A question for all you uni students.
How do we promote TPN around universities? How do we get the word out?
As I never attended university (but I did DRINK in them a lot, back in the days of 88 – 89 when my last band, The Rhythm Pigs, used to rehearse at Trinity College at Melbourne Uni), so I don’t really know much about what goes on in them fancy-pants higher learnin’ institutions, apart from group orgies and meth-fueled tree huggin’ by the hippy types.
I figure, though, that uni students are a big target market for the stuff we do (would you agree?) and that we should spend some energy figuring out how to promote TPN across the campuses of the world.
Any bright ideas?
I’m a volunteer supervisor at the SSAA (Swinburne Student Amenities Association) so I’m fairly involved with various activities and suchlike there and the types of promotion that works really seems to depend on the university and the faculty.
Fliers are fairly successful especially if they’re accompanied by free food/drinks/promotional pens etc. Posters are a possibility however there are some regulations regarding what you can put up where. Usually arrangements need to be made for posters to be stamped so they don’t get torn down.
If you want to do stuff on the lower budget side then you’ll need to get students from the relevant uni’s involved because the uni will want to charge you money for the more official promotion campaigns and students can just hand out fliers without any trouble.
If you wanted to do something bigger in future then booking a stall at O-week seems to work well, then you’d just need fliers, some free chocolates/wrapped sweets etc and perhaps some form of competition to win, say, an ipod. It’s higher impact but obviously more expensive.
I can certainly ask around at the SSAA to find out what I can arrange at Swinburne in terms of marketing.
Oh yeah.. Either the group orgies are an American thing or a myth invented by porn producers… Sorry :-p
Gee thanks for blowing that bubble of mine Mim. There go my plans for enrolling in mature education courses.
mature education courses are exactly what they sound like… Enrolling as a mature age student in, say, an arts degree is something quite different.
If there WERE to be any orgies, faculty of arts is where they’d be its the 50/50ish ratio of guys/girls, spare time and drugs that does it.
Faculty of Engineering would make for too much of a sword fight and most girls studying engineering don’t really look like girls.
It is of course possible that I just don’t get invited to THAT sort of party.
Cam I would look for some people to start a comedy show and maybe an indy music show for the college crowd. Once the shows find the audience that will drive greater TPN listenership.
and before you say it Cam, I haven’t been in a Uni class room since the mid 90s so I am not the person to do that idea. 🙂
In my experience uni students love free stuff. Not sure how you give away stuff when there ain’t that much money in what we do. But podcasts in themselves are free. So the music angle is a good one and the DRM free downloads that we offer from ioda. But then how do you get that info out there so they know about shows like TPN rock? Not sure.
Pamphlets are not great they get shit loads of them and I used to throw them out. crap, I just had a great idea.
What about approaching the student unions of the uni’s and talking to them about what mediums and advertising would work. Some ideas off the top of my head:
– Libraries that’s where computers are and where you do a shit load of photocopying… posters on the wall opposite the photocopiers and near the computers.
– Hit the computer labs in a big way.
– Do any of the uni’s have a radio station? Advertising there?
– The cafeteria hit that for sure.
– Talk to the media studies faculty’s and see if they want to help you out by using TPN media in their course. Or better still: offer to do a lecture on podcasting. If you get that gig you splatter TPN stuff everywhere, woot. Add some GGP stuff as well… errr yeah do that.
– Pull a mob stunt. That would be great cause uni students are into that type of stuff
– Get involved in “O week” for each university.
In general a good sell might be: when you go to uni you don’t have any cash to eat let alone buy cd’s and entertainment (all your cash is spent on books and alcohol). Try free podcasts for free music and entertainment… or what ever their interest might be. Another one is the fact that podcasts are anywhere, anytime – easily fit in with their timetable.
Hard to get creative without spending cash. I reckon what would help is to have some contacts. That is attending students that could be your army in the uni’s. Having the support of the union would help.
– As far as creating an “army” maybe approach the other hosts to ask their uni student listeners to approach you if they think they can help out.
Just my thoughts if I think of anything else I’ll let you know. As I say though getting the word out with out outlay is hard. Creativity and a “uni-army” is a definite bonus. Word of mouth is powerful.
I still believe and I have ranted on about for as long as I have been podcasting is accessibility. Podcasts still need to be easier to get. Sure iTunes goes a long way to making them easy to get, but not everyone knows about iTunes. Maybe this generation that you are marketing at is a tad more tech orientated. Lets hope so, that will make the job a lot easier.
Thanks folks, all good ideas.
What about we create a show which is ABOUT going to Uni in Australia?
What are the three key issues EVERY Uni student cares about?
Austudy?
Career choices?
Orgies?
Someone help me out. Are there certain themes every uni student is interested in?