Client

Twin Cities Academy

Matching a school’s brand to its spirit

Overview

Twin Cities Academy (TCA) is a Charter School made up of a community of 300 families in the St. Paul and Maplewood area. It was originally formed to offer a college-preparatory school experience for St. Paul students, with a particular focus on attracting a diverse student body focusing on high academic achievement and serving the community at large through volunteering and service-learning.

The superintendent, Betsy, asked Risdall to help her team develop succinct messaging to properly convey the purpose and value of the school with the ultimate goal to increase attendance for the upcoming school year.

Risdall’s process was remarkable in recognizing our strengths and figuring out how to get the word out. They were able to inspire the emotion needed to make families want to join our school.

Approach

Risdall conducted in-person workshops with a small team from TCA to gather insights, to develop a Customer Avatar and the associated Customer Value Journey. We also worked closely with TCA to conduct a parent survey to validate our workshop findings and capture additional insights. We then conducted internal analysis of their printed and digital materials and developed a roadmap/recommendation to properly bring the brand to life.

Solution

It was clear from the beginning that the messaging strategy needed to be simplified. The school really cares for its students and outperforms on nearly every measure of success. However, it was not taking credit for the great work it was doing. Furthermore, the website content, design and overall experience was clunky. Risdall worked quickly to:

Align its brand to its Customer Avatar through logo design, tagline creation, positioning and messaging
Carry the new brand to key pages on the website
Optimize the website for the mobile user
Create recruiting materials (presentation, brochure)
Plan, create and launch ad campaigns
Plan and launch a connection strategy to reach prospective families

Results

With Risdall’s guidance in just four months, TCA has already seen a 100% increase in student applications for the 22-23 school year!

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