Catholic Education South Australia
Annual Report 2022

Marketing & Communications

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Marketing and Communications

Throughout the year, the Communications and Marketing team provided significant support to Catholic Education South Australia across a number of strategic areas including:

  • Critical Incident Response Team
    Communications management during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic included extensive communications and media liaison during the start of the 2022 school year. The team shared COVID-19 alerts via the CESA website and social media, and promoted the various COVID management strategies that were in place.
     
  • Towards 2027: Expanding Horizons and Deepening Practices Strategy
    Resources and videos were prepared for the launch of Catholic Education South Australia’s new strategy and support in planning and facilitating the live-streamed launch event.
     
  • Political Strategy Group
    strategic support for CESA’s political engagement was provided through the production of various fact sheets, backgrounders and social media in the lead up to the 2022 state election.
     
  • Media Relations
    The team continued to strengthen our media engagement gaining significant media coverage on a range of topics including:
    • opening of new schools at Renmark and Davoren Park and expanded R-9 provision in a number of regional schools
    • inaugural Catholic Education SA Awards
    • fee freezes
    • Catholic Education SA’s 50,000th student.
       
  • Mid Year Reception Intake
    Digital and other promotions were prepared featuring the free mid-year intake for Reception students across diocesan schools.
     
  • Catholic School Parents SA
    Work to grow and support the establishment of this new parent body included the development and launch of a dedicated website and parent charter and also the promotion of parent events.
     
  • Brand Research
    Leading research firm, Square Holes, was engaged to conduct our third benchmarking study in late 2022 to monitor perceptions of the Catholic Education SA brand among the South Australian community.
     
  • Internal Communications
    The team assisted with the design and launch of the new CESA Intranet for Catholic Education SA staff.

Promoting our schools

In addition to the strategic work to promote and support the system, the team worked with individual schools and regions to raise the profile of Catholic schooling.

  • Enhancing Schools Project
    Through the Enhancing Schools Project team, a number of schools were identified as needing critical attention with marketing strategy. These schools were provided with strategic marketing support to strengthen brand, profile and enrolment.
     
  • Pregnancy, Babies and Children’s Expo
    Catholic Education SA again had a stand at the Expo at the Adelaide Showground, Wayville. This is a key event in CESA's annual marketing calendar which gives us targeted access to over 8,000 expecting and current parents and carers. Our attendance at the Expo gives an opportunity to promote the benefits and options for a Catholic Education in SA to prospective families.
     
  • Catholic Education Week
    Held on May 9 – 15, this year’s Catholic Education Week provided an opportunity to say “thank you” to our principals, teachers and school staff for the great support provided to students during COVID.  The ‘Thank you’ social media campaign saw strong engagement with many parents and school communities expressing their appreciation.
     
  • Catholic Schools Open Week
    Open Week was held on August 22 – 28. Over 100 school tours, virtual tours and events were promoted through the campaign which featured 111 students from 58 schools across over 180 billboards, bus shelter and retail advertisements. As part of Open Week, the 7th edition of the Catholic Schools Magazine was published in The Advertiser and distributed to 300,000 readers.
     
  • Networking for Marketing and Communications staff in schools
    The team continued to support the growing network of communications and marketing staff in schools with regular enewsletters and development opportunities.
     
  • Professional Development
    Unfortunately, COVID restrictions limited the number of face-to-face professional development opportunities during the year. However media training, communications strategy and school prospectus programs were offered.

Digital strategy

Digital engagement continues to be strong with Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, digital advertising and the CESA website all used to raise the profile of Catholic Education South Australia.

Engagement with the CESA website was up significantly on the previous year with a 15% increase in total annual site visitors. Most visited sections included the latest news section, which saw a 21% increase in 2022 to over 83,500 page views, and the school directory which saw a 4.3% increase to over 41,400 views.

The CESA Facebook page saw strong growth in post reach in 2022 with almost 200,000 people reached. There was a 146% increase in visits to the Facebook page with over 30,100 page visits.

Staff project-managed the development, re-modelling and launch of a number of school websites including Mt Carmel College, St Joseph’s Clare and St Gabriel’s. Websites were also created for the Association of Counsellors in Catholic Schools, SACCS Annual Report, Catholic School Parents SA  and The Made in the Image of God (MITIOG) component of the CrossWays Religious Education Curriculum was also launched in 2022.

In a positive trend from the COVID pandemic, there was growing acceptance of online events with Catholic School Parents South Australia (CSPSA) and CESA embracing the live-streaming of various events.

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