Once you have your brand and your vision statement in place, your Career Academy network will then need to continue the process of extending your brand and your mission out into the community in order to increase awareness and exposure. In this way, you can attract more students and parents to the Career Academy concept, you can engage more educators and administrators, you can recruit more business partners, you can impact local policymaking and you can reach a larger public through savvy use of the media. (Please refer to the Media Relations section of the Communications Toolkit for more information on working with the media).
In order to get all your key stakeholders on the same page, it is important to adopt messaging that makes sense for various audiences. You can develop a Message Matrix that shows the suggested messages for some of your most important constituencies. Messaging should be clear, compelling, and consistent—over time, your Career Academy network brand will become associated with these messages, creating an impression of the brand in the mind of its audiences.
One of the most important things you can do as a Career Academy network is to develop a targeted Communications Plan. St. Johns County (Florida) partnered with A3 Creative Group to develop its Communications Plan which helps in guiding its marketing, communications and outreach initiatives.
St. Johns County Communications Plan
Downloads/Links:
Sample Message Matrix
Sample Key Messages Document From St. Johns County
NGL Business-to-Business Orientation Presentation
Business-to-Business Letter
Business one-pager (The ROI of Career Academies) – CUSTOMIZABLE DOCUMENT