Beyond the Coffee Table

In previous insights we covered mission, audience, editorial plan, and visual brand—the foundation for creating custom storytelling. Making sure those stories reach your readers is the next step. The unique aspect of alumni communications is that your audience is diverse in how they engage. To meet them where they are, your magazine must consider the full ecosystem of digital, social, and print.

Here's how to think of each.

Get Personal

Email continues to be a medium that reaches alumni of all ages. 67% of higher education institutions have adopted email marketing automation tools, yet only 40% use them to their full potential, missing opportunities for automated follow-ups, segmentation, and dynamic content (Higher Logic Email Automation Trends Study, 2024). Because of this, it is an excellent way to deliver stand alone content along with promoting stories in print and digital. Since we all get dozens of emails a day, it has to be something that people want to read. I subscribe to a monthly e-newsletter from an artist I admire. I always read it because I want to gain insights from her. Schools are rife with stories about thought leadership and human interest.

Some tips to consider when expanding your strategy:

• Take advantage of segmentation to deliver personalized content. Trying to appease everyone in a defined page count is the biggest challenge for print. Segmentation and feedback is the strength of this medium.
• Develop a story plan just for your e-newsletter: Features, news, lifestyle bits, a standing column that is unique to your school.
• Publish an alumni-only edition.

Holly Neumann, editor of UTampa Journal notes, “The newsletter tends to prompt more interaction with readers than the magazine alone does. I enjoy corresponding with people, and the newsletter invites that. I think once people learn who is behind the scenes—and it’s a real person—they are more apt to reach out and share their stories.”

Foster Community

Social media should be part of the content strategy. There are two main approaches: 1) Stand alone magazine channel, or 2) Align with another channel, either the alumni or main institution. The former allows the magazine producers more control of what to share and when. With algorithms that require consistent interaction in order for your content to be prioritized in the feed, it is getting harder for content to surface if your alumni are not engaged on a regular basis. This can mean a lot of output for little input. The latter allows for content to be seen by a larger audience. It also means the magazine needs to be part of the broader social media strategy and calls for cross-campus collaboration. 

When creating stories for either strategy we recommend:

• Having a branded look, including headline styling and image treatment
• Consider prompts that are unique to your school to take advantage of the conversational capabilities and increase alumni engagement
• Use the platform to announce the latest issue or content on the online edition

Create a Digital Footprint

A robust digital presence for storytelling is crucial for schools, especially with budget cuts impacting institutions once again in 2025. Many currently lack a well-developed digital strategy in this area. The important thing is to focus on the story, audience, and resources—how much is the school willing to invest in digital, and how much time does your team have to produce it? Fortunately, there are options: Standalone website on a platform like WordPress, customization of the institution’s CMS, or a third-party out-of-the-box solution. We have clients who utilize all of these (they all have their pros and cons). Whichever solution you chose, there are constants to consider for all:

• A publishing schedule: How frequently will you publish?
• Alignment: How does the magazine site align with other content that the community receives?
• High-quality imagery: Every story needs to have an intriguing visual.
• Promotion: Most people don’t go to their alumni magazine website daily. How will you drive readers to the site? (Hint: Email, social media, and print)

Beyond the Written Word

Video is a key element for digital storytelling. Some statistics to highlight why: Emails that include video content can increase click-through rates by up to 65 percent (Wistia Video Marketing Impact Study, 2023), 80 percent of U.S. adults use YouTube (Pew Research Center Social Media Use Report, 2024), and in 2024, U.S. adults recorded approximately 52 minutes of daily engagement and social media (Statista June 2025). Where can you expand a story to include video? Can an interview be recorded? A behind-the-scenes video be captured?

And then there are podcasts. According to Podcast Statistics there are over 4.52 million podcasts worldwide and in the U.S. alone around 158 million people listen to podcasts every month. Clearly the market is saturated, yet it is still an excellent medium to expand the voice of your alumni communications. If you are considering launching a podcast, read “So You Want to Build a Podcast.” 

Elevate the Experience

Print is not dead, but it continues to increase in expense to produce and is consistently vulnerable to budget cuts because of that expense and lack of measurable ROI. Cutting it entirely is a mistake. But publishing it like it is the only medium is also a mistake. 

With all of the previous channels noted, there is an opportunity to re-envision the print magazine to engage more deeply by taking advantage of the qualities of print and the experience it brings. 

• Drop the news bits, calendar updates, and accolades and instead focus on storytelling. 
• Vary article types, direct beautiful photography and illustration. 
• Consider the format and page count to save money. You do not have to have an oversized 64-page magazine to make an impact.

At the end of the day, print is a trusted medium that arrives in people’s mailboxes. While 53 percent of alumni organizations have shifted to predominantly digital engagement programs, yet only 32 percent of alumni report feeling “highly engaged” with their alma mater's digital content. (Inside Higher Ed Digital Engagement Report, 2024)

As Editor in Chief and Media Relations Director at Williams College, Amy Lovett notes, “In a time when we can’t trust digital communications, print is a medium people can trust and rely on for accurate information.”

Publishing a magazine has to move beyond thinking of the magazine as a printed object, if the magazine is going to survive. Think of it as brand storytelling. The stories are the centerpiece and how you serve the audience is the strategy.