Scope

The Austin Independent School District saw a significant decrease in student enrollment during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. When schools re-opened to in-person classes, campuses across the district reported that scores of students never returned. Austin ISD turned to Outreach Strategists to design and implement a major marketing campaign to win back families that had left the district for charter schools, private schools, or other options. The district also tasked Outreach Strategists with planning and facilitating a major gathering of representatives of all 116 schools to showcase their offering to families in person.

Role

Outreach Strategists began this campaign with a rapid research and analysis phase that focused on neighborhood school enrollment patterns and identifying reasons why families were choosing charter and private schools over Austin ISD campuses. Using these insights, Outreach Strategists developed a district Enrollment Guide with profiles highlighting each campus and its unique offerings. This guide, which is available in print and digitally, also features videos tailored to each campus and a photo library with curated pictures from all 116 campuses.

Outreach Strategists also devised a Marketing and Communications Plan that gave Austin ISD a detailed road map for reaching parents via paid and earned media.

Outcomes

Production of videos and photos began with the start of the new school year, and are on track to be completed in time for the district’s major recruiting effort later in the fall. When the Austin ISD Showcase event happens in October, each school will have its own brochure to show parents their unique offerings.

SCOPE
The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the world economy. In the Houston and Gulf Coast region, unemployment skyrocketed to nearly 14%. The Gulf Coast Workforce Board–Workforce Solutions is the public workforce development agency serving Houston, Harris County, and twelve surrounding counties that comprise the Gulf Coast workforce development region. It is the largest of 28 such regions in Texas. The organization provides job search services, training opportunities, and other available resources to help job seekers. Since 2016, Outreach Strategists has helped Workforce Solutions raise awareness and bring visibility across the local media ecosystem, including video, and earned media. Federal law prohibits using workforce development funding on traditional advertising; therefore, earned media coverage has become the de facto mechanism for promoting their services to the public.

ROLE
In order to reach the areas most affected, Outreach Strategists assisted The Gulf Coast Workforce Board – Workforce Solutions with a public relations strategy to inform the community about Workforce Solutions’ job search services, training opportunities, and other resources. Because of the TV’s broad reach, Outreach Strategists helped facilitate engagement with local television stations, including KHOU-TV Channel 11, Houston’s CBS affiliate, resulting in station management offering a weekly 30-minute time slot on co-owned KTBU-TV Channel 55 (Quest Network) at no cost to the agency. The result was a magazine-talk show hybrid format TV series called Your Career Your Choice – Powered by Workforce. A proof-of-concept pilot episode was produced in March 2021 and presented to KHOU-TV management in June 2021. The outlet picked up the program with an initial 13-episode order for the first season.

OBJECTIVES

Outreach Strategists assisted The Gulf Coast Workforce Board – Workforce Solutions the largest in Texas, with a public relations strategy to inform the community about Workforce Solutions’ job search services, training opportunities, and other resources.

Because of the TV’s broad reach, Outreach Strategists helped facilitate engagement with local television stations, including KHOU-TV Channel 11, Houston’s CBS affiliate, resulting in station management offering a weekly 30-minute time slot on co-owned KTBU-TV Channel 55 (Quest Network) at no cost to the agency. The result was a magazine-talk show hybrid format TV series called, “Your Career Your Choice – Powered by Workforce Solutions”.

The main objective for this project was to reach the people affected by increasing unemployment after the pandemic and help Houstonians find and keep better employment opportunities through Workforce Solutions’ services.