UCB – Engineering Management Program Higher Ed Marketing & Advertising

University of Colorado Boulder’s Engineering Management Program seeks to partner with an agency to help create and execute marketing campaigns to increase awareness and enrollment for the program.

Program: EMP offers graduate and undergraduate programs. The program formats are flexible to meet student needs with programs at all levels offered both on campus and online. Courses are taught by faculty who are academic and industry leaders who bring real-world experience to the classroom. Programs Offered Graduate Programs: The graduate programs are designed specifically for people with technical backgrounds (STEM) who are working professionals. These students are looking to advance their careers into management and leadership positions. 

· Master of Engineering (ME) in Engineering Management

· Dual Degrees Description

· Graduate Certificates

· Industry Certifications

Agency Search: 

We are looking to partner with an agency to help create and execute marketing campaigns to increase awareness and enrollment for the graduate degree (ME) and certificate programs only. The successful bidder will coordinate project requirements, including campaign creation, delivery, messaging, design, placement, and management of marketing media and materials. The successful external bidder will be required to ensure all EMP marketing efforts and advertising projects stay aligned with the overall branding of CU Boulder.

Background:

Founded in 1893, the College of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Colorado Boulder is the second largest of seven schools and colleges at one of the nation’s top public research institutions. As Colorado’s flagship university, CU Boulder has selective admissions standards and a comprehensive array of undergraduate and graduate programs, including the Lockheed Martin Engineering Management Program (EMP). The Engineering Management Program, established in 1988, provides education for technical professionals who want to become leaders in their industry. Our mission is to prepare engineers, applied scientists and technical professionals for career advancement in leadership and management. From undergraduate to graduate-level work, our focus is to help students at all levels achieve their career objectives and succeed in technical and engineering fields The Engineering Management Program is flexible to best fit the changing needs of students, including working professionals, and offers programs for graduate, undergraduate and certificate-level students, both on campus and online.

Scope of Work:

The focus of this RFP is to increase awareness and number of prospective student leads, the quality of the leads, and ultimately program applications and admissions for the graduate degree and certificate programs. For academic year 2021-22, the admissions goal is to increase by 10% vs the prior year. Graduate degree program application deadlines are:

· Spring Term: Nov. 1

· Fall Term: April 15

Needs: The successful bidder will be responsible for developing comprehensive awareness/engagement campaigns. The primary target audience includes:

· New to mid-career professionals in engineering and technical fields and military officers

· Online and on-campus prospective students

· United States, with an emphasis on in-state, Colorado residents Term of Contact: The term of the contract resulting from award of this solicitation shall begin upon execution of the contract and end one (1) year later. 

Example campaign components (depending on final recommendations and agreements) may or may not include:

· Strategic Recommendation: Approach on how to best increase awareness and enrollment

· Recommended media spend to achieve this; allocation of budget across media/tactic.

· Paid Search/PPC 

· Paid Social 

· SEO 

· Digital Display/Retargeting

· Creative Development Costs (display, social ads, landing pages, etc.) EMP will provide raw images.

· Reporting 

· Development, set-up and back-end management of landing pages. Branding: EMP operates under the broader CU Boulder brand identity/standards and “Be Boulder” brand campaign. While the program does not need to create separate branding, the Bidder partner would work within the university branding to develop and create our own communication (messages, copy, imagery, video, content, etc.) to support the program needs specifically.

Marketing and Advertising Service Level Expectations: 

Overall 

· Commit to our business

· Thoroughly understand our brand/brand equity, strategic priorities, business objectives and audiences

· Assign experienced personnel to execute services with clearly defined roles. Key strategic, account, media, creative and interactive personnel assigned to our business must each have a minimum of five years’ advertising/marketing/communications experience. Any junior team members assigned to our account must be closely monitored by senior team.

· Ensure continuity of qualified staff on account

· Understand higher education institutions and their processes

Strategy 

· Deliver genuine insights regarding our diversity strategy

· Advise on improved positioning and diversity strategy

· Ensure strategy is met during creative development

Account management 

· Assign staff with expertise to handle business

· Build strong relationship with EMP team

· Keep teams on strategy

· Build good plans, deliver on time and on budget

· Anticipate needs 

· Able to mobilize vendor resources

· Sense of urgency and good follow-through

· Good communicators and presenters

· Bi-weekly status calls, reports or meetings will be expected with account team to include costs/media spend YTD/YTG, status of key projects, key KPIs, and any recommendations.

· Quarterly in-depth update/overview will be expected with account/strategy team to include costs/media spend YTD/YTG, status of key projects, key KPIs, and recommendations.

· Respond to the university in a timely and consistent manner within 24 hours of urgent inquiries (call or email) receipt, and within a reasonable timeframe to non-urgent inquiries, adhering to all timeline expectations and quality expectations as set out at the at the commencement of the contract.

Creative

· Understand and comply with university brand standards

· Translate strategy into original, compelling concepts and assets

· Excellent copywriting for all forms of media and across audiences

· Use research to inform recommendations

· Present ideas which can be achieved within our budget

· Open to constructive feedback

· Participate in meetings with university leadership as needed

Production 

· Negotiate good cost/value

· Provide competitive bids

· Prepare workable schedules

· Handle setbacks resourcefully

· Deliver agreed to creative concepts and assets on time

· Limit cost overruns

Budget and Financial

· Good budget control and cost-saving measures

· Timely, accurate and well-supported invoices

· Provide billing information as requested

· Proactively apprise client of any potential budget overages in advance of overage occurring

Due Date:

4/19/2021 3:00 PM MDT

Address:

Jennifer Casanova Jenny.Casanova@cu.edu

Hunter PR and Magrino PR are agencies worth considering.