At the beginning of the semester it can be a good idea to do another advertising campaign. Some students may have missed your advertising in the fall, you may need to rebrand yourself, or you may reach some new transfer students who just came in. So, what are some creative ways to advertise other than the typical posters and flyers?
Use other mediums – Some campuses have ways available for clubs and organizations to advertise that are outside of the ways we normally think of. The picture above is a wall at SUNY Geneseo that students can reserve for a week to paint an advertisement for their club or event. I’ve seen some campuses that allow a certain tree to be painted, some have TV advertisements in the different buildings, some allow tabletop advertisements in the dining halls, some do chalk drawings all over campus, etc. If you have any art/graphic design majors in your group ask them if they know of any creative ways to advertise and then put them to work!
T-shirts – If your group has made up their own BASIC t-shirts pick a day for everyone in the group to wear them and prepare the students to be ready to answer questions about BASIC. If you don’t have your own t-shirts see if enough students bought one design at the conference that they could wear. When people see the same shirt all over campus one day they will be sure to notice.
Facebook – Encourage all your students to suggest your BASIC’s facebook page to all of their friends and invite them to the Spring Conference facebook event. Online advertising is a free and easy way to spread the word fast!
Handouts – Instead of handing out flyers like in the past why not hand out something with your name on it that can be useful too? Print labels with your information for your group on it and put them on water bottles or gum and hand them out across the campus.
Before you jump in and form a great advertising campaign keep in mind what I said last week about becoming “better before bigger.” You want to make sure that when you begin inviting everyone you can possibly think of to your BASIC group that you’re confident with and excited about the experience they’re going to have when they come to your meeting. Otherwise, all your efforts could be in vain.
Do you have any other great advertising ideas? Please share them in the comments below so we can all benefit!