STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS PLANNING

Strategic communications planning is the work that happens before the press release, before the campaign, and before the crisis hits. It is the infrastructure that determines whether an organization's communications function is reactive or proactive, fragmented or coherent, invisible or influential. Joseph has developed and executed comprehensive communications strategies, crisis plans, reputation management frameworks, acquisition communications, and earned media programs for institutions ranging from graduate-level health sciences universities to multi-school education corporations operating across 17 states. Every plan below was built with defined goals, specific tactics, measurable metrics, and regular reporting. Every set of benchmarks was met. The specific tactics and resulting metrics described in these case studies represent proprietary institutional work and cannot be disclosed in full detail here. What is presented reflects the scope, approach, and category of outcomes achieved. To discuss the details of any initiative, including strategy, execution, and measurement, contact Joseph directly.

CASE STUDY 1: BUILDING A COMMUNICATIONS FUNCTION FROM THE GROUND UP

International Education Corporation | 2020 to Present

When Joseph joined International Education Corporation in June 2020 as its first-ever Director of Communications and Media Relations, there was no communications function. No press release infrastructure. No media relationships. No internal communications program. No editorial calendar. No crisis protocols. He built all of it.

Within 60 days of arrival, he developed and executed the organization's inaugural strategic communications plan, establishing the foundational infrastructure for both internal and external communications across the company and all subsidiary schools.

On the external side, he identified earned media opportunities in every local market where IEC schools operate and began systematic outreach to local TV stations, newspapers, and digital outlets. Within weeks, he had generated more than two dozen local television news stories, establishing IEC schools as visible and credible community presences for the first time. He established a regular cadence of press releases, which the organization had never had, creating a consistent drumbeat of positive coverage in markets across California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, and beyond.

On the internal side, he launched the This Week at IEC weekly employee newsletter, established a campus TV screen content program across all locations, launched the Campus Connections quarterly printed newsletter for external audiences, and built the infrastructure for direct CEO communications to all staff. These channels became the connective tissue holding a geographically dispersed organization together.

The 2020 strategic communications plan set measurable goals for local media placements, national media placements, storytelling and content creation, thought leadership, and internal communications, with monthly reporting against each metric. All benchmarks were met every year. The ongoing strategic plan is revised and expanded annually.

CASE STUDY 2: ACQUISITION COMMUNICATIONS

International Education Corporation and Sage Truck Driving Schools | 2022

In April 2022, IEC completed the acquisition of Sage Truck Driving Schools, a 30-year-old national brand with 24 locations across 12 states and a strong reputation among employers and students in the commercial driver training sector. Joseph led all internal and external communications for the acquisition, managing a complex multi-audience messaging challenge in which the same transaction needed to read differently depending on who was receiving the message.

For the press and the broader industry, the story was strategic momentum: IEC expanding at a moment when the national truck driver shortage had created significant public and policy interest in CDL training.

Joseph developed a comprehensive PR plan for the Sage brand covering the period from acquisition through the following year, establishing Sage's media presence in markets where it operates, building relationships with national supply chain and transportation media, and developing a seasonal pitch calendar that connected Sage's expertise to news cycle topics and trends. He also developed media training materials and identified subject matter experts who could serve as on-camera sources for local markets.

CASE STUDY 3: FACULTY THOUGHT LEADERSHIP PROGRAM

University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences | 2018 to 2020

When Joseph joined the University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences as its founding communications executive in 2018, he identified an immediate strategic opportunity: a faculty body with deep clinical and research expertise in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and nursing. But, no systematic mechanism for connecting that expertise to external audiences, including news media.

The strategic communications plan he developed placed faculty thought leadership at the center of the earned media strategy, with a specific goal of at least one meaningful local news placement per campus per quarter and targeted national placements in support of institutional priorities. He built a proactive pitch strategy that matched faculty expertise to what journalists in each campus market were already covering, provided media training and talking points to faculty members willing to serve as sources, and established the editorial infrastructure to sustain the program over time.

In its first full year, the program generated a 600% increase in earned media placements. Faculty appeared as expert sources in local and regional television, digital outlets, and print publications across all USAHS campus markets in Florida, Texas, and California. Stories ranged from nursing leadership and physical therapy innovation to health sciences education and clinical research, building institutional brand recognition in the communities where the university recruited students and partnered with healthcare employers. National placements including CNN and U.S. News and World Report followed the local market momentum.

CASE STUDY 4: NATIONAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN FOR "MY PATH" DEGREE PROGRAM

Brandman University | 2015

When Brandman University developed MyPath, a competency-based bachelor's degree program students could complete entirely on a tablet at their own pace, Joseph recognized immediately that the story had two entirely different audiences who needed to hear it different ways. The campaign he designed and executed treated those audiences as separate media strategies running in parallel rather than a single launch with a single message.

The first audience was the general public: working adults, returning students, and prospective enrollees who needed to understand that a fully accredited bachelor's degree was now accessible in a format that fit around their lives. The second audience was university presidents, provosts, and academic technology leaders across the country, because Brandman was offering an institutional licensing model that allowed other universities to offer the MyPath program under their own brand.

A story that drove public enrollment and a story that generated institutional partnership interest required fundamentally different framing, different outlets, and different key messages. Joseph built the campaign to serve both simultaneously.

Developed a two-track media strategy: a mainstream consumer campaign targeting general news audiences to drive enrollment, and a higher education trade campaign targeting institutional decision-makers to drive partnership interest.
Pitched and placed stories with national mainstream outlets as a technology and workforce story, connecting the tablet-based, self-paced format to the national conversation about student debt, workforce readiness, and the future of accessible higher education.
Secured placements in the New York Times, NPR, CBS News, ABC News, and FOX Business News.
Executed a parallel trade press campaign targeting higher education decision-makers through the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Higher Education Dive, and University Business, positioning MyPath as a replicable model that university partners could license and offer under their own institutional brand.
Managed the sequencing of mainstream and trade coverage to maximize momentum: consumer outlets first to establish public credibility, trade outlets second so university leaders were reading about a program that already had national mainstream validation.

The coverage established Brandman as a recognized national voice in competency-based education at a moment when the field was just beginning to attract serious attention from policymakers, accreditors, and the press. Specific enrollment figures and partnership terms are proprietary; contact Joseph directly to discuss.

CASE STUDY 5: AI SEARCH STRATEGY

International Education Corporation | 2025 to Present

As generative AI began displacing traditional search engine results for consumer queries, Joseph recognized that how AI engines represent an institution is determined by the content ecosystem those engines train on, and that ecosystem can be strategically shaped. He conceived, built, and leads IEC's AI Task Force, a cross-functional initiative developing comprehensive Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategies in the postsecondary education sector.

A core pillar of this strategy includes the programmatic generation of sponsored news content across all operational markets. By focusing placement specifically on TV news websites, the initiative capitalizes on their high domain authority with major AI engines. This approach bypasses the rigid paywalls common to local newspapers, ensuring the content remains fully crawlable and accessible to AI training models and real-time search crawlers.

IEC is among the first postsecondary education operators to build a dedicated GEO function. Specific tactics, metrics and platform performance data are proprietary; contact Joseph directly to discuss.