TACTIC THREE // PUBLIC: CURRENT STUDENT VETERANS

Veteran Life Workshops



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The Road Ahead will create GI Bill briefings that are relevant to each communitythat the bus tour targets. Prior to arriving on campus, the SVA staff and theschools ambassador will work together to identify the best GI Bill-relatedresources that the general community has to offer. In addition, the briefings willexplain the ways veterans can extend the bills benefits to family members. Thesebriefs will be made available on The Road Aheads website, and hard copy briefswill be available throughout the two-week visit so that student veterans can bring

them home to their family members.

One of the overall campaign priorities listed in the SVA briefing was to ensure thatthe families of veterans are informed consumers of the GI Bill, and we think thisbriefing method is an effective way to convey this information to family members.

STRATEGY TWO:TACTIC FIVE // PUBLIC: FAMILY MEMBERS WHO BENEFIT FROM THE GI BILL

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Strategy 3: Tactics



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The Road Ahead bus will function as a Student Veteran Gallery. When the busarrives on campus, the gallery will be opened up to any member of the campuscommunity who wants to learn more about student veterans. Prior to thecampaign, the SVA bus staff will develop the photos, videos and pieces of writingthat will be included in the gallery.

In our research, we found that in general, civilian members of campus

communities have very low awareness levels regarding veterans on theircampuses. For example, 91 percent of civilian students who we surveyed havenever heard of SVA, 64 percent are not aware of veterans on their campus, and80 percent rarely or never interact with veterans on campus. In addition, 53percent said they have heard of the GI Bill but dont have a good understanding ofit, while 28 percent have never heard of the bill. We hope the gallery will increasegeneral awareness about student veterans so that the campus community will bemore comfortable for them.

STRATEGY THREE:TACTIC ONE // PUBLIC: CIVILIAN MEMBERS OF THE CAMPUS COMMUNITY

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STRATEGY THREE TACTIC THREE // PUBLIC TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS STRAT


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The Road Ahead will sponsor one Teaching Student Veterans workshop oneach target campus. This workshop will allow teachers and administrators tocome together to learn about the challenges student veterans face and theopportunities their school has to offer to struggling veterans.

In our research, we learned that the majority of veterans feel that their teachersare very unresponsive to concerns related to finances, time and availability,

children, mental health, and other jobs or careers. Many teachers are simply noteducated or aware about the challenges veterans might face, and this workshopwill help administrators and teachers to come together to find solutions for theseproblems.

STRATEGY THREE:TACTIC THREE // PUBLIC: TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRATORS

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Campaign Timeline


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Sample Timeline

Sample Timeline: University of Maryland

-Planning

-July 2016

-UMD student veterans apply for ambassador position -August 2015 -SVA chooses ambassador -Ambassador participates in webinar and other online planning sessions

with SVA and other student ambassadors

-August/September 2015 -Ambassador markets the program on the UMD campus, assists SVA in securing event spaces, assists SVA in making connections with existing campus groups, etc. -Invitations sent for Bright Futures event

Implementation (Weeks of Sept. 12 and Sept. 19)

-See implementation timeline to the right

Evaluation

-Post-test survey released week of December 19


Budget


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Budget



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Evaluation


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PreparationThe last three months of the campaign will be the time when we reflect on our campaign and its outcomesand collect responses from our publics and participants for future reference. We will also determine if weaddressed the right problem as identified through our primary and secondary research. We will evaluate if ourcampaign elements including budget, staff, timing, messages, materials and channels were the best fit f or thecampaign.

ImplementationWe will evaluate how well we used our online communication resources such as blogs, videos, photoswebsites, social media and press releases to reach our target audience and to announce the nationwide bustour. A reliable way to measure the impact of the campaign is to monitor the amount of engagement on theRoad Ahead website and from followers social media accounts. This will give a quantitative measurement.

For a qualitative measurement, we will monitor what people are saying about us from the target campusesand look at posts people write on SVAs social media pages. We will also look at responses to and storiesfrom the local media channels. During this phase we will c ount our media placements to see if we achievedcoverage in 3 prominent media channels per week during the 8 month road trip, or whether we exceeded orfell short of projected objective. We will also look at the attendance of our events across campuses the busvisited and compare it to our objective of motivating administrators and traditional students to be more awareof student veterans.

ImpactOur team will evaluate if we achieved or exceeded the results that we established at the start. We will seeif the campaign met the objectives of encouraging student veterans to take full advantages of availableresources on campus and motivating administrators and civilian students to be more attentive to their studentveterans. A personal evaluation method would be to ask our participants and publics about how they heardabout SVA services on target campuses and to record their response. We will also be sending out the post-campaign survey questions to participants and followers.

Evaluation

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Sources


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Cate, C.A. (March, 2014). Million Records Project: Research from Student Veterans of America. StudentVeterans of America, Washington, DC.

Johnson, J. (November 2010). How can colleges help student veterans? Washington Post.

Johnson, J. (November 2010). Veterans Who Go Back to School Want More Support. Washington Post.

Kim Y. and Cole J. (December 2013). Student Veterans/Service Members Engagement in College andUniversity Life and Education. American Council on Education and National Survey of Student Engagement.

Queen, B., & Lewis, L. (February, 2014). Services and support programs for military service members andveterans at postsecondary institutions, 2012-2013. U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: NationalCenter for Education Statistics.

Radford, W.W. & Wun, J. (April, 2009). A profile of military Service Members and Veterans enrolled inpostsecondary education in 2007-2008. U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center forEducation Statistics.

Social Media & Public Relations Theories. (2010, June 14). Retrieved December 15, 2015, from http://simplyevolve.com/social-media-public-relations-theories/

Steele, J.L., Salcedo, N., & Coley, J. (November, 2010). Service members in school: Military VeteransExperiences using the Post 9/11 GI Bill and Pursuing Postsecondary Education. RAND Corporation and theAmerican Council on Education. .

Wiener-Bronner, D. (November 2010). 10 Issues Affecting Student Veterans. The Huffington Post.

Sources


Documents

Student Veterans of America Campaign Proposal