Ease Into Changes with Store Ambassadors

Barnes & Noble just released their “2012 College Marketing Report,” based on surveys of a panel of more than 7,500 college students from campuses throughout America. The report includes findings you might not expect:

• TV ads communicate your message more effectively than social media. About 55% of the panel said Facebook is not a good place for businesses to advertise to them. About 42% said TV ads are the most effective conduit for advertising to college students. 
• Text messages can irritate. About 61% don’t like brands to contact them via text messages, and around 58% are more likely to look at retailers’ e-mail on a laptop than on a smartphone. 
• About 63% never scan Quick Response codes located on ads. 

     The report also includes at least one hint for marketing you might not have thought about:

• About 68% of the respondents expressed interest in being an on-campus brand ambassador, and about 50% said they’d welcome help from brand ambassadors while settling into the college. 

     Think how you might use “store ambassadors” to introduce all sorts of consumers—not only college students—to your products and services during times of change. Welcome Wagon has been carrying out that function with new homeowners for eighty years. Ambassadors can also be helpful if the change is in your business. When AT&T introduced a new local service in California and New Jersey a while back, the retailer sent ambassadors to high-traffic areas in the two states to do hand out small gifts.
     Use store ambassadors when people are moving from one role in life to another. This happens with events like college graduation, getting married or getting divorced, having a first child, changing careers, and locating in a new country or culture.
     We might assume that when people are already feeling highly uncertain about what's happening in their lives because of significant changes, they'd actually be less likely to switch store loyalties. Since moving from one role in life to another is a time of high uncertainty, it would seem that you trying to change commitments then would only end up being a big waste.
     But when it comes to role switching, University of Minnesota research indicates that the truth is the opposite of what we might commonly assume. For example, recent immigrants seek out stores and brands to give themselves acceptable status in their new culture.
     Have store ambassadors there to help.

Click below for more: 
Keep Technology in Its Place 
Use Customer Life Changes to Switch Brands