Since many of today’s youth are constantly buried in their phones, marketers have tried to run successful digital marketing campaigns that reach a younger audience. However, it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd when everyone is trying to be seen digitally. Experiential marketing, such as campus marketing, is an excellent way to impress your younger audience.
What Is Experiential Marketing?
Experiential marketing is a practice that invites a target audience to engage with a brand in reality rather than digitally. The overall goal of an experiential marketing strategy is to engage with your audience personally to create a good experience for them. If you can create a good feeling within an audience member, they will remember their experience more than if they saw an advertisement on Twitter.
It’s an excellent way to attach a personality to a brand and make your company appear more human than simply a business. Also, you’ll be able to leave a lasting impression on your audience that they won’t soon forget.
What Is Campus Marketing?
Campus marketing is a type of experiential marketing that often occurs at colleges, universities, and sometimes at high schools. It’s a way for different companies to set up a booth at these institutions and interact with the students that pass by, trying to market to them.
The overall goal of this type of marketing is to leave an impression on this younger audience so they will remember the experience they shared with that company. The hope is that these students will be more inclined to think of them in their day-to-day lives because they had a positive experience. This type of marketing intends to connect rather than sell.
Examples of Campus Marketing
Campus marketing is often a significant part of the US military’s recruiting strategy. The US military often visits high schools and colleges to get students to consider enlisting in the military to keep up with recruitment marketing. Typically, a recruiter from one of the military branches comes to an institution and sets up a booth with various activities.
Military recruiting often involves an exercise activity, such as a pull-up competition or playing war-related video games. It promotes some light competition to bond over, and the recruiter usually lets the students win. This creates a good feeling in the audience that makes them more likely to consider the military as a career choice.
Another example of campus marketing is by more local businesses that are near the campus. For example, some local restaurants may hand out small slices of pizza to passing students or have a game set up where students can win a coupon for completing a specific event. This leaves the students in a good mood and gives them more reason to visit that restaurant.
The Takeaway
The primary takeaway is that experiential or campus marketing can be an excellent way to engage with your audience in person rather than online. It can help develop deeper brand loyalty and increase brand recognition for the audience that you’ve interacted with. Whether you’re pushing to get more sales at your business, help with recruiting needs, or want to engage your community, experiential marketing can be a great way to achieve these goals.