MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- The Marine Corps Recruiting Command recently mailed out more than 39,000 pieces of direct mail to minority students who meet specific academic qualification standards. The initiative is part of the command’s diversity recruiting effort to increase the number of minority officers.
The demographic makeup of the Marine Corps is fairly representative of the Nation’s demographic composition; however, one area the Corps is working to improve is diversity amongst its senior leadership positions.
“Diversity is important because it provides our country and Corps with unique and inspirational perspectives,” said Eric Lindsay, diversity advertising officer, Marine Corps Recruiting Command. “A diverse force can create new ideas and changes that are beneficial to our mission accomplishment. We hope this mailing will attract more qualified minority applicants.”
The intent of the mailing is to provide information about the Marine Corps to an audience that may not be fully aware of all the opportunities available. The creatively designed packages are designed to spark an interest for additional information and should potentially generate leads from a qualified pool of prospects.
The campaign is unique to other mailings the Corps has sent, as it specifically targets minority high school students who scored well enough on the Scholastic Aptitude Test or American College Test to qualify for the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps Scholarship.
“Previous general market officer efforts targeted college students, but we were not able to determine their academic qualifications on the front end,” said Capt. Frederick Evert, lead generation officer, MCRC. “This mailing was sent to a targeted audience who scored well enough on the SAT or ACT to be considered for the NROTC scholarship.”
Only students who scored 1,000 or better on the SAT or 22 or better on the ACT were selected to receive this unique mailing.
In addition to generating interest for the Marine Corps, the mailing provided information to students about the NROTC scholarship. Each year, high school seniors are awarded the NROTC scholarship which provides an opportunity for students to earn a college degree while preparing them to become a Naval or Marine Corps officer.
The direct mail campaign will deliver information to a greater audience of qualified minority students, however, success of the campaign will depend on much more than students just reading the package.
“There’s no doubt that this mailing will generate awareness within a population of qualified minority students,” said Evert. “But our true gauge of success will be determined by how many recipients actually request additional information and eventually become Marine officers.”
For more information about officer commissioning programs or the NROTC scholarship, visit MarineOfficer.com.