Posted by Conor on 25 Apr 2018
Over the last 10 years, we’ve helped deliver over 250 brand ambassador campaigns across UK and Irish universities through On-Campus Promotions, and we’ve discovered the secrets to making a brand stand out on campus. Here are our top tips for running a great brand ambassador campaign.
What makes a brand ignite on campus? Exceptional students. Inspiring students.
The best campaigns are built on students that live and breathe your brand and help connect your organisation with a wider audience. They are student influencers.
Hiring influencers can be expensive, and Instagram celebrities do not accept Monopoly money. You also have to consider the fact that up to 75% of the influencer’s followers may not be students. The solution: create your own brand advocates at a fraction of the cost!
Brand Ambassadors work as micro-influencers, connecting your brand with smaller audiences but with higher levels of engagement.
They go through a tailored recruitment process so that they fit your ideal candidate profile and are bought into your company’s values. The recruitment and training is designed to ensure that students can represent and promote your brand with authenticity to their peers.
Finding the best students to represent your brand is the first step, but the difference between a good campaign and an award-winning campaign is great content.
Why is content so important? Student attraction is not just about telling your audience about your fantastic schemes, it’s about connecting with them and selling a future career.
The most effective way of connecting with students in this way is to let Brand Ambassadors create their own content and messaging. Don’t be afraid to encourage them to be content marketers for your company.
Influencer marketing is based on the peer to peer relationships built between the influencer and and their followers. Brand Ambassadors are students, they live and work on campus and know what type of content will resonate with other students. They know their audience best!
One Brand Ambassador created the below stop motion video promoting application deadlines - it’s cinema-worthy. This is a great example of the type of content that students can produce if you give them the creative license to do so.
This approach is essential for social media content too. We sent a survey to the RateMyPlacement database, which showed that Facebook is the most popular social platform amongst Generation Z - in fact, 65% of students use Facebook when they’re seeking employer opportunities.
The new algorithm means that employer-led posts have less reach than personal content. Peer to peer content produced by students will fare better than your own marketing activities on social platforms.
Booking locations on campus can be competitive, especially law fairs! Why not cut the costs and get your Brand Ambassadors to spread awareness in the most popular (and free) areas on campus?
Brand Ambassadors are experts in targeting niche audiences that are hard to reach for employers. If your organisation is trying to increase the diversity of your workforce, Brand Ambassadors can help tap into specific groups by running their own events and signing up students to build your talent pipeline.
For example, one of our Brand Ambassadors ran a collaborative event with the Leeds Women in Engineering society gaining 40 engaged attendees who opted in to hear more about the company.
Brand Ambassadors can support your events strategy by driving attendance through a mixture of online and campus techniques. This ranges from creative posts in private Facebook groups to a short presentations after a lecture. Peer to peer promotion is relatable and this is why Brand Ambassadors can attract those hard to reach students to help you fill your roles.
A successful campaign is is built on clear objectives. What are your priorities as a business? What are your target universities? How will you measure success?
By setting clear objectives, Brand Ambassadors can focus their efforts on the relevant online and offline activities that matter to you as a business.
Before launching a campaign, it is crucial that you identify your pain points and have an understanding of why they exist. Objectives are the backbone of any campaign that help shape the scope and targets. This structure sets your campaign up for success in order to provide a visible return on investment.
Peer to peer works.
Whilst we are in a digital age, feedback from recent focus groups has shown that students still appreciate meaningful and personal interactions. Brand Ambassadors can compliment your digital and campus strategy to ensure your brand is consistently at the forefront of students’ minds in the lead up to key events and deadlines.
In a nutshell, great Brand Ambassador campaigns run on motivated, career-driven students, engaging content and clear objectives that tie it all together together.
Need help running a Brand Ambassador campaign? Head on over to our On-Campus Promotions page to find out more and get in touch.