Project Overview
Wyncode Academy is a leading technical school and coding bootcamp in South Florida dedicated to training technologists with business acumen through best-in-class accelerated and immersive teaching methodologies. With various courses in web development, digital marketing and UX/UI fundamentals, Wyncode’s curricula and efforts are focused on serving market-specific needs for its clients and hiring partners. Ditto’s task over the course of a three-month project was to generate awareness of the academy’s accelerated courses, upcoming announcements and initiatives through publicity in local, national and trade media outlets.
Approach
Team Ditto met with the co-founders in Miami to immerse themselves in Wyncode’s mission and culture and to brainstorm the best ways to tell the “Wyncode story” to the media. Coding bootcamps weren’t as novel as they used to be in the eyes of the media. Four years ago, reporters were writing about them every month. But in 2018, what the media viewed as “newsworthy” coming out of the industry was limited.
Generating media interest and driving awareness was done through strong executive thought leadership, identifying trends and utilizing the school’s announcements and initiatives. The co-founders had the expertise and original insight on the future of hiring, retraining employees, women in tech, and the coding/web development space.
Team Ditto also sought out opportunities in breaking news and trending topics — such as blockchain or the monthly jobs report — for its co-founders to provide their executive point of view. The team created a month over month roadmap of announcements and mini-plans around those announcements.
In addition, Ditto vetted and provided opportunities to submit Wyncode to relevant industry awards. Aware of key observances that aligned with Wyncode’s mission, Team Ditto created a campaign for their women’s scholarship initiative in honor of Women’s History Month. Ditto also provided key messaging and social strategy ahead of the announcement, such as highlighting a different woman in tech throughout the month of March.
Result
During our three month engagement, Ditto generated coverage in local, national and trade media, wrote and published original content and engaged the community on Twitter. Ditto’s media relations efforts landed over 10 interviews with Wyncode’s co-founders and successfully placed Wyncode in 25 pieces of coverage, including 5 national media such as Forbes, Business Insider, Bloomberg Law, BoldTV and Fast Company, local media including The Miami Herald, South Florida Business Journal, Orlando Sentinel and The Starting Gate and trade/niche media such as TechRepublic, Women Who Code and automation.com. To amplify their expertise, Ditto also wrote op-eds that aligned with their tone, values and point-of-view, that would be placed on Women 2.0.
Aside from media coverage, Ditto built relationships with affiliate organizations in the tech and coding space such as Women Who Code, Endeavor Miami, Women 2.0, Black Girls Code, Refresh Miami and the Mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez, who all helped amplify Wyncode’s message on Twitter.
To position Wyncode as a dominant player in the South Florida tech space, its co-founder won the award for Female Leader in Technology and was a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year with the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce.
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