Why Your Brand Should Be at Spring Break

Every year, hundreds of thousands of college students flock to a handful of Spring Break destinations throughout the United States and Mexico. The students who travel to Spring Break are influencers back on campus and online, and this presents an incredible opportunity for brands to reach Gen-Zs via Spring Break marketing.

For decades, forward-thinking brands have identified Spring Break marketing as a unique and irreplaceable opportunity to drive awareness, acquisition, and conversion. Imagine having unfettered access to the most influential students at campuses across the country, and finding them all in one place at the same time. By establishing a presence at Spring Break, marketers are able to not only reach this key demographic, but also root their brands into the positive memories students create on their vacations.

Spring Break has grown up over the years. From its roots in the party atmosphere of the 90s, it’s transitioned into a sophisticated, multi-dimensional daytime and nighttime experience for these sought-after consumers. As a result, Spring Break marketing has also evolved. Successful brands have adapted by wrapping their brands around the Spring Break experience in an authentic manner, rather than trying to force Spring Break to conform to their brand.

Throughout March, companies like AXE and Victoria Secret Pink infiltrate Spring Break, sponsoring events and placing ads on everything from elevators to pillowcases. AXE built a custom cube structure that allowed consumers to freshen up during a hot day on the beach. This activation was smartly timed with the launch of their new line of face products. Victoria Secret Pink threw massive pink-colored pool parties at warm weather destination across the country, driving brand awareness and generating content.

spring-break-marketing

There’s a wide breadth of opportunities and channels available at Spring Break—your imagination (and budget) is the limit. How can you best reach spring breakers? Here are some options:

Daytime beach, pool, hotel/resort lobby, and ski events
In-room branding and product placement (shower curtains, pillow cases, etc.)
Interior and exterior hotel branding (signage, elevator wraps, pool vinyls, projections, branded hotel room items, lounge chairs, etc.)
Interactive stage contests
Sampling street teams roaming the beach, hotels/resorts, and nightlife areas
Celebrity- or influencer-fueled events like concerts on the beach or in nightclubs
Nighttime events, concerts, and parties

When deciding how to spend your marketing budget, consider that Spring Break offers the following:

Domestic and international destinations with 40,000–250,000 influential college students in attendance
National reach for your brand that allows you to build an experience in one location, instead of trying to have a presence across the country
Consumer mindsets that are relaxed, fun-loving, and eager to engage with new experiences—perfect for brands looking to drive authentic interactions
Beautiful backdrops of beaches, ski mountains, and resorts, providing a blank canvas for creative and unique brand activations
A scalable and efficient marketing engine that caters to brands across all consumer categories

One of the main questions brand marketers ask about Spring Break is, “What kind of KPIs can we affect and how successful will they be?” Fortunately, campaigns can be built to achieve a variety of different goals:

Awareness – expose hundreds of thousands of college students to your brand, products, services, and messages
Engagement – generate incredible interactions with hosted experiences, contests, sweepstakes, and social media content moments
Acquisition – grow your customer database, create a new consumer through sampling or trial, and drive downloads or usage of a mobile app, product, or service
Conversion – capture the attention of new consumers and convert them into repeat and loyal customers
Viral Spread – create an army of super fans and advocates who will spread your messages back on campus following their Spring Break vacation
Research – get real-time insights on product development, UX/UI, market feasibility, generational trends, and much more

At the end of the day, Spring Break marketing is one of the most incredible opportunities to reach valuable Gen-Z consumers at scale. Your success will be based largely on how you translate your brand into the Spring Break experience, and how prepared you are to execute a flawless campaign.

Want more? Check out these blogs:

How can YMC help?

Whether you have the perfect campaign already conceptualized or you’re considering Spring Break marketing but have more questions, finding the right partner is key. Here at YMC, we’ve been helping brands connect with consumers at Spring Break for two decades and would be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you.

How to Run a Product Sampling Event on Campus

Sampling is one of the most effective ways to ensure that your product gets into the hands of potential consumers. Although sampling can be a great way to gain product exposure, it must be done strategically. Through a brand ambassador program, brands can leverage their ambassadors to host product sampling events on campus, specifically targeting key potential consumers within the collegiate market.

Here are five tips to running a successful sampling event on campus:

1) Relevance & Theme

Sampling events are typically straightforward—you distribute samples, students sample the product, and students (hopefully) convert. What turns sampling into conversion within the collegiate market, is relevance. Relevance can be created by activating and creating a theme for your product sampling event around key collegiate moments, including back-to-school, Spring Break, or graduation.

For example, a cosmetics company with a wide range of bronzing and body products may want to host a sampling event pre-Spring Break. By hosting the event pre-Spring Break, students will have the opportunity to sample the brand’s relevant warm-weather products such as bronzers, self-tanners, and moisturizers. The event’s proximity to Spring Break will help keep the brand top-of-mind while students are making their travel skincare and makeup purchasing decisions.

2) Product Selection & Size

This may sound obvious, but sampling events should always distribute sample size products. Some brands opt to distribute full-sized products in the hopes of building deeper brand loyalty, however this strategy can ultimately hurt sales. By distributing full-sized product, students are are less likely to head in-store and purchase—and why would they? They already own it!

In addition, selecting sample size products that fit into your event’s theme increases brand relevance and purchase consideration. Going back to the Spring Break example, distributing TSA-approved samples indicates to students that your travel-sized line is perfect for Spring Break.

3) Track Your Success

Through the use of various digital platforms, brands are able to track the success of their sampling events. Coupons are a great way to incentivize students to purchase full-sized product. When creating a coupon, it’s important to make redemptions trackable and unique to your specific program or event. In addition, you’ll want to make sure that the coupon is incentivizing enough—at least a 20% discount—and that it doesn’t compete with any better online or in-store promotions.

Most often, the best indicator of event success will be the sales generated. If you had an event at American University, check to see if there was a sales lift at nearby stores. By tracking the sales of your event, you will be able to determine if your sampling strategy was successful, or if not, how you can change you strategy to ensure future success.

4) Include an Acquisition Element

Students love samples and are typically willing to give personal information in exchange! If your goal is to collect more emails for future email marketing campaigns, an online sweepstakes is an easy way to organically collect those emails. Simply encourage students to sign-up for the sweepstakes in order to gain a sample. Alternately, if your brand is looking to increase their following on social media, implement a “Follow for a Sample” exchange. Both acquisitional tactics have proven successful at sampling events and will provide your brand added value.

5) Location, Location, Location & Time

Keep in mind that each campus you activate on is different! The best way to ensure that your event location and timing works for each unique campus is to ask students or have your brand ambassadors inform your decision. The ambassadors know what days and times are busiest on campus and which locations harbor the most student traffic. Work with your ambassadors to secure the event location and time at least two weeks prior to the event.

The last piece to consider? Hire passionate brand ambassadors and your sampling event will practically run itself!

WANT MORE? CHECK OUT THESE BLOGS

HOW CAN YMC HELP?

Want to get your product into the hands of Millennials and Gen-Z? Finding the right partner is key to your success. Here at YMC, we’ve been helping brands connect with 15- to 29-year-old consumers for two decades—we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!

7 Ways Online Sweepstakes Grow Your Youth Customer Base

While contests and online sweepstakes are nothing new, they’ve taken on a new life with the continual growth of social media. Now more than ever, online sweepstakes are easy, affordable, and effective. As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, sweepstakes will serve as a helpful strategy to increase the number of people who interact with your brand and deepen existing connections.

When executed correctly, online sweepstakes create a win-win situation for brands and entrants alike. Most often, they are used for the following reasons:

Increase brand awareness and generate word-of-mouth “buzz”
Deepen engagement
Nurture prospective customers through email capture or text opt-in
Drive customer conversion and sales

If your brand is trying to engage with Millennials and Gen-Z, you must execute in a way that feels authentic and relevant. Below are eight tips for capturing the attention of these demographics, while also creating a lasting impression that will keep your brand top-of-mind.

1. Make It Easy

Don’t ask for too much from entrants. When utilizing an online entry form, minimize the number of form fields to increase completion rates. Only ask for the information that is absolutely necessary. The more questions you ask, the less likely your participants are to complete the form. When entering an online sweepstakes, your entrants will weigh the amount of effort against the value of the reward, and you want to balance that scale in your favor. Whenever possible, integrate a social sign-in option to further ease the process.

2. Ensure the Prize Feels Attainable

Wondering what factors influence participation? According to a report from HelloWorld, 72% of people will enter an online sweepstakes if the odds of winning are high. Sixty-seven percent of people will enter based on the size and price value of the reward. As you can see, it’s important to structure your sweepstakes in a way that makes the prize seem both attainable and valuable. Consider offering a higher volume of a mid-range prizes to increase the likelihood of participation (as opposed to offering one top-tier prize).

3. Bigger Isn’t Always Better

While second to the odds of winning, the actual prize is important. When choosing between gift cards, physical products, or experiences, it’s important to know who you’re targeting in order to align the prize with potential interest from the desired audience. To help inform your decision, you can simply survey a subset of customers on what types of prizes and incentives would motivate them to participate. And don’t worry if your budget is tight, the prize is not the sole driver of participation—a quality and meaningful prize is key.

4. Bring the Prize to Life

If Millennials and Gen-Z are able to physically see what they might win, it becomes more tangible. Consider announcing or promoting the online sweepstakes at physical events.

5. Lean into the Power of Social

In addition to utilizing your brand-owned channels to promote the online sweepstakes, you should also encourage entrants to share the sweepstakes with their social networks. If your budget allows, utilize relevant, brand-right social influencers to increase awareness within your target audience. Newer or small brands will especially benefit from the automatic validation of being associated with a well-known peer or public figure.

6. Optimize Your Entry Page for Mobile

Millennials and Gen-Z use their phones more frequently than their laptops, so having your sweepstakes’ entry page be mobile-optimized is critical. Don’t make the assumption that participants will be entering the sweepstakes on their laptop, especially if you’re collecting entries at a physical event. Make the entry experience both smooth and intuitive. If your website is confusing, people will likely drop off and participation will decrease.

7. Bit.ly or URL

On the topic of mobile, if collecting entries at a physical activation or extending the reach through social, ensure that the website is easy to access and remember. URL shorteners like Bit.ly allow you to shorten and customize the link, which also makes it easier to share.

Like other tactics, online sweepstakes can be extremely effective when used as a part of your overall marketing strategy. Consumer facing brands, as well as many business-to-business enterprises, can take advantage of sweepstakes by using the seven tips highlighted above.

WANT MORE? CHECK OUT THESE BLOGS

HOW CAN YMC HELP?

Want to engage the coveted Millennial and Gen-Z demographics? Finding the right partner is key to your success. Here at YMC, we’ve been helping brands connect with 15- to 29-year-old consumers for two decades—and we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!