Online communication with students

Article by Luke Mitchell
This article was a chapter in The Reach Students Handbook (2003)

Students, it is often claimed, are hard to reach. Dispersed across the UK at over 600 institutions, each with their own timetable, they regularly change address and are not practically targetable through any piece of old media. They've had marketers gasping for breath for years. It's easy to see why the new media revolution has attracted many new businesses to the student market.

The arrival of the internet, email and mobile phones has brought a tantalising opportunity to make direct contact with the student community. The fact that all UK students have free internet access, that many are early adopters of new technologies, and that communication resources are the lifeblood of the highly sociableaway-from-home young adult, have all helped make the new media proposition irresistible.

In the wake of the dot com boom period and with the benefit of several years practical experience, the statistics and trends that people projected on students and new media have been adjusted. But they are still impressive. According to NUSSL, 79 per cent of students use the internet, most of them every day. Marketing company Campus Marketing believe that 100% of students have an email address, while VirginStudent claim that two thirds of students own their own computer. Tom Edge, New Media Manager at the National Union of Students, updates the situation for 2003/4: "In the USA, 98 per cent of college students surf the internet weekly. 91 per cent are online at least three times per week. In the UK we're fast approaching those levels of usage. Students are online for consistently long periods, for both work and pleasure, and are willing to be entertained while they surf.

"Email is proven to be a primary method ofcommunication for students - especially with friends and family elsewhere in the country. Given therelationship between email and the net, effective campaigns online can find their message quickly spreading when there's user approval. So the student audience is there and waiting."

Of course businesses always had the opportunity to reach students through on-campus promotions,student media, sponsorship etc. But the costs involved have been prohibitive to many. The major attraction of new media is that it can be very economical. "It's cheap to get a good online campaign underway," says Edge, "relative to TV and radio spots. Even a full site and game build, with hosting, will come in way under the budget for a cheap localised TV spot - and a good campaign may bring millions of users to not just notice, butinteract with your brand. The potential benefits are sky-high even with low cost products, so long as the creative element works."

Ah, the creative element; creative executions have delivered the successes and failures of many a student-orientated business. So how can marketers make sure online ventures work for this tricky demographic?

"Ignoring banner ads and rich media promotions, there are a lot of websites out there today vying for a surfer's attention," says Edge. "A company willing to invest in promoting their message online should thoroughly survey the competition and attempt to find a new, innovative hook for their site. When it comes to viral emails, student web users are very often experienced and jaded - another low-end Flash game won't catch their imagination unless it has a serious creative hook behind it. The idea of the game must be at least as amusing as the pleasure of the game play. People only forward emails which have amused them enough to want to spread the joy - everything else gets binned."

"So being innovative is key, even if you're just putting a sharp new spin on an old idea. Poor quality, hackneyed ideas are probably the greatest obstacles to an online promotional campaign's success - getting it built and hosted professionally is a comparatively small worry."
One of the best-known creators of effective online campaigns aimed at young people is Skive, a London-based new media agency. Skive are a dab hand with 'viral' games - those that get passed around by email to friends and spread like an infection. These games are particularly effective with students - a NetValue survey in 2002 found that they account for a third of the UK's 3 million regular online games players.

Skive's clients have included Adidas, Sony Playstation and Wrigleys. MD Sean Singleton thinks their recipe for success with students is pretty simple: "We try to inject humour into our work because it's really effective online. We think that young people tend to laugh at the same things. Being a student is about going out, enjoying yourself, being a bit cynical and laughing at the world. That's the approach we have at Skive.

"The problem we have to overcome is finding that place where the brand is comfortable with thecreative and the student can laugh at it. What works best with viral campaigns, for example, is the extreme stuff. But brands don't always want to be associated with that.

"That said, we would always encourage risk-taking. I don't think many campaigns are worth doing unless they involve risk."

Equally successful at student-orientated online communication is Mike Slocombe, who runs activist website Urban75. Slocombe's not-for-profit website is his passion, but such is its success with intelligent young people, he is often offeredcommissions by brands eager to make use of his impressive e-communication skills. Slocombe has produced work for Virgin Radio, Xfm and Youthnet. "I love daft, nonsense stuff on the web," he says. "I don't like to see it used bycompanies as some kind of expanded corporate brochure, and I think a lot of students probably feel the same.

"Good practice is always inviting the student to feed back on what they're experiencing. Bad practice is thinking you can create anenvironment that young people will flock into and inhabit, but creating it so it entirely suit your own needs. You can't set up a chat room, for example, and ban swearing. It won't get used."

What has to be remembered before any online communication with students is attempted is that this group are habitual new media users. "Students close down pop-ups without noticing their content," says Tom Edge. "They can detect a spam mail from a dozen clicks away and won't, generally, be generous enough to see a page through if it doesn't entertain - there are too many options out there. It is easy to get it wrong, but those who get it right may well enjoy aglobal spread of their message that would be hard to achieve in any other medium."

Indeed, as online head at NUS, Edge has experienced first hand what happens when businesses don't think intelligently aboutintelligent audiences: "nusonline had its origins in the gold rush days of internet VCs throwing money at anyone with a laptop and a Hoxton Fin haircut. The resulting site - a partnership between ITM Communications and NUS - tried to be all things to all students, reviewing films and games, covering NUS news, storing documents used bystudents' union officers, and selling products via paid ad spots. It was a poorly executed mish-mash."

Famously within the student movement, after three years of foisting an ill-conceived product on students, ITM ran out of money. They went into administration, leaving NUS out of pocket but with the freedom to create a site that worked for itsaudience. "The site has undergone a crucial revamp. We've stripped it down and focused on NUS core concerns: campaigning, giving advice to students and building on the NUS card's status as the primary discount card used by the student market. We changed the site's construction and cut theunder-performing peripherals such asentertainment reviews.

"We've concentrated on developing a new media strategy to serve nusonline's varied audiences, rather than treating it as a get-rich-quick side project. Having said that, we do still use the site for revenue streams, selling limited commercial solus mails as well as placing limited banner ads on the site. We also attract sponsorship for our monthly update emails to our 750,000 registered members."

Edge outlines the benefits new media has for NUS and the student movement: "It saves us money - our mailing costs have been slashed as we now tend to place documents online and use email tocommunicate with key members. The commercial value of our brand is difficult to assessaccurately, but certainly a better site has increased our credibility within our membership, helping to preserve our status within the student market."

This year will undoubtedly be a critical one for the big websites that, like the old nusonline, continue to address themselves to the fictional 'generic' higher ed student. They lose a third of their target audience every year because ofgraduations, and they will find new customers less forgiving than in the earlier days. Viral game creators will have to find formats beyond the multiple-choice quiz and the platform game, if they are to keep students entertained. And copywriters are going to have to get a muchbetter sense of student thinking if they are to avoid delete buttons getting the better of text messages and emails.

All the evidence shows: the student audience is online and waiting. The question is, who is smart enough to reach them?