The challenge
Promote YT wanted to reflect the growth in scale of Scotland’s youth theatre sector, to better represent their membership and communicate more clearly what they do. I managed the implementation of their company name and identity change from Promote YT to Youth Theatre Arts Scotland, the development organisation for youth theatre arts in Scotland.
The work
I created copy to communicate the change to specific segments using email, Facebook and Twitter. I also managed the production of new online collateral: a website re-skin and content update, social media profile photo and wallpaper, and email templates. I wrote email newsletter articles for the CEO and commissioned additional articles for the emails. To raise the profile of the name change, I drafted and distributed a press release and handled media and other enquiries.
The strategy was achieved by:
- Planning the communications of the name change to specific segments
- Informing key stakeholder groups of the change in advance, addressing concerns and building comments into future plans
- Finalising brand guidelines
- Communicating the name change to membership (email newsletters, Facebook and Twitter campaigns)
- Ghost writing email newsletter articles for the CEO and commissioning ‘Conceiving the name’ articles
- Producing new online collateral: website re-skin, content update, social media profile , photo, wallpaper and content update, and an email newsletter template
- Printing collateral production
- Managing social media URL and naming changes
- Managing website and email address changeovers and redirects with IT companies
- Writing a press release about the change and the appointment of a new patron, Outlander star Sam Heughan, and managing distribution and press liaison
- Addressing search engine optimisation of the new website: page titles, meta headings, keywords, XML sitemap generation and submission
- Writing and scheduling tweets and website pop-ups for three months post-launch
The results
Since the Youth Theatre Arts Scotland launch, email newsletter clicks are up from 15% to 21% and unique website visits are up by 57%. Press coverage was received in the Edinburgh Reporter, the email open rate went up from 31% to 42% and a survey of members revealed that 74% had seen the new logo. More than 60% agreed that the new name and identity gave a ‘professional’ and ‘dynamic’ impression: key elements of the new brand personality.