Richard, can you talk to Long and Bielema about this?
I have been told by some recent players that they were so happy they agreed to come on a recruiting visit to see the UofA with their own eyes. Other schools paint a pretty bleak picture of Arkansas and the UofA and many kids are narrow minded enough to believe it. We need a marketing campaign to show how nice it is in Arkansas and post it on the UofA athletics website.
We need to show that our past is in the past, because our competition is telling recruits about the negative image of Arkansas. Our Admin sucks at developing marketing and advertising tools to combat our competitors. Our image is not good so we need to show that the whole state has things to be proud of yet we still need to improve. Our state and Fayetteville have landed on some good magazine lists that need to be AGGRESSIVELY marketed and emphasized.
If a recruit says that he had heard bad things about Arkansas, then I would love for our coaches to be able to send a link to a video page on our website that has various videos and positive rankings for Degree programs, Quality of Life, Jobs, Economic Growth, Hi tech, etc. from Magazines like Forbes, Money, US News and World Report, etc. A smart recruit would think, “do I listen to the Coach at A&M, OM, LSU, etc or do I watch a video with real visual proof and quotes from major magazines saying good things?”
In the world of drone video our AD should be commissioning videos from the UofA Advertising and Marketing programs. We need videos of Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, Eureka Springs, etc. They should have video segments about Wal-Mart, Tyson, JB Hunt, Crystal Bridges, AMP and recent musical acts, Beaver Lake, etc.
They should have video segments about the national ranking by Magazines of All Arkansas cities for standard of living and job growth. They should do a video segment about the rest of the state and Little Rock, River Market, Clinton Library, Heiffer, Dillards, Stephens, etc.
Our Admin needs to use the new drone video options that are so cost effective. We can show aerial views of the environment at DWRRS, show the campus, show downtown Fayetteville, Dickson st after a game
We need to show new improvements in Little Rock, Clinton Library, Heifer Int’l, River Market and new downtown developments.
We need to let recruits know this is a great place for a job and that there is something in the water here since we have homegrown giants in Wal-Mart, Tyson, JB Hunt, Stephens, Dillards, etc.