Freshers Week is one of the most exciting events on a student’s calendar, as it signifies the start of their journey into independence. Many will be moving away from home and their family for the first time, they will be living independently, making their own decisions, and balancing work and play as they attend a university in a city with which they may be unfamiliar.
This week is also a unique opportunity for businesses in uni towns to promote themselves and attract new customers. Businesses that stand to benefit the most from their position within a uni town are those whose customer demographic is young, curious, excited students and for whom they offer solutions to the common problems that they are likely to face or experiences that will enhance their university journey.
The first step to garnering the attention of your potential new customer base is letting them know that you exist. You may be planning to run promotional events, to collaborate with the university in your town or city, or utilise social media to showcase your wares, but one tried and tested method of ingratiating your business into the lives of the people you wish to engage with is to offer them promotional material that bears your company logo, name, motto or image.
Suitable Promotional Items
Lanyards and wristbands are amongst the most popular items collected by students during Freshers Week. They serve as identification tools, fashion accessories and ice breakers. By issuing the students with whom you come into contact a lanyard or wristband bearing your business information, you automatically turn that student into a walking advertisement for your business.
How You Can Connect with Students
There are many ways in which you can connect with the students who will soon be flocking to your town or city:
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Collaborate with student organisations.
Every university has a number of clubs and societies which will be actively welcoming new members and promoting themselves. You can support these organisations by sponsoring their events, providing them with promotional material or creating joint marketing campaigns to establish your business’ connection with relevant student organisations.
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Have a booth at welcome events.
Many universities will offer local businesses the opportunity to have a booth at their welcome events and Freshers Fairs. This is a superb opportunity that should not be passed up, as it allows your business to engage directly with the students who may become your customers. Attract them to your booth with an eye-catching display that explains who you are, what you do and your mission. You could consider offering special offers or freebies to make sure that students stop at your booth long enough for you to start up a conversation.
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Collaborate with accommodation providers.
Many of the students who attend university will be moving away from home and into rented or university-provided accommodation. By collaborating with accommodation providers in your local town or city, you may be able to include promotional material such as vouchers, special offers or freebies bearing your company logo within their welcome packs.
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Use social media effectively.
Social media is a powerful marketing tool for your business and especially so when an influx of new potential customers is forecast to descend on your home town in one fell swoop. Use this opportunity to create captivating social media campaigns, prepare contests and partner with student bloggers to expand your reach. Include your hashtags or Facebook links in promotional material so that happy students can tag you in their social media posts, which will increase your brand’s visibility amongst their peers.
Remember, you are in this for the long-term. You will need to be active both at the start of the freshers’ journey, and throughout the entire duration that the customers that you acquire during this time remain at university in your community. You will be striving to deliver exceptional levels of customer service at all times, acknowledging just how hard you fought to acquire each new customer that this week provides.
You may consider offering incentives or access to loyalty programmes to those students who keep the wristbands or lanyards that you issued during their first week at university. For this strategy to be effective, you will need to ensure that the quality of your promotional material is faultless. Why not talk to the friendly team at Lancaster Printing, to see how we can help you to create a long-term, meaningful business relationship with the students who will soon descend on your town.
