Photo by Nicholas Ayers
Positively impacting the holistic wellbeing of the Liberty University community.
Liberty University dedicates a significant amount of resources into student life. As part of this initiative, Liberty offers nine Campus Recreation facilities and programs: LaHaye Recreation and Fitness Center, David’s Place, Montview Bowling Alley, Montview Game Room, Liberty Mountain Snowflex Centre, Hydaway Outdoor Center, Liberty Mountain Gun Club, Liberty Mountain Equestrian Center, and Intramural Sports. Across these facilities, Campus Rec hosts over 200 events each year.
Campus Recreation Marketing acts as an in-house agency for these facilities. As Associate Director of Marketing, I lead a team of photographers, videographers, and graphic designers. We provide the following services for our department: print promotion, social media management, video advertising, photo coverage, online paid ads, promotional tables, radio spots, custom signage, branded apparel and merchandise, uniforms, website management, and more.
Liberty Campus Recreation
Brand Positioning & Audience Insights
360 Marketing Strategy
OOH & Experiential Advertising
Social Media Campaigns
The Challenge
College students have limited time, money, and attention. Aside from rigorous academic schedules, Campus Recreation also competes with other departments and programs both on-campus and in the surrounding community. However, recreation is integral to the holistic wellbeing of the student body.
Our challenge is to fight through the noise of a college campus and convince students to participate at our facilities and programs. While this will sometimes mean stepping out of their comfort zones, sacrificing precious study time, or even spending their weekly Starbucks budgets on trips and competitions, our goal is to show students the value of recreation in their busy lives.
The Approach
Make Campus Recreation an organically integrated part of the Liberty University experience. We use strategically-placed print and screen advertisements in dining areas, student centers, dorm rooms, workout facilities, and other high-traffic locations on campus. We partner with the university’s official newspaper to advertise programming and utilize billboard ads on the main roads throughout town. Disruptive marketing also has a place in organic integration of our brand; promotional tables are a key part of our strategy. Students can grab a snack, get free promo items, and hear about our events on the way to their next class.
Social media is essential to our marketing strategy, but after a long day of classes, students are tired of being talked at. We focus on entertaining our audience and community building as much as possible. Paid social ads play a large part in boosting our programming, and email marketing allows us to selectively target specific groups within the university.
Event Promotion
These are just a few examples of the event posters we’ve produced. In the last year, my incredible designers created 136 unique sets of promotional materials for digital and print distribution. Each design gets reformatted for signage, apparel, stickers, and promo items, depending on the event needs.
Design by Olivia Martin
Design by Olivia Martin
Design by Will Kinyon
Design by Will Kinyon
Design by Victoria Erdmann
Design by Lottie Dorman
Design by Will Kinyon
Design by Will Kinyon
Design by Lottie Dorman
Design by Lottie Dorman
Campus Rec Magazine
The Campus Rec Magazine is a yearly marketing catalog published and produced by Liberty University.
As the managing editor of this magazine, I oversaw the design spreads, finalized the verbiage, and coordinated the print production. This is third publication I have managed.
Photography
My photographers capture dynamic photos of our events, as well as plan and execute promotional staged shoots. Last year, they completed a total of 98 photo projects for social media, university marketing campaigns, and print.
Social Media
Our promo Reel for a movie night featuring A Quiet Place: Day One in collaboration with Liberty University Student Activities.
While the university’s lake was under construction, we created a “Campus & Recreation” announcement to update the student body.
Our Glowlight Fitness promo is a great example of a standard promo. For our more niche events, these can be helpful to be literal instead of trendy.
“Street interviews” have been very successful in connecting with our student body. “What are You Listening To?” was a fan favorite!
Campus Rec socials focus on a blend of promotional posts, recaps (our students love cheering on their featured friends!), and entertainment. In my first year of managing our social strategy, we saw a 15.72% follower growth rate after two years of a <5% growth rate.
Short-form video reigns supreme among our audience, so we’ve put an emphasis on Instagram Reels. Last year, my videographers produced 65 video projects for Campus Rec.
Promotional Tables
Promo tables are crucial to collegiate marketing strategy. If you can disrupt their day with a snack, some stickers, and promo items, they will follow your Instagram, grab a flier, or whatever they need to do for those freebies. Campus Rec creates an experience for students by letting them make their own snack with a bit of recreation on our custom blender bike. We are known for having the best tables on campus, and students look for our promo table announcements on Instagram to track us down for our stickers.
Merch & Apparel
My design team creates custom merch and apparel for our events, promo tables, and Pro Shop. Last year, we produced 21 apparel items including shirts, hats, sweatshirts, and backpacks. Students’ favorite items of ours are our stickers, which we design for each of our facilities and programs. Merch and apparel has been a great way to spread brand awareness.
Results
By adopting a 360 marketing strategy throughout our university campus, we have established the Campus Recreation brand as a key component of the overall Liberty University brand. Through our digital and OOH media, participating in Liberty University has become synonymous with participating in Campus Recreation programs, facilities, and events. In our previous fiscal year, we saw a total of 1,004,633 users and surpassed our revenue goal at 108%.
Creative Director • Project Manager • Media Planner • Copywriter • Marketing Strategist