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School of Journalism and New Media
University of Mississippi

Posts Tagged ‘The Meridian Star’

IMC students use research skills to improve The Meridian Star’s marketing strategy

Posted on: November 12th, 2018 by ldrucker

As our capstone course for the integrated marketing degree program at Ole Miss, we are applying our skills of marketing and research to boost new objectives of The Meridian Star. We have analyzed the company needs and what the organization could do to grow its business.

The Meridian Star is positioned uniquely, and we intend to identify ways the organization can preserve this uniqueness. By understanding audiences and sharing ideas in class, we are gaining a more detailed understanding to help The Meridian Star realize these objectives for their daily business.

Ole Miss students (from left) Darby Frisbie, Kedrick Smith, Molly Chain and Hayley Day are simulating an integrated marketing communications agency, gaining real-world experience by developing a promotional plan for brand awareness and expanded services of The Meridian Star.

For our generation, the ways people get news and information is different from how they did in the past. We have come up with different ideas and strategies for making it easier for people in the Meridian area to access relevant information at their convenience.

We also want to figure out the type of information people want to read about and recommend how The Meridian Star can put more of that information out there. We also want to learn what kind of services might add value. We have provided surveys for residents and businesses to gain this information. By the end of this class, we hope to help The Meridian Star reach as many people as possible by using this information to develop effective marketing recommendations.

With closer research and proper surveying, we believe we will be able to accomplish the repositioning of The Meridian Star. We hope to gain insights that haven’t been brought to light such as: “What is preventing local residents from engaging with The Meridian Star?” and “What would make the publication and its services the most attractive to Meridians?”

We have assumed that the lack of visibility of staff in the Meridian community and the dated design and delivery of the paper are a few problems that have resulted in these issues. Luckily, we will be able to clearly see through our research if these hypotheses are actually contributing to the main issues of The Meridian Star. Once we identify the root problems, we can then recreate the brand image of The Meridian Star by taking the right steps toward a specific solution.

By Darby Frisbie, Kedrick Smith, Molly Chain and Hayley Day. They are students in the Integrated Marketing Communications program at the University of Mississippi School of Journalism and New Media. For more information on this project, contact Alexander Gould, publisher of The Meridian Star. This piece was originally published on the Mississippi Press Association website.

School of Journalism and New Media class partners with The Meridian Star

Posted on: September 24th, 2018 by ldrucker

The majority of us operating community newspapers have built our operations to support the area businesses that are the life blood of our community. We celebrate their successes and are concerned for their setbacks.

We are constantly having conversations with business owners and managers about the best and most efficient ways to market themselves. Who within our own operations is taking the time to think about how best we market ourselves? Or more importantly, who has time to ask and answer that question?

Alexander Gould (foreground) and the campaigns class at the School of Journalism and New Media. (University of Mississippi photo)

Many of us are not just operating a newspaper, we are operating a media company. Of course we have our print newspaper, but we also have a robust website, a total market coverage (TMC) paper, and in many cases, a magazine.

For many of us, we are expanding our media companies to include a suite of digital marketing services. When all our time and resources are focused on expanding our advertiser’s business, how do we move from physical newspaper to media company in our business community’s eyes?

I recently had the pleasure of traveling to Ole Miss to meet with Ann Day Becker and her campaigns class and pose that very question. Her campaigns class is the capstone course of the Meek School of Journalism and New Media’s Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) degree program.

The class has divided itself into several “ad agencies” and all of them have taken The Meridian Star on as a client. For the fall semester, Ms. Becker’s class will be focusing on developing marketing strategies for The Meridian Star, focused on the objective of improving how area businesses perceive us.

Since our question is applicable across the Mississippi Press Association, and arguably across the United States, we will be documenting the process throughout the semester. As we start this process, I don’t know if we will find the answer by the end of the semester, but I do feel confident in two things.

First, this group of young people will give us a fresh perspective we need. Second, by documenting our journey, it will lead to greater discussions and debates in more media company offices, which can be the catalyst to their future success.

This exercise is a collaboration of The Meridian Star, the School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi, and the MPA Education Foundation.

Alexander Gould, the author of this column, is publisher of The Meridian Star. His email address is agould@themeridianstar.com