Wall Street Journal Student Marketing campaign

The Wall Street Journal has over 1,800 journalists (450 in Europe alone) working across the globe to deliver interesting and engaging content, covering all topical news from politics and economics, to sport and stardom. However, among the student market, there is a general misconception that the publication is only worthwhile reading if you are interested in the stock markets of America, making the Wall Street Journal, for many, a publication that falls to the bottom of the pile.

In the summer of 2014, the Wall Street Journal identified the UK student market as one they wanted to explore to generate new, long-term subscriptions. BAM has a track record of working with high profile publications to generate subscriptions, so was approached by the Wall Street Journal to help run a test campaign to determine whether there was demand for a student-specific deal on its digital package.

BAM was set the following campaign objectives:

1. To help overcome student misconceptions of the Wall Street Journal
2. To engage with students across the UK to raise brand awareness
3. To help determine whether there is demand for a student-specific digital package

Approach

Working closely with the Wall Street Journal, BAM helped to plan and execute a Freshers’ Fair tour across 10 locations with the aim to change student brand perceptions and encourage new sign-ups. BAM provided strategic advice and guidance on which universities and fairs were the best to attend; which had the highest footfall to leverage as much reach as possible and how to successfully engage with the students at each university location.

In addition to delivering all the logistical aspects of the campaign, BAM provided face-to-face sales specialists to help with the execution on-campus. BAM’s extended promotional team were equipped with free samples to help them attract students in the first instance. It was then down to the individuals to convince their peers that the Wall Street Journal should be their news source of choice.

During the campaign, the promotional team demonstrated their ability to harness the skills and techniques required to successfully sell subscriptions to students and they managed to consistently achieve their individual sales targets.

Results

Working with BAM’s on-site representatives, the overall campaign generated close to 300 new subscriptions. More importantly, BAM was able to generate real and meaningful interactions with students, providing the Wall Street Journal with insight into this vast youth market, while raising brand awareness and delivering the benefits that the Wall Street Journal can offer to students.

The results of the test campaign have established that there is in fact a demand for the Wall Street Journal within the student market, and plans are now under-way to grow the campaign in its second year.