Happy Monday Reader, get ready to hear from Devin Purgason, associate vice president for student experience, marketing and outreach at Forsyth Technical Community College. The American Marketing Association named Devin the Emerging Marketer of the Year in Higher Education in 2024.
Q: How are you measuring the impact of your storytelling efforts, even if it’s not perfect?
Imperfectly, and I think anyone who tells you otherwise is measuring something easier than impact.
The metrics I trust most are behavioral:
- Did someone fill out a form after reading a student story?
- Did a workforce board partner share our content without us asking?
- Did a prospective student mention something specific from our website when they called?
Those signals aren’t tidy, but they’re real.
Likes, impressions, and reach are fine for tracking distribution. They tell you nothing about whether the story landed where it needed to.
What I love about this answer:
Devin’s delineation between distribution and impact are so important. It’s great to say that tens of thousands of people saw your social post, but if it didn’t lead them to do anything, is there really much impact?
No opt-in form signups?
No applications started?
Now, to be fair, of course there’s value in brand awareness — that’s why I appreciate Devin’s honesty that his measuring approach isn’t perfect.
I think there are two types of impact that we’re talking about. Brand awareness and top-of-mind recognition is one form of impact, and that’s what can help justify almost any content you create.
Then there’s what Devin talks about — what I consider premium impact.
That’s the impact that moves your audience to take action.
I always appreciate when partners I work with are excited about what we created together. But when one program director told me that multiple students applied to their program because they read one of my stories, that’s when I knew we created something with premium impact.
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How do you make sure you stay true to your storytelling ideals when you take a new job? I’d love to hear what you think.
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