April 2016

5 tips for a kick-ass Fresher’s campaign

As we get closer to the end of the academic year, there’s only one thing that springs to students’ minds when thinking about returning/starting university…Fresher’s Week! Yes, it is looming, and it will come round quicker than expected because it always does! Maybe you feel like we’re jumping the gun a bit, but believe us when we say that now is the time that brands should be wrapping up their Fresher’s campaigns.

The experience of going to university is a key life-stage; the first taste of independence; new and fresh experiences we never forget; it’s where the journey of adult life truly begins! But it can also be a fruitful time for businesses to begin relationships, and for any brand looking to engage and influence students, Fresher’s Week is a significant event in the calendar. So, here are our top five tips to help brands to create a fun and successful student campaign for Fresher’s Week.

Make some noise!

You know what they say, never underestimate the power of word of mouth! Student Ambassadors are a popular choice for brands wanting to engage with people on campus, and that’s not just because they can deliver great ROI. While social media is a great way to reach out to students, it can sometimes be seen as impersonal so it’s no surprise that brands are ‘taking it to the floor’ to promote their products or campaigns.

Ambassadors have been a staple of student marketing campaigns for some time now, so this might not be a newsflash moment for your brand, however they can actually bring more to the table than you may have first thought. They often tend to be influencers in their own right and have formed solid online communities via social networks, so as well as being cost-effective – students are much cheaper than the likes of Jim Chapman and Zoella – they’re highly influential and this power shouldn’t be underestimated.

Right Platform, Right Message

With 16-24 year olds spending more than 27 hours per week online, brands must consider how their Freshers activity will translate online. The brands that get the most out of Fresher’s Week will execute campaigns that tie both on and offline experiences together, as we saw with client Doddle’s recent Freshers’ campaign.

Brands must also remember that not all students will attend a fair, so how can they capture those that aren’t interested? We’ve seen the rise of ‘Digital Freshers’ – where brands use online microsites, digital goodie bags and email campaigns to generate buzz online pre and during Fresher’s season. So it’s important for a brand to consider the fact that they now need to engage students in multiple arenas in order to get the most out of their campaigns.

Create Fun & Engaging Experiences

Brands that create an immersive, fun and memorable experience for its fans create a much closer bond with them. Very much like using a brand ambassador, this uber personal, emotion-triggering experience can build brand affinity like no other tactic, well, that’s what we think from our experience! However, it’s also definitely a lot harder to measure any conversions, as these might not happen on the spot.

The experience of a perfectly formed experiential marketing campaign will inspire and ultimately build loyalty, so brands can expect to make a ‘friend for life’. This marketing tactic isn’t just used for brands during Fresher’s – we’ve seen Benefit’s ‘Good Ship Benefit’ and Bud Light’s ‘House of Whatever’, both campaigns that have been praised for campaigns that made an emotional impact on consumers and fans. So put down the keyboard and get thinking outdoors!

Make Sure You Have Something To Give Away

The main reason students look forward to Fresher’s is because of the freebies. A whopping 88% of students only go to the fairs because of this. Whether that’s pens, pizza, queue jump or a pair of branded pants, businesses that give things away tend to be favoured, and remembered, by students. Better get the order in now then!

Students Are For Life Not Just For Fresher’s

Too many brands think that a flash and dash Fresher’s campaign will have students eating out the palm of their hands forever more. Wrong! You need to keep the conversation going; offering opportunities for students to reconnect with the brand at other key points of the year. It’s only by keeping the brand fresh and at the front of students’ minds can businesses build loyal customers who will stick with you for the foreseeable.

Brands need not invest millions of marketing budget to keep the chat flowing, by using accessible, popular channels for students it’s easy to keep it going – social media competitions, fun games, etc. are great ways to keep servicing the relationship and even gain new customers along the way.

If you’d like to speak to a member of the team about your upcoming Fresher’s campaign just get in contact with us.

9 wrong assumptions about students

We all make assumptions. For example, we assume on a daily basis that spring will finally kick in soon, well, that’s more wishful thinking! But trust us when we say it’s easy to fall in the ‘assumption’ trap when it comes to planning student marketing campaigns, particularly when you don’t know anything about your target audience and haven’t done your research!

When you make assumptions about an audience, more specifically the potential consumer, and these are wrong, it could be seriously detrimental to a brand, and not just a waste of time and/or budget. So, here are our top misunderstandings brands make on a regular basis about students…

Students just like to get drunk and party all the time
While socialising is a right of passage for anyone who goes to university, and deciding between having one last drink or being able to get a kebab on the way home is a genuine problem, it isn’t actually the main reason students go to university! Only 29% of students claimed they went to university ‘for the experience’, so think again if this is something you thought university was all about!

They follow a staple diet of pizza, ice cream and sweets
While there will be a group students that fall into this category, you’d be surprised just how many students are paying better attention to their health and food consumption at university. Care packages from parents, a savvier student, university initiatives and easily accessible better options at convenience stores all contribute to a healthier more conscientious student population.

giphy (2)

Equally, they’re all fitness fanatics and just want to eat kale, avo and whatever new hipster food is on the agenda
Students do still love pizza. That’s all.

Their laziness would put Sunday to the test
Although there will still be those students that need to pull an all-nighter to get their dissertation done because they’ve left it until the day before, the majority of students aren’t actually that lazy. More and more students are finding better, more valuable ways to fill their spare time – work experience, part-time jobs and university societies are just a few of the ways students are making the most of their time, so if you can offer something more than just a free t-shirt, you’ll be making some good mates.

They don’t care about anything!
As a matter of fact, students are actually quite conscientious people! Young people in particular are well informed on environmental and human rights movements, with a huge 97% saying ‘ethics’ is important and 51% more likely to make purchasing decisions based on a brands ethical values and credentials. So don’t get stuck in the trap that students are easily fooled, because they can see right through the falseness and aren’t afraid to call you out on it.

All students live on-campus
With the rising costs of life in general, more and more students are opting to stay at home and commute to university. Around a quarter of students (27%) in the UK now stay at home while they study, so brands need to think about whether planned marketing efforts account for students that live at home – i.e. a strong and engaging social media strategy that will help to connect with those students not around for the more on-campus activity.

They’re all born at a time which makes most of us feel ridiculously uncomfortable and old
Don’t be fooled that students are all 18-21, in fact less than 60% of students are under 21. Yep! That one surprised us too. So, not only are you making false behavioural assumptions about students, you’re also discounting a huge proportion of them down to age! Oh dear…

They’ll only care about price because they never have any money
Ok, this one really grinds our gears. Students collectively have massive spending power, around £20bn per year. The thing to note here is not that they don’t have money, because they do, they are just generally a lot more careful in how they spend their money. So the challenge is making a good enough argument to convince students to part with their money. Not too difficult is it?

They believe that the word ‘studying’ derived from the words ‘students’ and ‘dying’
While many students do huff and puff when deadline day looms, the majority of the time they are with their heads in the books, working during their free time to get some extra monies (not just for beer), or trying to find ways to gain that holy grail all students seek for, work experience. Students spend 52% of their time studying, 5% engaging in extra curricular activities and 5% working, so don’t fall into the trap of assuming all students hate working – if your brand can offer a valuable experience, students will connect with you on a more meaningful level.

Get in touch with our team for more information.

BAM steps up in the name of charity

At BAM we are always looking for new ways we can help make the world a better place from our continuous work on raising money and volunteering for our local charity Building Circles and participating in charitable events such as the ‘Run for Beer’ relay race. So when we were approached by Delete Blood Cancer UK to help them with their latest campaign, ‘Students Versus Blood Cancer’ we were delighted to support such a fantastic campaign.

The charity’s key mission is to increase the pool of lifesaving blood stem cell donors, as they believe that not one single person suffering with a type of blood cancer should die because they are unable to find a matching blood stem cell donor and we couldn’t agree more!

Student marketing is what we do (and what we do best!) so using our knowledge and relationships with key student institutions we are helping Delete Blood Cancer UK to roll out its student facing campaign that aims to address the lack of young, healthy and ethnically diverse blood stem cell donors on the UK registry. With a member of each student body becoming an ambassador, the aim is to hold a donor recruitment drive, including events on campus to help raise awareness of blood stem cell donation.

Patrick Ryan, Project Manager Donor Recruitment at Delete Blood Cancer UK, says:

“BAM has assisted us in this mission by offering free promotional space in a vast array of universities, which enables DBC UK to reach the heart of the demographic our campaign, Students Versus Blood Cancer, is trying to reach.

Our partnership will enable more young adults to become potential life-savers and educate the next generation of the importance and genuine difference registering as a blood stem cell donor can make.”

We are really excited to be working with Delete Blood Cancer UK and the whole team is really eager to help the charity to spread the message of its campaign. It’s really important for those who are increasingly suffering from blood cancer to have access to donors, and we are hoping that this campaign with our support will help to raise awareness of this and ultimately increase the number of UK registered donors.

Get in touch with our team for more information.

If you would like to know more about DBC UK, or sign up as a donor, please visit www.deletebloodcancer.org.uk

Be awesome at student marketing

Last month – yes it’s almost a whole month ago we were all loving life at YMS16, how time flies – we lead a cracking panel talk with some other pretty important industry peeps about best practice when executing student marketing campaigns.

It’s safe to say that there was quite a lot of juicy insight shared and some equally interesting ideas to take away and apply to your next campaign. So for those who didn’t manage to catch all the gems, here is a quick recap on the best bits.

What is the role of student marketing campaigns today?
We explained there was no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach as it differs depending on the brand or client that we are working with. However, if you look at the role in a broader context, the most obvious point to make is that the student market is a lucrative one, estimated between £15-£20 billion, so can a brand afford not to create campaigns that target this market? Certainly not, and its not just because of the potential spending power this demographic has.

University is often the first time that young people start making their own buying decisions and brand affiliations. They have a chance to reinvent themselves and engage with new people, new products, and new brands. We believes the role of any student campaign is to try and begin building a relationship; there are so many emotive milestones that a student has and the ability for a brand to align themselves with those is crucial.

giphy The role of brands when marketing to students is the same for any demographic they are targeting – to sell. However, we’re finding through our independent research that students are much more savvy these days and have higher values that they expect to see from the brands they engage with and ultimately buy from. Students, in a nutshell, care more about the products they are using so are more aware of CSR issues.

The rise of social media and experiential marketing campaigns
At BAM, when planning campaigns for our clients and brands, we look at all the channels available and determine at the off which are going to be the best to deliver the objectives set out. It’s safe to say that the higher education space has never had more routes to market. While on the one hand, this makes life more complex, for the most part of it, it gives clients much more ability and flexibility to get the results they need.

We’ve seen a substantial increase in inquiries from clients and other brands asking how they can incorporate social media and experiential activity into their marketing plans. First-hand experience at Freshers’ events and seeing the power these kinds of integrated campaigns can have has been great to see. It’s now about harnessing these channels to further deliver against wider business objectives and not just isolated student-targeted campaigns.

Our Top Tips
Just remember ROPES:

Research: Don’t try and launch your brand into the student space simply because it is a lucrative market. If it doesn’t fit the youth/student demographic, don’t force it! Ask some students what they think about your service before doing anything else.

Objectives: Start with the end in mind. What are the objectives and how will you measure the success of your campaign?

Plan: Plan, plan, plan. And make sure you give yourself enough time too. The student market is pretty laid back but it still needs a lot of planning time to get things right.

Execute: Don’t run a halfhearted campaign. Execute it effectively. Better investing less and doing it well rather than stretching the budget too thinly. Always use peer-to-peer when doing an onsite activity, not two glum-looking old chaps who can’t relate to your brand or audience.

Start a Conversation: Whatever that is. It has to evoke some feeling and spark a reaction. Gamify on-site activity to build a value exchange. Make it authentic, don’t try and be something you are not.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help your brand develop a marketing strategy to incorporate student targeting, please contact us.

BAM buys email rights from Exeter Guild of Students

BAM are pleased to reveal that we have purchased the media rights to the University of Exeter Students’ Guild solus email media channel for the 2016/17 academic year.

In this exciting new development we can exclusively sell solus emails to brands wanting to target the students of Exeter. With a database of over 19,000 students and an impressive 40% open rate this is an excellent channel to add to our portfolio.

In addition BAM have the ability to segment the database for clients looking to send a more targeted email. The current statistics for the database is as follows:

Total students:
19,789

Student Type:
Undergraduate 79%, Postgraduate 18.5%

Country of origin:
UK 69%, non UK 31%.

College:
College of Humanities 20.3%,
College of Social Sciences and International Studies: 20.3%,
Business School: 19.5%,
College of Life and Environmental Sciences 16.4%,
College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences: 11.9%,
Medical School 4.8%,
Flexible Combined Honours 3.7%
INTO: 3.1%

We are delighted to be able to offer this fantastic opportunity to brands whilst working more closely with the University of Exeter Students’ Guild, supporting their growth and development;

“Working with BAM to deliver our in demand targeted mailer platform makes perfect sense. With their access to major brands, our students are regular in communication with leading national and international companies, improving their university experience, whilst we have the security of guaranteed revenue meaning the Guild can continue to develop other areas of our portfolio.”

– Ross Trant, Sales Manager, University of Exeter Students’ Guild

To book a student solus email send or for more information please get in touch with our team for more information.

Freshers’ unplugged: New research

To create an engaging youth marketing campaign, brands must first get to grips with what students are all about. This was a hot topic at the YMS16 conference this year, with BAM, leading a discussion with Greggs, Doddle, and The Guardian on why the student market has become such an integral part of so many brands’ marketing plans. The team also shared some best practice guidance on how to engage with this unique and diverse market.

So, what’s the student market all about we hear you ask?

Well, here are some stats taken from some recent research we carried out:

Of the 5.8m 18-24 year olds in the UK, 1.9m are in full time education*
Out of 1.8m, 1.3m undergraduates are under the age of 24**
The student market can be very receptive to face-to-face promotion, even something as simple as gamifying a campaign rather than just handing out freebies can actually double campaign results
95% of the brands we surveyed used more than one method or channel when targeting students

BAM live on the main stage presenting at the ‘Overview of the Student market’

What does this actually mean for brands wanting to engage with the youth market?

Essentially, a huge opportunity! Students account for such a significant proportion of 16-24 year olds, that marketing to this demographic shouldn’t be ignored. In addition, with the youth market being so diverse in its behaviour, students provide a certain level of continuity that can’t be found elsewhere.

Students like to be engaged in a number of ways, however from our research we have found that the preferred method of receiving information about events and trends is via word of mouth. However, BAM delved deeper into what he believed word of mouth actually meant:

“We don’t think that it refers to a direct conversation with a friend or housemate. It refers to a wider conversation that is taking place within their community.”

Which leads us to the most challenging question that we get asked when a brand wants to engage with the student market – “how do we get this market to start talking about us?”

The challenge is increased by the fact that there are so many ways to engage with this generation; a recent survey (link?) showed that brands still value face-to-face promotion, with 64% using this approach in the past 12 months. This tactic can often be perceived as being a bit too full on, however, we’ve found that with the right approach and offering, the student market can be very receptive to receiving information this way. It offers a real human element, a connection between brand and consumer that will never be fully achieved through other channels.

Of course, it’s not always quite that simple. We recently asked a selection of organisations to sum up their experience of the student market and there were the usual positive terms such as ‘fun’, ‘dynamic’, ‘lucrative’, ‘brand loyal’, but two of the most common terms were actually ‘difficult’ and ‘challenging’. There was also a general feeling that the marketplace is overcrowded and brands can get lost among the noise. This is something that we totally agree with, however we can also assure brands that if your campaign is engaging, relates to the market and connects with the individual, you won’t be forgotten, you’ll be loved and talked about.

So, if you would like to have a chat about how we can help you connect with the student market, get in touch!

*Source ONS ** Source HESA