Saint Louis University engages new students with CampusWell’s health and wellness platform

Fostering better physical and mental health among students has never been more important for educational institutions than it is today. Yet, it’s a challenge for many colleges and universities to reach students in an increasingly digital world. Easily accessible online content is a necessary part of connecting with students and delivering valuable information and resources they need.

Incoming students are particularly receptive to new information as they learn to navigate college life, and CampusWell resources can easily and strategically be delivered to them in a variety of ways. 

“One of the main ways Saint Louis University gets the CampusWell resources out is through our SLU 101 level courses that introduce the students to ways they can be successful at SLU, ways they can take care of themselves,” says Ethan Dixon, Health Communications Specialist at Saint Louis University. “It’s really handy that we can have links that just go right to well-produced resources.”

Dixon urges other schools considering CampusWell to take advantage of their access to new students. “Don’t be afraid to start integrating those resources into the curriculum. Don’t be afraid to start making those resources part of orientations or part of wellness  classes,” Dixon says. “It’s available, and I think it’s often that maybe people are a little bit hesitant attaching the curriculum work to external resources, but it’s not a homework thing—it’s entirely to the student’s benefit.” 

CampusWell expands the capacity of Saint Louis University’s marketing initiatives

CampusWell combines schools’ health messaging with original, evidence-based, and relatable content on everything from fitness to finances to study strategies. Articles, video content, email, social media, and content integration on the school’s website—it’s all ready to go. This takes an enormous load off of marketing departments at small- and medium-sized institutions like SLU that are already at capacity.

“Our marketing time is always spread pretty thin, so the amount of attention that we can put into generating health-centered resources, that’s always kind of limited,” says Dixon. “So the fact that we can get support from an organization that has really good analytics, provides good service, has really good resources that are things that we don’t have to generate in-house—that’s always extremely valuable.”

More than 90 percent of SLU’s student body engaged with CampusWell between July 2022 and January 2023, proving that this is an invaluable resource for connecting with students.

Students can dig into CampusWell’s extensive archive of digital content

Trends in health and wellness are cyclical. As a CampusWell partner for over 10 years, SLU has amassed a comprehensive library of high-quality content that it can leverage to address the changing tides of students’ concerns without the need to scramble to come up with brand new content. This significantly increases the return on its investment. 

“It’s frequently the case that an old topic becomes a new topic, and it’s handy to have that archive, to have that backlog of well-produced content,” Dixon says. “If we say ‘XYZ is really on the students’ hearts right now,’ you can hop back into that. Especially when you’re talking about 10 years of content—it’s probably been talked about at least to some extent before. Everything is cyclical,” Dixon says.

Whatever a student wants to find out about, there’s certain to be a resource in the archive. That makes it easier for faculty to direct students to materials related to their wellness interests. “It’s good to have it as a foundational cornerstone piece that we can push but don’t have to think about maintaining it too much,” says Dixon. 

CampusWell will continue to keep up with the trend towards video content

Video is increasingly becoming the preferred media for young people as lives get busier and attention spans shrink. “Something we’re excited for is some of the push to video assets,” says Dixon. “The digital push is in full swing, and everybody’s eyeing video as the resource with the greatest ROI.”

CampusWell has risen to meet the demand with CampusWell+, its expanding library of high-quality, engaging video content. Short, actionable videos delivered in a relatable and non-judgmental manner, are all mobile-optimized for easy viewing by students on the go. And, schools can produce their own branded video content with one easy-to-use tool. 

“We can assign a certain amount of value to CampusWell as being an innovator in the space who stays up to date with the trends,” says Dixon. “With the CampusWell+ info that’s rolling out right now, I can tell that CampusWell is following that trend.”