They have such a hard life, constant partying, no real sense of responsibility, and a couple of lectures spread sporadically throughout their week. They do have bad tempers, demonstratedhere so probably best not to rub them up the wrong way…
The interesting thing about them is that they are extremely cynical, extraordinarily tech savvy, exceedingly trend aware and surprisingly susceptible to good quality communications.
We have recently embarked on a student focused online/experiential campaign and have the scars to prove it. We’ve discovered that as with most intelligible beings communication needs to be a give and take process. Given their characteristics, students require a particular effort, they aren’t difficult, they just need communication to be absolutely brilliant! (ie very pertinent, engaging and followed by free stuff!)
A few small golden nuggets for student focused campaigns:
- Find a tone of voice that’s accessible, that you are comfortable with, and that you feel you can maintain.
- Be open minded about the things you decide are relevant, i.e. not just issues directly related to the campaign. Diversification keeps things fresh.
- Make communication open and engaging and invite response by remaining relevant not by asking people to respond, students don’t react well to being asked to do anything.
- Credibility is key, so positive brand associations, targeted exposure and maintaining reasonable marketing spend and are essential.
- Finally, choose your sites very carefully, and gain intimate knowledge of the university sites as universities differ considerably; what works in one is almost guaranteed not to work in another.
Students aren’t much different to you or I, except that they are very aware of themselves, and have slightly more time on their hands then we do. People generally want interesting content, and love something with a useful kickback. If you can make it interesting, engaging, useful it will fly!
ML
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