The Practice of Promotion

The US boasts of a huge student population with an equally large purchasing power. Most marketers have the ambition to target this huge prospective audience. However, as this target segment is unlike to other customer segments, the ways to entice them to the brands, products, or services are also different from the regular mass advertising methods. So what’s the best way to reach them?

Go where they are!

College promotions are a great way to grab the attention of this promising customer group. For ages we have witnessed marketers visit colleges and distribute free samples of various merchandise and promotional products and it still works. Choosing the right kind of promotional products is a must; one that is capable of attracting the attention of students towards the product. It should not be a product that the students throw away before even glancing at the logo or brand name.

Winning Them Over

Here’s a list of tips that will help you choose the perfect promotional items to draw the attention of this very important audience.

• To understand what students will appreciate and what they will not, it is important to understand their thought process, likes, dislikes, and more. There are a variety of research methods that could be used to identify these. Trying to understand this through a questionnaire is often equivalent to wasted efforts.

Chances are high that students will throw the questionnaire away without filling it out, or fill in incorrect information. A great way to make them put in the right information is to do it through a contest. Promise the students a gift on signing up with the company and an even better and bigger gift on winning the contest. Students mostly give the right information as incorrect phone numbers and addresses will only diminish their chances of winning. The freebie may be related to your business like a free voucher to a restaurant given by a restaurant owner or a free t-shirt with the company’s brand name and logo on it.

• Avoid disposable promotional items and flyers. Ideally, promotional materials must be such that last for a while and can be used by the student. Something like a t-shirt with the brand name imprinted, a pen with the company’s log would rarely go unnoticed.
• It is important to think like a student to choose items that are bound to grab the student’s attention. What do you think students would use and appreciate? A key chain with a bottle opener or a flash light is certainly helpful for students.
• Students are a busy lot. Self explanatory promotional items are the best. However, marketers who have a sales pitch in addition to the promotional products must remember to keep it short and crisp, as students rarely have the time to stop and listen in their break times.

College promotions done with the assistance of appropriate promotional items is bound to garner the attention of the student audience and get the brand recognition you desire.

Lindsay Borgan is personally experienced in campus marketing Using her own personal experiences as a guide the author contributes articles and blogs on the value and importance of campus marketing.