Building brand awareness on college campuses is easily accomplished through a community of student ambassadors. With one in four Gen Z women saying they learn about new products from social media influencers, brands need to tap into college students with influence to harness the power of word of mouth and promote their brand across campus. So what are the benefits of student ambassadors?
Not only do student ambassadors help to bring authenticity to the face of any brand, but they are eager to assist in the growth of brands they themselves feel connected to. While it may seem like a daunting task to create a campus ambassador program, we outlined a couple of the major benefits of incorporating student brand ambassadors into your marketing strategy.
Student Ambassadors Help You Get Hyperlocal
One of the biggest advantages of establishing a student ambassador program is the hyper localized marketing opportunities they offer. For college students, life in and out of school revolves around the campus, so the connections they have is a very niche circle of influence. Students know all the campus hot spots, where they are likely to capture the biggest audience, and what kinds of events or activations will work the best for their peers. This helps bring authentic brand awareness to a subsect of consumers, Gen Z, who are known to be extremely wary about trusting brands or positively engaging with traditional advertising. By tapping into students who know how to appeal to their peers in a way that seems more natural, your brand can build hyperlocal awareness with a group of young consumers.
Student Ambassadors Have a Network of Influence
Going hand in hand with the localized marketing benefits, college students have a personal network of other college students from different classes, clubs, and organizations that can extend the reach of word of mouth marketing on campus. Many students operate as microinfluencers, both online and in person. By associating with such a wide variety of people, the potential reach for establishing a robust student ambassador program is practically endless.
Student Ambassadors Keep You On Trend
Once a student ambassador community is established on a campus, those students can be valuable assets for completing research on a variety of trends. Having a student ambassador program is like having a community of on-trend, young research subjects who are eager to be hands-on assets to the brand they are working with. Consider them a built in focus group and conduct surveys to see what works and what does not with the students on each campus, get input on brand happenings, and tap into them as content creators for your brand. As extensions of your brand on campus, student ambassadors can help bring a fresh perspective into your company. If you are looking to target Gen Z, this is the perfect opportunity to find out if what you are doing is working.
Student Ambassadors Help You Grow
If there is one thing college students excel at, it is social media. The most digitally native group of people in our society right now, the average college-aged student logs on to social media for roughly two hours and 55 minutes each day, almost an hour longer than the average millennial. This means that social media word of mouth marketing is key to the success of any student ambassador program. With tech-savvy ambassadors working as trusted advocates, the ambassadors will help your company succeed on social apps like nothing before. College students are all about what is trending and supporting brands that their friends support. The more ambassadors, the bigger the social media following will be collectively, and in turn the more followers will turn to the company page in support. Not only will this help with engagement, but it is also an excellent way to create branded UGC at an extremely low cost.
Student ambassador programs offer a unique perspective into the process of appealing to Generation Z. A plethora of opportunities are available to companies that implement a campus program through bringing an authentic brand voice to campuses nationwide. Through the benefits of student ambassadors, brands can expect long term ROI that will greatly benefit long term loyalty and growth.
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