Direct Mailer Reflection Final Draft

Over the past three weeks, I have been designing direct mailers for my PR publications class. The assignment called for us to act as if we were designing these materials for OU prospective student services. We were instructed to determine two target publics for our mailers and to tailor our designs and messages to them.

For my first mailer, I targeted high school students from southeastern Oklahoma, which is where I am from, so it is a group near and dear to me. I also understand the issues that students from this area of the state face when trying to make a decision about coming to college, so I felt like I had a good grasp on the message I should send to these students. My experience with an on-campus group who works with students from this region to encourage and assist them in coming to OU also influenced my decision.

For the design, I included a picture of students on the front and “this could be you” because students in this region do not typically see themselves fitting in at a large university as many of them come from schools where the graduating class is the smaller than the average lecture hall here. The goal of the design is to make them know that they are wanted and welcome at OU. From personal experience, it meant a lot to me to receive correspondence from people here who seemed genuinely interested in helping me make OU a reality. For the back of the mailer I included information about being in contact with the on-campus organization that I am a part of and the importance of talking to the recruiter throughout the process, as those are two huge resources for students who may have questions about applying, housing, financial aid, etc.

 

For my second mailer, I targeted high school counselors who work with the students I targeted with the first mailer. For students in this area, the counselor may be the only source of information they have about college and the process of applying for scholarships, housing, etc. As a result, it is very important for these counselors to be well-informed of deadlines and events happening that could benefit potential students. It is also important for these counselors to be in contact with the recruiter for that region for any questions that he or she may not be able to answer.

For this design, I tried to make it a little more simple and more professional since it was going to an older audience who I was not exactly trying to sell the school to. I included information about deadlines and being in contact with recruiters so that counselors have the information in one place to consult it.

 

 

Reflecting on the design process, I am realizing that I think I like Photoshop better. I like being able to work with one layer at a time and the simplicity of the tools. I still don’t feel like a pro, but I feel like my Photoshop skills got a lot better over the past three weeks because of the time I spent working on this project.