June 20, 2011

In a time when the typical person is exposed to 5,000 advertisements per day, it’s hard to sort out which ones are relevant. Search engines remember your browsing history to try to give you results that are relevant to you and entire industries have been built on targeting users based on their purchase history. But let’s face it, ads are ads. What you really want is for someone you know and trust to recommend something to you; people that know you, have had real conversations with you, and have even met you for that matter! Word of mouth is by far the most powerful form of marketing. This is the reason that Bing is showing which of your Facebook friends ‘like’ links in their search results and the reason Google has invented the +1 button. But, we’re not all Bing or Google, are we?

Viral marketing refers to marketing that encourages word of mouth spreading of marketing messages. If you can get your audience excited about your message or properly incentivize them to share your message, the message “goes viral”. Viral marketing to students and youth can be extremely effective. They have a ton of friends and love sharing.

It’s all about the sweepstakes

Wait, so you want your users to do your job for you, effectively, and you want to give them what for it?! Offering students and youth a compelling reward for sharing your message is key. The good news is you don’t need to give something to everyone. You just need to give them a chance to win something awesome. That’s what sweepstakes are all about – entering to win a prize. Here’s the kicker though: you need to give them some control over their chances of winning that prize to motivate them to work for it. In fact, if a user has a chance of winning a prize, why would they want their friends entering to win it as well? That would only decrease their chances of winning, wouldn’t it?

Full disclosure: This is where we plug our services, but we think you’ll like them.

StudentUniverse has developed viral marketing software that rewards students and youth for sharing a sweepstakes with their friends by giving them additional entries into the sweepstakes. When sharing a sweepstakes can actually increase your chances of winning it, students and youth are incentivized to spread the word, and the sweepstakes goes viral.

Your marketing message spreads rapidly through the social graph. Relevant consumers learn about your brand from people they know and trust. Students and youth get excited about your brand and build an affinity towards it. And all the while, you’re gaining new leads.

Contact us today to get viral with your marketing!

June 17, 2011

How does your brand market to college students, and what sets it apart? Many of us are looking back on college, and trying to figure out how to capture these elusive, busy students. It can be difficult; but we’d like to suggest putting yourself in their shoes.

Meet Katie. She’s peppy, smart, and involved on campus. She attends a university just outside Boston with 7,000 undergrads. Together we will explore a day in her life. Pay attention to all the marketing outlets she is exposed to today. You might be surprised.

Let’s dive into Katie’s day. She rolls out of bed at 7:30 am, just in time to shower, grab a coffee, and head to class. Right here, she’s been exposed to multiple brands. First, over twenty beauty products, all of which are “roommate approved”. Each of her three roommates has five shower products which she is free to sample as she pleases. On her way to class she stops by Dunkin Donuts and grabs a large iced latte. Despite being from New York, she is forced to tote around a cup with a Red Sox logo on it simply because she’s in Boston. Katie strolls into class and opens up her laptop (with a Burton sticker decorating the lid). First she checks Facebook, then her student e-mail, and finally her personal e-mail. She is bombarded with e-mails from her sorority, the literary society, retail stores, the university police, and her mother. Her best friend forwarded a link to a contest, which she enters and then shares across her social media outlets. While on Facebook, she sees that her crush updated his status to the lyrics from his favorite song. Katie pops them in Google to see what her next iTunes download will be. She sees an Anthropology banner ad featuring the hottest new looks for Spring. She’s forwards a link of a dress to her sister to gain approval before buying.

After two more classes, Katie heads down to the dining hall for lunch. She grabs a copy of the campus paper while she waits for five of her sorority sisters. A tanning salon minutes from campus is offering an exclusive package for college students; she rips the coupon out, throws the paper in her tote and finds a table with the girls.

The tanning salon knows that 82% of college students have read their campus paper in the past three months. Pepsi knows that most students will visit the dining hall daily, so Pepsi provides fountain soda for the school. A college student is in the beginning of their customer life cycle. If advertisers don’t target this market now, it will be difficult to gain their business once they are loyal to a competitor.

While they eat, Katie mentions that coupon she grabbed earlier and asks the sisters if they wanted to join. Three of them jump up and grab a copy of the paper immediately. Katie notices her sisters’ clothing choices. Two are wearing the sorority sweatshirt, one is wearing a JCrew top, one is sporting an Underarmour jacket, and the last, a Boston Red Sox t-shirt. She compliments the JCrew top, and the sister explains when she bought it and the additional colors it came in.

Katie continues her day, tennis practice at 3pm, group meeting at 7, and finally reruns of Jersey Shore at 10. She encounters hundreds, even thousands of marketing outlets throughout her afternoon. CBS News tells us a person typically is exposed to 5,000 advertisements per day. It’s likely Katie exceeds that; she reads magazines at the gym, she watches TV while surfing the Internet, and relies on her friends for fashion advice and the hottest new trends.

The first step to marketing to college students is understanding them. The best way to get your product in their hands starts with knowing your customer. Lesson # 4 from Dale Carnegie’s, How to Win Friends and Influence People is, “Become genuinely interested in other people. Take a sincere interest in them. Don’t just pretend you’re interested. Everybody has something interesting about them. Find out what it is.” This means finding out what motivates them, why they do things, and how they do things. Having this insight will help you as a marketer know where and how you fit into their lives.

Advice or questions? Get the conversation started below.

June 1, 2011

Today’s college students are one of the most ad-savvy generations ever. By the age of 18, today’s teen has seen, on average, 300,000 ads. And that’s just on television! So how do you cut through the clutter and get them to engage with your brand? Here are some insights from a recent study by e-Dialog, which looked at what motivates someone to make a connection with a brand via email, social or mobile opt-in.

It’s probably no surprise that the number one driver of opt-ins to email was a discount or offer. Giving a percentage or dollar amount off a purchase for a new email subscriber has shown to be pretty effective, and what consumers have become accustomed to. But think about what else would be valuable to your audience. How about exclusive info, like early access to this season’s looks or a preview of the next version of your game? Some of the top reasons survey takers told us they signed up for emails were to get original content not found elsewhere, and because the brand related to their lifestyle. They were motivated by curiosity about the brand, so think about the types of content you can share that educate or entertain to build an affinity for your brand.

If your goal is to gain fans or followers in social media channels, the good news is that the motivation is the pretty much the same. On Facebook or Twitter, consumers we surveyed said they were looking for discounts from brands, but also stuff they couldn’t find elsewhere. That includes videos, games, and other interactive content. One interesting finding was that for people who subscribed to email and followed a company on social sites, they said they signed up for email first. So it’s a good idea to include links to your social profiles in your emails, or even promote why someone might want to become a fan to your email subscribers.

For mobile marketing (SMS), it was very clear from the responses to our survey that consumers are generally not ready to be marketed to via text message. For today’s youth, their phone is an extension of themselves and goes with them everywhere, even to bed! So marketers really need to have something of value other than ads if they want access to a consumer’s cell phone. Things like reminders or alerts ranked high on list of the types of content people want to get on their phone. The good news is, once you convince someone to opt in to mobile marketing, they are not likely to unsubscribe.

These are just a few of the insights gleaned from the survey of consumers and their marketing preferences. We will be releasing a full report in the near future. Check www.e-Dialog.com for updates.

April 28, 2011

Every CMO with a product that targets women in their 20’s wonders how to get college students to start talking about it. She dreams of having these students comment on her company’s site, begging for the company to bring its products to the students’ schools. She would love to have college students posting pictures of themselves with her products on their own Facebook walls, thanking her for dropping by campus and asking her to come again.

Accomplishing all of the above really isn’t that difficult. It involves two steps: building buzz and giving away products for free.

So how do you create excitement surrounding your product and get students to literally beg you for it? Let me use one of Her Campus’s current campaigns as an example.

Last year we came up with the idea for our proprietary “Campus Survival Kits.” These “Survival Kits” are much like the commoditized care packages you see on the majority of college campuses today but with a few exceptions. First of all, they’re exclusive (we only gave out 500 of our Spring Break Survival Kits nationwide). Secondly, they include an intriguing assortment of category-leading products. Thirdly, they come packaged in attractive, student-approved bags that students will be excited to tote around campus. Lastly, they’re 100% free.

Our Spring Break Survival Kit included the following items deemed essential for spring break by Her Campus: popchips, the hot new healthy potato chip company that recently hired Ashton Kutcher as its President of Pop Culture, OPI nail polish, Softlips lip conditioner, Schick Quattro for Women disposable razors, Skintimate Raspberry Rain shave gel, Kate Spade Twirl perfume, Usher VIP cologne, Eclipse gum, and an assortment of products from British university outfitters Jack Wills. The results were phenomenal.

We distributed the bags by hand on five college campuses, generating a huge amount of buzz that had girls rushing to get out of class to snag one of the limited number of bags in time.

Pictures of college girls with their Spring Break Survival Kits started popping up all over Facebook, as 500 college women traveled to all parts of the world on their spring break trips toting their bags and making use of the products inside. We had college students stomping down the walls of our Facebook page trying to find out how they could get a Survival Kit. Students at colleges across the country are vying to be included in this promotion for future Survival Kits.

If you want students to love your brand, let them try it for free. They will remember your brand in a positive light and if they like your products, will likely pick some up the next time they’re in the market for your product category.

April 22, 2011

Your business has an online presence and you want to reach young consumers. You’ve thought long and hard about your marketing strategy and you’ve allocated a budget. But do you have a strategy for reaching youngsters? Should the 16-25 year-olds be treated differently? We think so. Here are five tips that hopefully will make you think and perhaps even act.

Go online

There are a lot of great tools out there. These tools can help you learn more about your demo and what they like, search for, and want. Take Google Trends, for example, or Google Insights for Search. Both of these tools are great for understanding which search terms are important, what is hot, and what is not.

But most importantly, don’t market far from your purchase path. What do we mean? Well, try to spend your marketing dollars online – where young people spend time. Newspaper, magazine and TV ads might help you build a brand, but they will most likely not drive clicks/traffic to your site. Think of it this way; your for sale sign needs to be close to your house, not four blocks away (not even if your sign has the address on it).

Put your benefits front and center

Attention span = hyper short. Tell them what they need to know, keep it shorter than what you think is short and tell them immediately. You have seconds to convince them to click, so think fast. No one reads, and any nested information is useless. Why should I care about you?

Don’t be everything to everyone

Hot tips; for your search engine marketing efforts – create a landing page that has younger language, images and services. Chances are all your customers are not the same. Remember if they have to look for the part that is relevant to them, they are gone before you even knew they were there.

Partner

You’ll get by with a little help from your friends. The art of partnering should be taken very seriously. Find other trusted sites, blogs, videos and marketers that can drive traffic to your site. This is nothing new, but you might not have a qualified traffic strategy. Do you partner for general traffic or traffic for a specific reason?

Take it easy

Don’t try too hard! Sites that only sell and never listen aren’t any fun. Young users are all about free, fun, fast. Think about it, they grew up with free fantastic services everywhere. If you can’t solve a problem for free, then offer them a taste of your magic for free. Also, keep in mind that these guys have very well developed filters. So go easy on the over-selling banners and “smart” distractions.

April 1, 2011

• They have money to spend

Nearly half of all college students work. With tuition often covered by loans or parents, the money they do make is theirs to spend. They also carry plastic. 78% of students have at least one credit card. According to Sallie Mae, they are using it for more than just books: 84% of students use credit cards for food, 70% of students use cards for clothing, and 69% of students use cards for cosmetics.

• They spend a lot prepping for college

Back to school spending is expected to reach $33.7 billion according to the National Retail Federation. This may not be considered discretionary spending, but if you sell electronics, dorm supplies, apparel, shoes or school supplies you know how important this time of year is to the bottom line. Make sure you are top of mind going into this shopping blitz.

• They have time to waste

A full course load at most colleges can take up less than 15 hours a week. Even with a part time job, this still leaves students with a lot of flexibility. They are looking for ways to fill their time. They online shop, go out with their friends, and travel. In short, they have fun and spend money.

• They document every moment of their lives

Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare… the list goes on. This generation loves to talk about themselves and share their experiences. Make a good impressionand they will share it. Give them a great deal, they will share it. Sure, word of mouth is nothing new, but the word has never traveled this fast before.

• They are in the beginning of their customer-life-cycle

They are away from home, making their own purchase decisions. Whether it is which brand of spaghetti sauce to buy, which coffee shop or energy drink will get them through 4 years of mid terms and finals, what type of car they will drive or what clothes they will wear, these choices could shape spending habits for the rest of their lives. Create valuable lifelong brand loyalists by getting your brand in their decision set now.

The Point

These emerging adults have the money and freedom to start choosing which brands will lead them through college and into adulthood. Attract them now or risk losing out on a lifelong customer.

March 4, 2011

Students live via their smart phones. Ever heard anyone say, “I feel naked without my phone?” If a student doesn’t have his/her phone in an easily accessible location, something just isn’t right. They don’t turn their phones off at night, or even during class. In fact, they don’t even consider it.

Herein lies a potential gold mine to marketers. Students’ constant need to feel connected means they will see any message sent to them instantly, and in that same instant they will make a decision about the message and the brand. A student will subconsciously ask him/herself a series of questions; “Does this warrant a reply? Should I follow the suggested hyperlink right now? Shall I save it to re-read later? Should it be deleted, or worse, should I request to unsubscribe?” After considering each of these reactions in the time it takes to blink, you have either missed out on a potential customer or have gained a new impression. Your goal as a marketer is to secure this impression.

Managing this relationship is tricky. You can make it or break it in a second. The rewards have potential to be huge, but with that comes risk. Here are some tips to guide you:

Send SMS Messages to Students With Caution

We mentioned that students are pretty intimate with their cells. They keep them close to their body, and they even sleep with them very close by. Coming between these two can have serious consequences. Not only are they offended by your abrupt impersonal message, but they will also associate negative emotions, fueled by unfulfilled expectations, with your brand. Kim was expecting for Ian to ask her on a date, instead she got a text about a last minute sale. What a let down! There is a way to wiggle into this relationship. To carefully navigate this relationship, Michael Becker, North America managing director for the Mobile Marketing Association, recommends encouraging a reply that will generate a conversation. “Each interaction allows a marketer to learn more about the consumer, what they want and need and the value you can deliver to them.” Although marketers should strive to deliver messages that are targeted to the user across all verticals, SMS may be the most important. If you don’t have something relevant and timely to say, then SMS is not your channel.

Facebook them some discounts

Facebook can be a great tool. Companies like Victoria’s Secret Pink (7 million fans), Starbucks (20 million fans), and even Spongebob Squarepants (17 million fans) have harnessed the viral power of social media on Facebook. According to a focus group conducted by StudentUniverse Media, comprised of college students aged 19-22, many feel that Facebook is a place to connect with friends and would prefer to keep in touch with businesses on Twitter, where messages are easier to navigate. However, many admit to following businesses on Facebook when they feel there is an opportunity to get discounts. Students do claim to check both Facebook and Twitter from their mobile phones regularly.

Tweet often

Twitter is easy, convenient, and student approved. Students will get your message shortly after you tweet it since they voluntarily check Twitter all day via their iPhone, Blackberry, or Droid. Best of all, Twitter facilitates an interactive conversation and gets always opinionated students directly engaged. Lastly, tweets are short and sweet. When working with the attention span of a student, conciseness is vital.

Do you have an app for that?

Apps are fun. They keep students engaged and are always just a touch away. Whether your company has an app, or chooses to advertise on one, apps are a great place to be these days. According to Juniper Research, revenue from mobile content and apps are expected to reach $10 billion by 2015.

Send Mobile-Optimized Emails

Students like to see emails once a week or every other week. As long as the content is relevant to them, they will open them. Remember to keep the subject line simple. Don’t try to personalize a subject line with the user’s name. Students see through mass customization. Instead, try to catch their attention with a relevant subject. Most students have smart phones or feature phones, so they will see the email from their mobile right away. QA your emails before sending and make sure they look as smart as the phones they are read on.

Reaching students through their cell phones can be a golden opportunity. Be careful how you approach this tactic though. You are reaching them through a very personal method of communication, and managing this requires careful planning.

January 26, 2011