Strategic Research Methods
During the spring of my junior year, I took a course title “Strategic Communications Methods.” Over the course of the semester, I conducted primary and secondary research for Elon University’s School of Communications. During a time of the enrollment cliff, the School of Communications is currently facing an enrollment decline. Thus, my research focused on the wants and needs of students interested in the field of communications in efforts to instill these practices within Elon Univeristy’s School of Communications.
The steps towards conducting research.
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To gain understanding about why we were conducting research for the School of Communications, I conducted a brand audit that can be found here.
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Next, I conducted an analysis of internal and external factors that may impact the School of Communications and the enrollment decrease. My PESTLE analysis focused on Technological factors while my competitor analysis focused on Wake Forest Univeristy
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Next, I co-conducted a co-creation workshop to identify a persona, or the ideal audience member, for the School of Communications. The report from this workshop can be found here. From there, I created this persona’s journey map to grasp a better understanding of what our audience does and why they do it.
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Finally, I conducted a survey through Qualtrics to gain primary data on what college students want and need out of a university. The analysis of my data can be found here.