Strategic Communications
What we did for Colorado Open Lands
Sampson PR’s work with Colorado Open Lands built a successful communications’ strategy for telling the nonprofit’s story about its conservation efforts in Colorado.
These efforts included outreach to media in the northeastern parts of Colorado. We conducted editorial board meetings with various news outlets to educate the community and media on conservation and the state policy and laws that govern how landowners might conserve a property their family may have owned for decades and how converting that property to a land trust would protect it for generations to come.
To help explain what a conservation easement was, we led onsite media tours with reporters to properties that were part of Colorado Open Lands Priority Landscapes – properties designated as essential to Colorado’s heritage — where we showed what landscapes were being protected and how this impacted those landowners and those local regions.
Our efforts led to a better understanding of how and why conservation is done in Colorado.
What we did for MSU Denver
Colorado’s aerospace industry ranks 2nd in the nation for private-sector aerospace employment; and is home to more than 400 companies and suppliers providing space-related products and services, and employs more than 25,150 people in private aerospace companies.
Sampson PR was retained by Metropolitan State University of Denver to promote and build greater awareness of its Aerospace and Engineering Initiative launched with the goal of raising $60 million from private and public sector funds, as well as student fees.
The initiative fostered advantageous connections between aviation; aerospace sciences; civil, electrical and mechanical engineering technology; and computer information systems and computer science — including Colorado’s only Institute for Advanced Manufacturing.
We were charged to tell the bigger story about the industry and its importance to the state. To do this, we developed relationships with industry leaders — such as Lockheed Martin, Sierra Nevada, Ball Aerospace and others — and utilized our own network of influencers to build the AES MSU brand with critical stakeholders — community leaders, elected officials, industry leaders and media.
Our strategic approach to obtaining increased media coverage included building important relationships with industry leaders by participating in aerospace industry events to increase visibility among key AES stakeholders.
With such a hot industry in Colorado’s backyard and the need for a more qualified workforce, MSU Denver collaborated with these leaders to develop a state-of-the-art program to meet the workforce needs of industry.
Our results-oriented approach involved reaching out to industry media with newsworthy opinion pieces and feature stories about the importance of aerospace to Colorado’s economy, and MSU Denver’s role in preparing a qualified workforce to fill the pipeline for these Colorado aerospace companies.
Our successful strategy was lauded with the Board of Trustees, Governor and other leaders which helped in securing funding and legislative support for the initiative. We secured highly visible media placements with dozens of top-tier outlets from MSNBC and U.S. News & World Report to 5280 Magazine, 9NEWS and The Denver Post.
