We're going Google!: making the most of marketing

In the 2011-2012 academic year, Lewis & Clark College migrated its email system to Google Apps for Education. To support this project, a Marketing and Branding Committee planned how to best keep our community informed and updated before and during the migration period. This project brought new opportunities to forge relationships with our users over the short and long term, as they relied heavily on the IT department for support during the transition. Integrating our marketing with our existing services improved attendance in our training and information sessions, and provided a key point of contact with our users in both providing project updates and receiving feedback. This paper explores the challenges of marketing and branding our campus email migration to Google Apps for Education, which included publicizing large-scale changes, reaching traditionally non-responsive groups such as students and adjunct faculty, and coordinating marketing on multiple campuses. Benefits that come with a strong, integrated marketing campaign will be addressed as well, which include leveraging the increased face time to build and maintain a social media presence and using the excitement of new products and services to bolster existing services and programs.