Campus Solutions Blog

College Sports fans are very loyal fans who get excited and enthusiastic when there is a big event. They are the perfect audience to target when looking to promote new or existing snacks and food items.

These fans can be targeted during college football tailgating events. Tailgating is a fun, energetic environment where fans are made up of students, friends, family, and alumni. This target audience is keen to trying new products, such as snacks, a cool beverage, or a new food item. Reaching this audience prior to the start of the game is ideal for promoting your product because people are eating, drinking, laughing and all around enjoying themselves.

Campus Solutions can help reach these enthusiastic fans during the college sports tailgating season. Many people attend a college sporting event each year, making it a great opportunity to get your brand noticed by a large group of consumers willing to try new food. If interested in further information check out our websitewww.campussolutionsinc.com.

Summer is quickly approaching and beaches, as well as campuses, will be filled with college students. The college demographic is an important consumer group and there are many methods to reach them during the summer months. Its beneficial to reach brands on the beach during the summer because this is mostly where this demographic can be found. Marketing on the beach can be done in various ways. Street teams can distribute an assortment of promotional items, such as samples, towels, or branded umbrellas. Our street teams can also spray the young men and women with sun tan lotion, and introduce them to the brand.

Aside from beaches, college students can also be reached on off-campus apartments. Our teams can do branded pool parties that include DJs, plenty of food, tabling, and lots of swag to give out.

On average, 1/3 of college students stay on campus for summer sessions, keeping campuses busy during the summer months. This is the perfect time to reach out to college students. Brands can take advantage of reaching large groups of students in a clutter- free environment through college event marketing. Community colleges are also great in the summer because many students fulfill their summer requirements on a campus near their homes. These students can be reached through direct mail or even e-blasts.

Campus Solutions can help you reach these students before the college back-to-school season. For more information, please visit our website at campussolutionsinc.com.

It won’t be long until it’s the first day of the semester again and many students will be moving in to their dorms. Campus Solutions provides opportunities for companies to reach out to the collegiate demographic on-campus the days leading up to the first day of class. We can provide you with many effective back-to-school dorm room strategies to reach out to students living on campus as they move in. Many of these students will be making many first time purchases such as dorm room furniture, clothing and electronics.

A back-to-school promotion may include a product or your company’s material that will be distributed the days leading up to the first day of class. This may include door hangers, or a promotional piece to ensure that students see your brand as they’re moving in. We encourage brands to contact Campus Solutions when considering a college marketing strategy as these “Welcome Back” promotions will guarantee success of your college initiative.

For more information, please visit Campus Solutions’s website at www.campussolutionsinc.com

Finals week is quickly approaching and students will begin switching their focus from socializing to studying. More and more students will begin hanging out on campus lawns, coffee shops, and of course the library. This is the perfect opportunity for marketers to identify college students as their target demographic and work with them before the school semester is over. Brands and companies worldwide take advantage of finals week not only to help students stay focused and motivated, but to bring more awareness to their brand in the process.

This is a perfect season to initiate college marketing efforts and help students reduce their stress. The weeks leading up to finals are a crucial time for students to stay healthy. This can be done by providing product sampling, healthy study time snack breaks, or coffee to keep them awake and motivated. These are a few ideas in which your brand can retain brand loyalty and take advantage to reach out to your college demographic during finals week.

At Campus Solutions, Inc. we work with students who need that extra motivation to make it through Finals Week. Campus Solutions, Inc. specializes in campus event marketing initiatives and on-campus media in order to reach these students. For more information please visit our website at www.campussolutionsinc.com

It’s halfway through the semester and many students are following March Madness, studying for midterms, and getting ready for an exciting spring break. For many consumer brands, this March season is a perfect opportunity for brands to initiate their college marketing efforts by reaching out to this college demographic.

During March Madness, the NCAA Men’s Division basketball championship is what you will mostly catch a college student watching. Many students are looking for places other than their dorm to gather with their friends and watch their favorite teams. A Fan Zone would be the perfect place not only for these students, but for companies to host, advertise, and provide food and snacks for them as well. This will allow your brand to gain major brand awareness and give the students a great place to hang out and watch the game.

During midterm week, students’ priorities shift from social activities to studying around campus. Large groups of students tend to go all over campus, from the library to coffee shops to campus lawns, in order to study and read their lecture notes. This is a great opportunity for clients to reach this demographic by handing out snack samples in order to promote healthy study breaks.

Here at Campus Solutions we are staffed with people to help make your marketing campaign unique and effective this 2013 season. For more information, visit us at campussolutionsinc.com

Pizza box advertising is one of the most effective ways to get your message or brand inside the homes, dorms, and offices of consumers nationwide. One of the many advantages of pizza box advertising is that there are no market restrictions. You can choose virtually any market so long as there are independent or small chain pizzerias in close proximity. From a global perspective, there are about 80,000 total pizzerias nationwide, including large chains such as Pizza Hut, Domino’s, etc. Of that number, there are about 60,000 to 65,000 independent and small chain pizzerias. This makes it possible to reach out to many sought after demographics as they dine together with family and friends.

Utilizing Campus Solutions’ pizza media network, we own printing plants and distribution facilities across the country. We also deliver your pizza boxes, in our own fleet of trucks, to many pizzerias that are already our customers. We successfully execute all the elements of your campaign in order to reach out to as many consumers in the region. We are fully national and are able to customize coverage right down to the zip code or neighborhood for a better reach.

We are here to help you produce pizza box advertising campaigns for your brand. This is a great opportunity to bring your message indoors with outdoor advertising. For more information please visit our website atwww.campussolutionsinc.com.

The time of year where most college students get to relax, forget about school, and have fun is fast approaching. Spring Break is right around the corner and college students are getting ready to go on vacation to the hottest locations. This is the perfect opportunity to reach thousands of students from over 350 college campuses. This could be done by connecting with them on beaches, in hotels, in clubs, or at restaurants at the top domestic Spring Break destinations.

One location that has been an effective way to reach the college student is Panama City Beach. Panama City Beach in Florida is the number one college spring break hotspot. It has a high concentration of over 250,000 college students representing over 300 colleges and universities. Certain locations in Panama City, such as Spinnaker Beach Club and Boardwalk Beach Resort, provide unique daytime and night-time entertainment that are perfect for reaching the college student demographic. We can effectively reach this target audience by providing branded tents and street teams that would be located at the most heavily-trafficked areas of the beach. Other on-site opportunities include product sampling, hotel branding, in-room hotel promotion, and daytime and nighttime marketing.

Campus Solutions’ extensive network of college media offerings include a variety of unique and effective Spring Break tactics for your company this 2013 season. For more information, visit us at campussolutionsinc.com

Facebook has recently taken the first step toward challenging Google’s search engine by introducing a new tool, Graph Search. Not to be compared to Google, Graph Search is not a search engine as it does not direct users to a series of links. Instead, it directs users to people, photos, places, or pages that already exist on Facebook. For example, if someone searches for friends who like a certain brand, Graph Search will show them a list of friends who have shown an interest in that brand.

So how does this relate to marketers? Every time someone searches for something, your brand will have an opportunity to appear on Facebook. This creates a tie between the Facebook user and your brand page, providing a chance for your brand to reach a vast amount of people. This is beneficial to your brand because it will help you build a fan base and create engaging content that will be available to your fans and friends of your fans when they search for your brand.

Another benefit to marketers could be the use of social context and intent. This combination will make it possible for advertisers to use Facebook to better reach their target audience. An article from AdAge offers this scenario:

“Imagine what happens when you combine intent [what you’re looking to buy], social context [what your friends like] and custom audiences (i.e. the data you have about your customers). All of a sudden, Ford can advertise to friends of their current customers who are in the market for a car today. That’s exciting and opens up many possibilities to take loyalty and social referrals to the next level.”

Whatever the tools marketers decide to utilize, the challenge will be to secure a tighter conversation between student and brand.  For more information on reaching the college audience, please visit campussolutionsinc.com

Massive Open Online Courses are online courses that are free and open to anyone. This program marks a fast-growing movement in which many universities are taking a part of, such as Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, the University of California, and the University of Texas. This program offers students self-paced learning through video lectures, homework, exams, discussion boards, and other digital options. For years, students have been able to receive study materials from colleges and take part in online classes. But those classes were not designed for thousands of students at one time, let alone for free! This is changing education for the better and sparking a movement in which those who cannot afford college can still partake in certain online courses to better educate themselves.

MOOC platform providers such as Coursera, edX, and Udacity believe higher education is a basic human right and want to be able to provide these students with the best courses from the best professors from the best universities. Most of the courses are designed with a video lecture which then pauses in order to quiz you to make sure you understand the material. The feedback is electronic and their may be homework and a final exam. There are also class discussion boards in which you can interact with the professor or with other students. This is a great opportunity for students and colleges as it has the potential to redefine the college experience and business model. This program has high hopes that the free courses can bring the best education in the world to anyone with internet access and hopefully help them in their careers and network.

The Spring semester is right around the corner! While students are enjoying their holiday break and preparing for the new semester that lies ahead, marketers should be doing the same. The Spring semester brings many unique opportunities, not only for the students, but for the companies who want to reach out to this niche college student demographic.

While most of the country associates the Fall semester with incoming freshmen, a significant percentage of students either transfer or begin their school year during the Spring semester. Whether transfer students or new students, both groups are new to campus and the area, making for a great audience to target. Both freshmen and transfer students are more likely to engage with activities happening on campus, making this a perfect opportunity to create relationships at the start of the semester. Targeting to incoming freshmen can be done by implementing various marketing strategies such as large branded events in the student union, brands’ college street teams and providing freebies and coupons.

Not to mention marketers are less likely to be on campus in the Spring, which is a huge advantage for brands because it means they will have higher exposure at this time.

Aside from incoming freshmen, there are other excellent opportunities that lie ahead for the spring semester. One of them being Spring Break, which is a college student’s favorite! By targeting students off campus at popular Spring Break locations and on beaches, hotels and clubs, marketers are able to reach out to thousands of students from universities and colleges throughout the country.

Last but not least, as freshmen are settling in, seniors are getting ready to graduate.  This is a terrific opportunity to reach both graduating students and their parents during their final weeks in college. There are many marketing strategies that can be implemented to interact with the crowd of students and parents during graduation week such as product sampling, street teams, demonstrations or tabled events on campus. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity.

Campus Solutions encourages companies interested in learning more to visit our website at www.campussolutionsinc.com