By Emily Brungard
On Thursday, March 30, our Chapter had the opportunity to hear from Andrea Farmer, APR, associate director of strategic initiatives at the NCAA. If inclement weather prevented you from attending, here’s what you missed:
Background
Andrea graduated from Ball State in 2005 with a degree in public relations. She was a member of PRSSA and Cardinal Communications, Ball State’s PRSSA-affiliated student-run agency. As a member of Ball State PRSSA, Andrea served as the Newsletter Chair. Before entering her professional career, Andrea worked at Borshoff as an intern, and was hired there after graduation. She worked at Borshoff for 10 years before moving to the NCAA.
Andrea continued with PRSA after graduation and has served as the PRSA Hoosier Chapter president. She is currently the Past President of the Hoosier Chapter.
At the NCAA
In her current position, Andrea is like an “in-house consultant, where all of the departments are her clients.” She also manages the work that outside agencies produce for the NCAA. She has worked as the associate director of strategic initiatives for about two years. In this strategic communications position, she works with others who manage member communications, employee communications and strategic outreach.
Andrea stressed the importance of employee relations, reminding Chapter members that their most important audience is almost always employees. She asked “who is the most important audience in every job? Your employees. You have to get them on the right page before anyone in the public hears an announcement.” The importance of working for a company that shares your values was emphasized as well. “If you don’t work for a company that has a mission, vision and principles, I’d encourage you to get another job,” she shared. In order to get the most out of a job, she encouraged students to figure out the “why” behind things, and make sure they relate to your company’s vision and mission.
The Importance of Research
NCAA’s marketing and communications branch is a data-driven operation. According to Andrea, “we do not make a decision without the research to back it up.” The NCAA uses tools like media analytics, web analytics, quantitative research like polls surveys, focus groups and readership surveys to gauge what’s working and what’s not.
During her talk, Andrea outlined the process that she goes through when developing strategic plans to address a problem. In her example, the problem that the NCAA experienced was the negative coverage of the NCAA, especially concerning whether or not student athletes should be paid. They addressed the problem by conducting a situation analysis, doing research and ultimately by planning how to fix the problems found through research. Her team conducted quantitative and qualitative research and identified their target audience of influencers within certain college campus communities. From there, they formulated their objectives, determined KPIs and created an implementation plan.
The NCAA’s plan to remedy their problem encouraged their audience to focus on their three pillars: academic, fairness and well-being of athletes. Their efforts included video and digital ads, search ads, social media ads, custom content (like this package with the New York Times), videos featuring student athletes, organic social media content, advocacy efforts and promotion of policy decisions.
In the end, Andrea stressed that success all goes back to having measurable objectives in order to gauge success. How do you know if you’re meeting them? By establishing a baseline before starting a campaign, and then conducting periodic surveys. Success can be incremental increases–it doesn’t have to be a huge increase all at once.
Andrea’s presentation offered a reminder about keeping up with trends. “Don’t do things just because they’re cool, or new, or trendy – you need to have something to back it up.” PR students and professionals alike should only make decisions based on what their research and data suggests.
Her Tips for Success
“PR is about creating relationships and changing perceptions at its very core.”
A skill she finds that many PR students are unable to talk about – how work they’ve done matters and how it affected the bottom line or what result happened. “That helps you explain why you have a job, why they should pay you.”
“It probably sounds like a bunch of wonky stuff when your professors are teaching you these skills, but I promise – they use it in the real world.”
“Just because your first or second job isn’t something you think you’re interested in doesn’t mean you won’t enjoy your work. One of my favorite projects was on infrastructure and road projects.”
Don’t divide your team into silos–an integrated approach to communications is critical.
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