The air is crisp, the leaves are starting to change, students are flocking back onto campus and alumni are gathering around tailgates chanting their alma mater’s fight song. It?s everyone?s favorite time of year: college football season!
Why is college football season the perfect time to organize an on campus giveaway?
There are plenty of ways that you can use promotional products to accomplish your marketing objective:
- You Can Engage New Students: As with the beginning of any school year, students are bright eyed and engaged. This is particularly true for new students. Knowing that your target market is eager, your goal with an on campus promotion should be to extend that feeling for as long as possible. One way is to engage new students at orientation. Orientation is a great time to elevate the sense of community by handing out branded merchandise with a call to action. An example of a measurable call to action could be to incentivize new students to wear the branded t-shirt they received at orientation into the bookstore and sing the college fight song at checkout. If they do, then they get a certain percentage off their bookstore purchase. It?s a win/win – you are able collect data and track ROI, while they create camaraderie amongst fellow classmates.
- You Can Increase School Pride & Spirit: We got spirit yes we do we got spirit how about you?” It?s a college stadium chant that echoes from coast to coast each Fall. College football game day giveaways are continuously one of the most recognized and successful on campus promotions year after year. Branded rally towels plastic cups foam fingers and mini-footballs are amongst the top promotional products handed out on game days. So how do you ensure ROI and differentiation? One way is by pairing the branded product with an interactive social media campaign. Create a hashtag for students and alumni to use when posting game day pictures and comments on Facebook Twitter and Instagram. Incentivize the campaign by adding a reward for the fans with the most “likes the most creative picture, or the most school spirit by the end of the campaign.
- You Can Expand Your Alumni Community: No matter if they are recent graduates or now have grandchildren attending the same school, there is nothing like the connection alumni have with their alma mater. Football season brings alumni from near and far onto campus to cheer for their team and their school. This is the perfect time to organize alumni events, homecoming celebrations, and fundraisers. If you plan ahead and want to ensure ROI, the promotion can start prior to your alumni even arriving on campus. One way to collect data and reach out to your expanding alumni association is through an e-mail, social media or direct mailing campaign. Any one of these types of campaigns should also have a call to action. For example, if the alumni RSVP via e-mail, check-in via social media, or bring the mailer to the event, then they receive a branded promotional product giveaway when they arrive. This two-pronged approach not only increases community interaction, it also yields measurable results.
College campus giveaways are timeless and, if done correctly, have the ability to exponentially expand brand loyalty.
Looking for ideas for your on-campus giveaway? Give us a call at (401) 438-0650 and we’ll come up with a custom proposal specifically for your event!
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