One College's Approach to Successfully Rolling Out New Student Services

Learn how one college successfully rolled out Pear Deck Tutor (formerly TutorMe) to provide 1:1 support for every student. In this featured customer story, we will go through the steps McHenry County College took to bring on-demand tutoring to their campus.

Launch meeting with stakeholders

To ensure everyone was on the same page, MCC held a launch meeting briefing all stakeholders—including the assistant vice president of student affairs and executive director of marketing and creative services—about key features of the Pear Deck Tutor platform and how they can benefit student learning.

All participants also received vital information about the details of the student adoption campaign. Meeting leaders were clear with participants about where they were going to share the Pear Deck Tutor news and what messaging they planned to share through each of those platforms.

After the team was brought up to speed, the focus shifted to campaign execution.

Update college website

The MCC team updated their college website to publicize critical information about their new online tutoring program.

The website content included an article announcing the program launch and updates to their learning center page. This specialized site is where students can request tutoring for themselves, or faculty can request services for a student.

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The following promotional material was developed to help drive traffic to the college website to maximize student awareness and program adoption.

Press release

The MCC team drafted a press release announcing the college’s partnership with Pear Deck Tutor to provide students with unlimited on-demand access to 24/7 online tutoring support.

In addition to summing up the key details of the online tutoring program, the press release also included insights from the school’s assistant vice president of student affairs and information about the support services available at the college’s Sage Learning Center.

Canvas announcement

To ensure that the largest swathe of students was made aware of Pear Deck Tutor, the MCC team posted an announcement on Canvas, the college’s learning management system (LMS).

The announcement post contained vital details about Pear Deck Tutor, including its 24/7 availability at no cost to students and those who may benefit from these support services. Lastly, the post linked to the MCC’s Sage Learning Center website to allow students to easily access Pear Deck Tutor.

Email announcement

No effective launch campaign would be complete without email communications—consider that email has a higher conversion rate than social media and search marketing.

The MCC team sent out an email announcing its new Pear Deck Tutor 24/7 online tutoring services to relevant student audiences, highlighting essential features of the platform and linking back to the college website.

Social media announcements

College students tend to be very active on social media, making these platforms ideal for marketing services to students.

With this in mind, the MCC crew capitalized on their social media presence and posted Pear Deck Tutor launch announcements on their Facebook and Twitter pages.  The posts included concise and compelling copy with links to the college’s website.

Promotional posters

MCC created promotional posters to target on-campus students and hung them in areas with heavy student traffic around the college, including libraries, hallways, and Student Services offices.

The promo posters communicated vital information about Pear Deck Tutor’s on-demand tutoring services and featured QR codes leading to the college website.

Create a campaign that works for your school

Whether you already have a campaign up and running or are just getting one started, you can draw inspiration from the above strategies to optimize your own launch initiatives.

You know the support needs of your students best, and with diligent research and collaboration from key team members, you’ll be on the right track to executing a successful Pear Deck Tutor launch campaign of your own.

Still need extra support? All colleges and universities who partner with Pear Deck Tutor get a dedicated Student Success Manager to collaborate with key stakeholders on building customized programs that help drive usage and adoption strategies.

If you're ready to partner with Pear Deck Tutor to help your students achieve academic success, contact us today!