Eberhardt School of Business

October 2007

Dear Alumni & Friends,

What company uses this advertising slogan? So easy a caveman can do it. If you thought Geico Insurance, and I bet you did, then you don’t need to be convinced that marketing matters (See  Geico’s most popular TV ads). Marketing matters to us at the Eberhardt School, too. So this month I’m writing to tell you about the significant changes we’re making when it comes to marketing: our new web site, our new print materials, and our new strategic marketing committee.

New Web Site

When high school students research colleges, the first place they look is the college web site. But if the web design, the message, and degree information aren’t compelling, they won’t look any further. Said another way, if you only get one chance to form a first impression with a prospective student, then your web site needs to be good. To that end, after a year’s worth of planning, I’m delighted to announce that our new web site is up and running. Not only do we have a new, improved, professional look (see old site for a comparison), we also have a new navigational structure and new content. However, this is just a first step. To speed the transition to the new web design, we purposefully limited our changes, planning to make many more once the new site was up. You’ll see even more changes, especially with messaging and content, over the next few months.

New Print Materials

If students are still interested after researching your web site, the next step is to request or download what today can loosely be called “print materials.” Of course, anything put into print today is also turned into a PDF file on a web site. To that end, we are systematically rewriting and redesigning the print material that we use to market the Eberhardt School. For example, compare our new  MBA view book, to the  old one. In the near future, you’ll see even more redesigned “print materials” show up on our web site. Starting in November, you’ll see a brand new design for Strictly Business, our bi-annual magazine, as well as a series of Eberhardt-At-a-Glance information sheets that you can use to tell your family and friends about the exciting opportunities at the Eberhardt School.

New Strategic Marketing Advisory Board

We do a great job of teaching marketing to MBAs, undergraduates, and executives. Still, we realized that we could benefit from the feedback and advice of marketing professionals who promote, market, and advertise their firms’ goods and services on a daily basis. As a result, with the help of Celexsy Adame, who is the Eberhardt School’s Marketing Director, I am forming a new Strategic Marketing Advisory Board to advise and guide the Eberhardt School’s marketing efforts. So far, the current members of this Strategic Marketing Advisory Board are:

• Angela Brusa, Vice President, Marketing, Bank of Stockton, BUS ‘84
• Robyne Shirley Eldridge, Portfolio Brand Manager of Premium Wines, Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines, BUS ‘96
• Brian Lange, Director of Corporate Communications, Florsheim Homes
• Kelly Tallant-Martin, Marketing, CB Richard Ellis, and former Marketing Director of Sherwood and Weberstown Malls, BUS ‘97

Four is a great start for the Strategic Marketing Advisory Board, but we’d like to add more. Please contact me if you are interested or can recommend someone to serve on this board. Our plan is to meet face-to-face twice a year, with several more meetings facilitated by conference calls, teleconferencing, or meeting tools like WebEx or GoToMeeting.

Become Involved with the Eberhardt School

If you would like to speak to a class, interview students for internships or job opportunities, enquire about a corporate training opportunity in the Westgate Center for Management Development, or otherwise become more involved, please call me at 209.946.7710 or e-mail  Chuck Williams. We welcome you to the Eberhardt School of Business and hope to see you in Weber Hall this year.

Sincerely,
Chuck Williams