2019 Timeline 2019 Timeline: All marketing should be timed with events and their lifestyle

Mission Statement

To provide a sage, supportive, and welcoming community of first-year students living locally; living at home, flatting, and boarding.

Developing a sense of belonging for Dunedin Locals Students to their local university.

Topics

  1. Future Students (Year 13, anyone who hasn’t got to university yet)

    • Dunedin Locals
      • Flatting/boarding
      • Living at Home
    • Wider Otago
    • Everyone else
      • International Students
      • OIPHEN to facilitate students joining locals
      • Need to make sure international office knows the criteria for being part of locals – first year of a degree taking first year papers at Otago

  2. Current Students (First year at Otago

    • Registered
      • Have filled out the locals registration form
      • We could make the form much simpler to encourage people to register – We just need Full name and student ID, Stephen can get the rest of the information from e-vision
    • Not Registered

  3. University staff and wider Dunedin community

    • We didn’t focus on this at this meeting

  4. Digital Media

Future Students – Communication methods

  • We need to be using our public Facebook page better
    • Boosting posts
    • University of Otago Facebook page and Instagram
  • Locals could be advertised on these at times where they have high traffic such as leading up to Orientation week.
  • All students have access to the locals website, as long as they know it exists
    • Need to evaluate website content

Dunedin Locals

  • Schools liaison visits – Locals representative to go to the initial visits
  • Departmental outreach (we need to make sure they know about locals and are letting potential students know)
    • Individual departments going out to schools
    • Science Wananga
    • OUSSA
  • Hands on at Otago
    • Attend the big night in (Greg to push)
  • Tertiary open day
    • Stall/booth
  • Information evenings
    • Schools liaison information evening
    • Maya speaks at this as well as a first year representative
  • Student for a Day (SFAD)
    • We need to rejig the model so there is less choice
    • The current model is very personalised which is great but this will not work if numbers continue to increase at the same rate

Wider Otago

  • Schools liaison visit these schools – they advertise locals
  • Departmental outreach (we need to make sure they know about locals and are letting potential students know)
    • Department Individual departments going out to schools
    • Science Wananga
    • OUSSA
  • Hands on at Otago
    • Attend the big night in (Greg to push)
  • Tertiary open day
    • Stall/booth
  • Information evenings
  • Student for a day

Everyone Else (Rest of NZ)

  • Hands on at Otago
  • Schools liaison
    • The other schools liaison officers do know about locals and present it as an option to year 13s
  • Schools liaison can also post on their Facebook page – University of Otago for School Students
  • Information evenings
    • Locals is mentioned at the information evenings across the country
  • These year 13s can also attend Student for a Day if they wish to
    • Do need to get to Dunedin themselves and organise their own accommodation
  • These students receive the University of Otago Welcome pack with an Academic Orientation Booklet and a Locals Postcard

International Students

  • Will be referred by the international office
  • Will see the website

Locals Ambassador

  • Nominated year 13 locals representative
  • Would filter information about locals to their peers instead of it all coming from us.
  • There needs to be an incentive for these year 13 students to participate
    • What’s in it for them? How do we keep their interest?
    • Make them feel special
    • We would introduce them to influential people across the University, take them to every department, and do an in-depth course advice session.
    • Make them a University of Otago expert – careers advisors would need to be on board so they didn’t feel like this student had more information than them.
    • We would need the right kind of student that would enjoy this and then share the information with their peers
  • We could just have a couple meetings with them to get ideas of what they want
  • Create a Facebook group as a place of discussion
  • Who would select the students?
    • School nominates?
    • Self-nominated?
    • A combination of the two
  • For 2019 start by having a year 13 focus group to understand what they want from the locals

Current Students

Registered Students

  • Weekly Newsletter
    • Currently goes to the email they have used on the registration form – when we simplify the registration form to just be Full name and Student ID number it will go to their student email
    • Contact Kirsty Lewis for when University Student email instead of personal email
    • There is a period of time at the start of each year leading up to o-week where students check their student mail if we get the first email to them over this time (the o-week themed newsletter) then encourage them to forward to an email that they check engagement should be similar.
  • We can measure if this is working by comparing the newsletter opening data from previous years
  • Facebook group (closed)
    • Students can only access this if they are registered
    • We check before approving them into the group
  • Access to the room
    • They have to sign and form and be registered before gaining access to the room.
    • Do we want the room to be swipe card access??? We could get it turned off?
  • Use the room swipe card access data to assess when students are disengaging
    • Target disengaged students with emails
  • The door data needs to be individualised so we can identify trends in individual people
  • We have this event coming up and thought you might want to come along
  • Are you doing okay? Is there anything we can do to help?
  • Analyse this year’s data to see if there is a trend of students not accessing HQ after the first few weeks to see if this approach would work

Not registered

  • ~300 students completely disengaged – not in a college and not registered for locals – these students may not know about us, or may not think it’s for them
  • These students could be flatters who have moved from other parts of New Zealand
  • Campus watch post card drop
    • Could we make something that is more targeted towards flatters
    • Are you a first year student?? This is what locals provides for flatters
  • Warm place to study
    • Talk to the design team about designing this postcard.
  • We can generate a list of non-registered students by comparing the registered student database to the list of all students with non-college addresses
    • Then we can target with specific emails throughout the year and specific events
    • If you have already heard of locals and decided it’s not for you, you can unsubscribe here. You can still contact us anytime you need help.

University Staff and Dunedin Community

  • Newsletter for all departments to raise university wide awareness of the locals programme

    • One page this is what we did last year, if you know any students who could benefit from being part of the locals community send them our way

    • Come and meet Maya and see Locals HQ anytime – you can email me on maya.turner@otago.ac.nz

    • If you have any first year lectures please include our slide at the start of your lecture

Digital Media

Locals Website

  • This content needs to be reviewed
  • Link to information for parents
    • Restate that your child won’t be left behind – we will be there to support them
  • Group photo of all the leaders and coordinators with an explanation of what they do

Otago University Locals Facebook Page

  • Have information for parents on here – information that supports parents letting go
  • Share the big events – o-week, the ball etc.
  • Use this to increase awareness of the locals programme
  • Need to encourage as many people as possible to attend the VCs welcome to University for Locals students and parents on Sunday the 10th of February

Ideas for Print and Digital media for 2019

  • Posters around uni on notice boards (design team)
  • On TVs around campus
    • We are on the tvs in the union, what about St David and other locations?
    • Who controls the content on these?
  • Chalk trail through campus
    • Footsteps showing the way to Locals HQ
  • It would be really effective if these could carry on inside
    • Would need to make a stencil and get the right paint
    • Property Services to approve???
    • Could write on the glass panels up the stairs with chalk pens
  • An ad in critic?
  • Something big, highly visible, and interactive on union lawn during oweek
  • Otago guides and the Are you lost? Volunteers knowing about locals, maybe having locals postcards
    • Ask students if they are eligible for locals, do they know about us
  • Pairs of leaders in t-shirts walking around campus with candy and postcards