25 Jan

When it comes to brand marketing, demographics can matter. And as companies find a way to grow and safeguard their revenues in future years, they are increasingly turning to generation Z. So, if you want to appeal to students, you need to use a specific process. One way to do this is to develop a brand ambassador program in your target community. How can you produce student brand ambassadors that will make a difference?

Marketing to Students

Bloomberg performed some research on disposable income. Researchers found that generation Z has approximately US$360 billion of money available to spend. As the research concluded, brands need to win over this generation if they want to succeed. The best way to do this is to turn to ambassador marketing, which is a great business strategy, as it leverages peer-to-peer influence. After all, students are much more likely to listen to and trust their peers, especially in a neutral environment, which should translate to conversions.

Defining a Student Brand Ambassador

But what is a student brand ambassador? It’s an individual whose services are retained by your company to act as your mouthpiece on campus. They can conduct presentations, maintain social media and recommend your organisation over the alternatives. As time goes by, they should prompt prospects to research the product or service and take advantage of any available discounts. In turn, these other students may become unofficial brand ambassadors when they interact with their friends and family.

Remember, students are very sociable and tend to live in something of a ‘bubble’ during their on-campus years. This means that they are far more likely to trust the opinions of their peers, and ambassador marketing should work particularly well in this environment.

Getting Started With Your Brand Ambassador Program

You need to choose the best student brand ambassadors you can find and should begin by establishing your goals and strategies. For example, you may simply want to increase your social media presence and get a key figure to manage that output. You may want someone who can answer any questions or concerns from prospects or new customers.

Next, you can look for the ideal candidates. They may have an established online presence and may already be at the centre of social and cultural activity. Perhaps they have some existing experience in the marketing world or are keen to improve their skills. They may even be studying marketing at the college or university.

Crucially, they need to understand and embrace your brand purpose and value. After all, they need to believe in what they are effectively selling.

Managing Your Program

Once you have chosen your brand ambassadors, you need to define a list of activities. Perhaps they could host events or distribute flyers around the campus.  One of their key jobs may be to engage other students and train them accordingly.

Clearly, your student ambassadors will need some type of remuneration. Occasionally, it may be enough to give them a free product supply, but otherwise, you can pay them according to each level of marketing activity, per event organised or per post.

With technology so advanced these days, it should be relatively easy to train your ambassadors online. This will make it much easier to launch and roll out the program. Once your ambassadors are ready to get underway, you need to keep in touch with them, especially in the early days. Again, use established online networks to make this easy.

As the program rolls along, track its progress. Use various online tools to monitor your mentions, and don’t forget to give your ambassadors custom links, codes or hashtags so that you can assess their efforts.

Getting Help with Your Brand Ambassador Program

If you need help establishing a brand ambassador program, reach out to the experts at Eventeem. They can provide the best event staff for every occasion and will recruit and retain the best brand ambassadors for your project. They can also set you up with conference staff or promotional staff, and the company is trusted by multiple well-known brands around the country.