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January/February 2019
MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS NEWS
New marketing templates available
Based on your feedback, we've developed a collection of Word templates that employees can customize and use to create professional marketing documents. This first batch of templates carry the N.C. Cooperative Extension mark and space for promoting county centers or programs.

We'll share more templates in the coming months. As a result, the Brand Sprokit service will be discontinued this month.

Update on 2019 AgChem, Turfgrass manuals
Final details for the 2019 N.C. Agricultural Chemicals and Pest Control for Professional Turfgrass Managers manuals are available. No action is needed from county centers or authors to receive their complimentary copies this year. Visit the Order Extension Publications page for more information, discount codes and guidelines for ordering.

Online store offers Extension apparel and promos
To help grow awareness for Extension across the state, we’ve partnered with TNT Ad Specialties to offer online stores for both our N.C. Cooperative Extension partnership and NC State Extension. The store includes a variety of apparel, as well as promo items like cups, pens, stickers and more, which we'll expand over time. University login required.

Tips to Deliver Better Story, Report Content
Improving Extension story content is a primary marketing and communications goal for the new year. To get everyone going in the right direction, we've shared a few starter tips.

5 Tips to Improve your Storytelling

  1. Choose stories that support our mission to support the lives, land and economy of North Carolina.
  2. Identify potential stories as your team plans its programming for the year – create opportunities for great stories while you can influence outcomes and collect strong data.
  3. Think about what your audience values, what they care about, and tell stories that show a strong connection between those values and the core values of Extension.
  4. Keep the story simple and stick to story basics – character, setting, conflict or challenge, solution, resolution and impact.
  5. Understand the difference between outcomes and impacts, and strive to always deliver the true impact of your work – how does or how might it make a difference in the future?

Our team will be offering resources and training to help you starting this spring. Visit our Extension storytelling page throughout the year for materials and updates.

Tech Tools | Grammarly Makes Writing Simpler
Grammarly is a great tool that can help you communicate more effectively. It automatically detects grammar, spelling, punctuation, word choice and style mistakes in your writing and suggests corrections.

Utilize Web Resources from EIT
Extension Information Technologies (EIT) at NC State Extension provides assistance and education to help counties and programs with their website needs. The main  Wordpress help page  is a good resource for general how-to info, along with posts covering updates to the Extension web system.

Need more hands-on support? EIT can provide direct training via webinars or face-to-face. EIT also has information management agents who are happy to provide webinars or travel to provide face-to-face training.

Be sure to sign up for EIT’s mailing list for weekly updates, and there is more content and resources related to the Extension web system on the  EIT portal . Contact the Extension Help Desk ( 919-513-7000 or ces_help@ncsu.edu ) with questions or requests.
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