BYU-Idaho's Marketing and Communication Team, commonly referred to as MarComm, provides services to strengthen messages coming from various offices and departments at BYU-Idaho that are delivered to students and off-campus audiences.
"The main mission is to provide marketing and communication guidance and approval of communication pieces," said MarComm Manager Arnold Thiebaud. "There are three main areas we focus on: increasing the consistency of the messages and brand implementation coming from the university, improving the quality of messages with a focus on online communication, and finding efficiencies in collaboration."
MarComm was created by President's Executive Group as a way for departments to come together, give feedback, share resources, and get approvals before promoting items off-campus. The MarComm Team is comprised of employees from various departments who specialize in marketing and communication.
"We review their plans and provide them feedback in order to help them produce something better," said Jason Reeder, the alumni marketing coordinator who also serves on the MarComm Team.
That collaboration, Thiebaud says, is helpful to anyone wanting to create any publicized communications.
"We're all trying to communicate to basically the same audiences, but if we can find better ways of doing that together, and letting our audiences know key information points and when they need to know them, then we can all be more successful with a stronger unified voice," Thiebaud said.
Without coordinating their messages through MarComm, Thiebaud says some marketing can be less effective or even counterproductive.
"I think a particular problem can be duplication of messages," Thiebaud said. "Sometimes very similar groups can be doing the very same thing at the same time, and sometimes they might be delivering slightly different messages to the same audience."
By working with other campus departments through MarComm, costs can be cut, messages are clearer, and marketing strategies are stronger.
"It's easy to come up with a marketing piece, but maybe there is something in the advertisment that conflicts with copyright laws or with university honor code. Maybe there is something that will affect another department but they haven't been notified yet," Thiebaud said. "The MarComm Team helps departments find and correct issues before these messages go out."
One of the missions of MarComm is to help messaging represent the distinct culture of BYU-Idaho.
"Because BYU-Idaho is affiliated with the Church, we have an obligation to have a distinct brand, something that we are proud of," said Jerrod Guddat, online community coordinator and member of the MarComm Team. "MarComm is the opportunity we have to make sure that all of our messaging is appropriate, exciting, engaging, and yet reflective of our culture here at BYU-Idaho."
Departments can contact MarComm and hire a student employee with specialized skills for a temporary amount of time. For example, a department needing help with their website can hire web developers, analysts, or graphic designers for as long as the project takes.