By focusing on strong media pitches, the Oxford Smith School has started to build awareness for its business education programmes in the press.
Introduction
The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at the University of Oxford wanted to raise awareness of its MSc and Executive Education offering amongst key audiences.
The Smith School already had great media visibility for its research stories and experts. However, it realised that to target the right audiences for its MSc, it needed to target the business education and management press.
The Smith School engaged Roe Communications for an initial project. We helped to develop a PR strategy, introduce the school to a select number of influential journalists, develop media pitches and generate initial press coverage.
About The Smith School
The Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment was established in 2008. It is home to researchers from a multitude of disciplines. They share a common vision of “transforming economies and governance to ensure people and nature thrive together.”
The school’s 12-month MSc in Sustainability, Enterprise and the Environment (MSEE) addresses two challenges. It covers how to transition to a zero-carbon and environmentally sustainable economic model whilst simultaneously enabling sustainable development for everyone, poor and rich alike.
Meanwhile, the School’s Executive Education programmes are designed to empower leaders and organisations. They are designed to give people the skills, knowledge and networks to accelerate meaningful change informed by science and research. They include focused programmes on areas such as ESG and Finance, Law & Sustainability and Sustainable Cooling.
The School already had a successful media relations operation for its research and expert commentary. But this was the first time it had embarked upon a specific media relations campaign for its business education programmes.
Strategic thinking
The Smith School recognised the challenges of getting coverage in the business education and management press.
Journalists are extremely busy and receive hundreds of media pitches every week. These come from business schools and other competing organisations.
It was important to establish the school’s credibility and expertise, as it was something of an “unknown” amongst these journalists,
Roe Communications worked with the school to create a PR strategy that would provide a focus for the project. This was done via a workshop with key stakeholders including the Director, relevant faculty and the in-house communications team.
The PR Strategy:
- Clarified the specific objectives of the project
- Defined the key audiences the School wanted to reach – mainly prospective MSc students, CEOs, Chief Sustainability Officers, and other C-Suite roles and boards.
- Communicated the Smith School’s strengths in combining business and environmental expertise.
Tactical planning
Once everyone was clear on the strategy, Roe Communications and the School moved on to the tactical phase of the project.
This was done in two ways:
1) News angles
First, they identified the media and journalists relevant to the School’s target audiences and likely to carry their content and/or have specific opportunities.
The Roe Communications team interviewed chosen School spokespeople to identify and develop ideas with the strongest media potential.
Following this, the team created strong media pitches to cut through the noise and secure coverage and commissioned articles. Once placed, Roe Communications wrote or edited commentary or articles from spokespeople to make them suitable for publication.
2) Access to the media
Using their extensive media knowledge, Roe Communications pitched appropriately and sensitively to the press to lay the foundations for a positive relationship with the Smith School.
A range of tactics was used. They included targeting features (FT European Business Schools supplement), linking to the current news agenda (such as COP29) or selling in bylined article ideas (e.g., Developing Leaders Quarterly). This opened different opportunities for the team and enabled them to try different angles.
Results
Focusing on strategy and developing thoughtful, well-researched media pitches has made all the difference to the School’s visibility in business media.
In just two months, Roe Communications introduced the Smith School to eight influential journalists and secured six pieces of coverage.
This included a significant piece in the Financial Times – Business schools’ transatlantic divide over ESG, featuring quotes from the School’s Director, Professor Mette Morsing, which achieved 61.1k online views.
The School has laid strong foundations for its reputation in the business education space. Consequently, it is now keen to partner on a longer-term PR programme.
“Roe Communications kick-started our business education PR with a targeted campaign that was pitch-perfect for the audiences we wanted to reach. They also ensured they understood our strategic objectives and guided our academics through the process. We were very pleased with the results and look forward to expanding our work together.” – Tom Pilsworth, Media and PR Manager at the Oxford Smith School.