“So You Want to Go to Art School” Portfolio Guide
// California College of the Arts
CCA’s Undergraduate Admissions team needed a compelling leave-behind for their college fairs, on-site visits at local high schools that would position the brand positively with prospective students (and their primary influencers) while encouraging them to learn more about what the school has to offer.
Role
As the lead strategist on this project, I collaborated with stakeholders in Undergraduate Admissions and an in-house designer and copyeditor to develop and write a quirky, zine-inspired pocket-sized portfolio guide packed with helpful advice for students interested in improving their art portfolios before they apply to colleges.
Strategy
Falling early in the Awareness stage of the customer journey for undergraduate applicants, the piece was only lightly branded with CCA’s logo, instead focusing on providing the most engaging and informative content possible in order to develop trust, authority, and affinity.
After successfully pitching the client on the concept, I began by interviewing Admissions stakeholders who most regularly engaged with the target audience to determine the questions they encountered frequently and the advice they gave to prospective students most often. I then conducted a competitor audit to learn what types of guides students might already have been exposed to and developed an outline for a piece that would deliver more value and better resonate with the target audience.
After my final copy was approved, I played a key role in the creative strategy, working closely with our in-house designer to develop a piece that could stand on its own, but also felt at home within the school’s brand guidelines.
Outcome
Project was delivered on time and on budget. The guide was a huge hit with Admissions Counselors, who loved that its design was lightweight and compact, making it much easier for them to tuck into their bags on a flight and convenient for students to drop in their pockets or bags at a busy event. The piece was so well received that I decided to make it available as a Premium Content Offer for our Undergraduate Inbound Marketing campaign, where it generated nearly 1,000 leads in its first year alone.