Jared Trudel: Integrating Positivity into your 2021 Marketing Campaign

2020 was a challenging year for almost all businesses. Most had to adapt their current marketing strategies to fit in with the current climate. There were a lot of unknowns as to what the future holds, and there still is. Keeping your team together and enticing customers with a positive attitude has been proven to be effective, especially in such dark times. 

Speaking to Jared Trudel, he provided a lot of insight into how he kept his department up and running smoothly. He focused on keeping morale high and spreading the message that we’re all in this together amongst his target audience. 

In this week’s Rediscover Marketing, we dug deeper into how you can integrate positivity into your marketing campaign to drive success. Jared provided us with a lot of crucial points that could help you. 

Who is Jared Trudel?

Jared Trudel is the former director of CRM and marketing at South Wesleyan University (SWU) and was working there for over seven years. He started out in admissions in 2013 and quickly moved into CRM (customer relationship management), which he described as the technical side of marketing. 

Jared mainly focused on digital marketing initiatives at SWU, especially since the pandemic hit. His main jobs at the university involved maintaining their website and handling advertisements, social media, their blog, and extensive email campaigns. 

Although Jared has since moved on to becoming the Creative Manager at Little Foxes Marketing, he was able to provide us with a great understanding of how he operated at SWU. 

Keeping a Positive Mindset

Jared described his team’s approach during the pandemic as effective since everyone was all hands on deck. This was shown through only a 3% drop in enrollment, which is virtually nothing compared to the toll other universities took. But how did he manage such a successful year? It can be put down to spreading positivity and togetherness through their marketing campaigns for both students and parents. 

There was a lot of negativity as the pandemic arose, and many people were jumping into the unknown. Instead of feeding on fear, Jared and his team created a ‘We Are Ready’ campaign. This consisted of a series of videos that kept all students and parents updated on all the happenings during the pandemic. Through this campaign, SWU kept the message extremely consistent by stating, ‘we are all in this together, and we can stay safe together.’

Another campaign avenue used that Jared was particularly proud of was a video called Moments. The idea behind it was parents watching their children grow up and pursuing their dream of going to college, alongside parents also following their own dreams. He believes this sort of positive campaign is more of what the world needs right now. 

Jared and his team wanted to be a helpful, genuine brand voice instead of selling a generic product or service. Presenting the idea on multiple platforms, such as social media, where they used hashtags like #WeAreSWU and #SWUPalmsUp, kept their message consistent. There’s no doubt that the personal affirmation that things will be okay and that SWU is here for you is what contributed to their success and low drop-out rates. 

Staying Successful in 2021

With Jared and SWU’s success throughout the pandemic, he shed light on how other businesses can do the same this coming year. Below are some tips he provided us to share with you: 

• Data Review:

The SWU team has got a pretty solid process of regular review that contributed to helping their success. They use different software for social media tracking and reporting, alongside project management software. Jared believes there are four areas to keep top of mind in data review and for maintaining your web presence. These are website maintenance, key mapping, ADA compliance, and SEO. 

• Clear Communication: 

Having clear communication when working as part of a team is incredibly important, and Jared stressed this. You’re not going to be successful and have operations run smoothly if there is no communication between teams and departments. Ensuring everyone is on the same page about expectations and goals will drive team efforts and provide an effective end result.

• Accommodating Staff:

A lot of staff in businesses have had to move from the office to remote working in the past year. This isn’t going to be successful if the company doesn’t provide any help and accommodations to ensure the move goes smoothly. Jared stated that whether your team is working on-site or at home, adjustments should be made to ensure everyone settles comfortably and can be on top of their game. 

Jared provided us with a lot of key information that can help any business, whether it’s for a university or not. Keep morale high and make customers feel safe. Often, your target audience isn’t going to want to see a negative message being spread. Sometimes it’s better to focus on feelings of nostalgia and happiness rather than people’s fears.

Ending the interview, Jared stressed that we need to hang in there because we’re all in this together. He also thinks we shouldn’t see each other as competitors in the marketing world but rather as partners against the common enemy.