We at Student Village help companies market their products and services to 18-24 yr olds on campuses throughout South Africa. We’ve been helping companies do this for over 8 years through an array of services including campus events, media on campus, publications and digital. We meet a lot of clients every day and a lot of the same questions come up regarding online and mobile. I’ve picked the 10 most common ones, which I hope will help you in designing your digital strategies.
Tertiary students have one of the highest access to the internet in the country through computer labs on their campuses. According to AMPS the 16-24 age group access the internet over a year period more than any other age group in South Africa ! Amps also reveal that students who have studied at university access the internet more than any other education level received. Some other quick facts – The university population currently sits at around 740,000 spanning 23 official universities If you weren’t convinced before that digital is a great opportunity for advertising, consider that with the recent completion of the Seacom cable, South African universities will be the first to benefit on the real “digital superhighway” (CLICK) which boasts 32 times the speed that is currently offered. By 2011 there will be another 5 cables laid increasing our bandwidth by over a 100 , making way for a true digital revolution in South Africa. What this means is that that their will be some amazing opportunities for different types of online advertising, including video, and rich multimedia.
I wish I could take this picture with me wherever I go because it so accurately describes the answer. Yes, you can build your own social networking site, yes you can throw some marketing bucks at it to draw the crowds, but can you sustain it through continued relevance, and if not you’re likely to go where this bike is headed. When clients ask me whether they should create their own social network website I always ask them “What business are you in”. Unless you’re facebook your business is not about social networking. If you’re Converse your business is shoes and apparel. If its Nokia it’s phones and communication. Brands should tap into well established digital platforms that already contain the markets they are looking to target. At Student Village we have had a couple of brands tap into the already thriving online community of students….
These include Nokia, Smirnoff Spin and Converse. While a conversation about what each of these brands successfully did would be an entire talk on its own, what I can say is that what these brands have in common is that they have smart marketing managers and agencies who understood the magic that happens when you tap into existing networks. They also realize that they can still concentrate on their core business while still creating relevancy to their target audience.
While online media owners offer different things, these are some of the online offerings that we offer our clients. Would anyone care to guess which on this list is the least effective ? What’s interesting from this list is that 80% of the online bookings we get come in the form of online banners – a very traditional medium. We have found that the greatest success has actually come through online competitions, viral applications and community sponsorships – what I spoke about in the previous slide. These elements have often delivered up to 10X the results than interactive banners have
But there is nothing wrong with using online banners…and if you are going to use them how can you increase your effectiveness. Which leads to the next question “How many clicks will my banner get”…asked another way you could say "How do I know whether my campaign is doing well against the industry norms?" For Banners the International average for click throughs is 0.4%. That means for every 1000 views a banner gets 4 people click on it If you are getting anything higher than that your campaign is doing well by international standards. Click throughs depend on a lot of things including: The banner creative The duration of the campaign How many other banners appear on the site you are advertising Your positioning on the site will also make a difference.
The answer is “How Integrated is your online campaign” with your other marketing elements ?
The best way I can demonstrate online Integration done at its very best is the Smirnoff Spin Brand Ambassador campaign which we run on behalf of Brand house. Every year we help Smirnoff go to campus to recruit the coolest and most influential students to represent the Smirnoff Spin Brand as Brand Ambassadors. These ambassadors host and infiltrate the hottest events on campus throughout the year, and drive volumes of the product. (CLICK) Media on campus (such as illuminated billboards, posters and campus radio) is used to create the excitement that Smirnoff Spin have arrived. (CLICK) The brand ambassadors create hype on-the-ground via peer-to-peer channels, handing out business cards that drive students from their campus to join the online SPIN community which is hosted within www.studentvillage.co.za By being part of the online community students would stand a strong chance of being invited to the hottest , most exclusive parties of the year. (CLICK) Pictures are taken at every SPIN event, and hosted at the online Spin Community where students are drawn back to the site to see themselves and share the pictures with other friends. They can also join discussion boards, and connect with other students who attended Spin parties from other campuses. The online community also allows SPIN to conduct research within the community. Last time I checked the community was sitting at over 22,500 students – that’s a great sample base to work from. So Smirnoff Spin got this right. They integrated media on campus, together with on-the-ground marketing through the brand ambassadors , driving everyone online to be part of a thriving community and ultimately driving volumes.
But digital also encompasses mobile, which means students are accessing the internet from their cellphones. We conducted a recent study asking students what they use their cellphones for, and this is what came up – read.
A student that see’s this billboard can register right away via their cell phone, and not have to remember to do this when they hit the computer labs next. This kind of immediate gratification certainly has value. The real question is – should you always have a mobi site linked to every promotion or competition you run. The trend shows that accessing the internet via mobi sites will take over PC. So the answer is to have a mobi site as well as your website link on your creative materials.
We have found that students vehemently resist Bluetooth messages. There’s a strong stigma that Bluetooth equals spam.
We have found SMS to be the most effective when it is used as part of an integrated campaign and especially to drive students to events on campus.
This event we put together for Scrutinize was predominantly marketed via SMS and this is the results. Its difficult to put a concrete figure on it, but stand-alone sms’s that drive product messages are simply not as effective as driving students feet to events on campus.
SMS shortcodes are like those 35050 numbers which is typically a premium rated sms for a call-to-action. If you are planning a campaign which relies on interacting with South African students, make sure that they can engage with you quickly, easily and cost effectively. That means you shouldn’t even entertain having a shortcode sms to reply to ,even if it costs just R1. A student thinks like this “If I buy R5 airtime, why should I waste 20% of it replying to a sms ?” Rather opt for a WAP mobi site, – that costs students almost nothing to respond to , and is still quick ‘n easy.
Integrating mobile with your other elements will heighten the effectiveness of your campaign dramatically. For example the National women’s leadership conference we run every year is marketed to the elite female leaders on campuses around the country. Billboards on campus, flyers, posters and campus radio let potential delegates know that they need to apply either via the website or mobi site Of the thousands of entries that we received this year, we found a 30% increase coming through cell phones than online. Students who are selected then receive their invitation via email and all further correspondence is done via sms
