Using online contests to engage student markets and communities
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Students are an interesting cross-section of the population. They carry the potential to be tomorrow’s leaders, carrying humanity’s future on their shoulders, and need to be encouraged and incentivised to be their best selves. In the present day, they’re the perennially pinched demographic, but also the most time-rich (subject-dependent), consistently drawn to student discounts and good deals above all else.
Online contests are a great way to appeal to students, not only from a business perspective, where you can engage and educate users that could become lifelong fans of your brand, but also from a pastoral and academic perspective, where you can use the potential to win prizes and gain recognition to appeal to their competitive sides and help to bring out the best in themselves.
This article will look at using different types of online competitions to engage students in 2 different ways. It will talk about using online competitions from a marketing perspective: for organisations looking to appeal to target markets of students, and it will look at it from a more educational and pastoral perspective: for institutions using online contests to encourage desired behaviours and foster competition to help students reach their full academic potential.
How contests can appeal to student populations for marketing purposes
This is a no-brainer really. While student hardships aren’t the Dickensian tales of stale fruitcake and watered-down milk passed down from older generations, most students are still working with far less disposable income than most of your potential customers will be. This is why they typically gravitate towards establishments offering student discounts.
This generally thriftier, or more value-focused type of customer will therefore be very receptive to any online contest or competition where they have the opportunity to potentially win a material prize they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. They’ll also be very receptive and motivated by online contests which distribute promotional codes – particularly if it’s a promotional code that exceeds the 10% student discount mark some student populations are accustomed to as a benchmark.
Students are also simultaneously either incredibly time-poor, such as during the run up to exams or coursework hand-ins, or incredibly time-rich, particularly during post-exam periods. When they’re time-rich, they have more time to engage with your brand than people working full-time jobs. Provided you can capture their attention and maximise on that availability, you have the potential to really educate them about your brand and potentially create a customer for life.
Compelling graphic design is key, as is an appropriately on-brand contest
What’s cool and what’s not is often determined, or at least rubber stamped or approved, by student populations. They exist at the cutting edge of most pop-culture, with significant volumes of movies, music, reality shows, and TV being produced to appeal to them. Being on trend and on-brand is one of the first things to lock down with your online contests when designing them to appeal to these younger, highly influential audiences. The graphic design of your contest needs to be especially appealing to not only get their attention, but to be attractive and stand out from the multitude of other media targeting them.
Additionally, these younger audiences, at the peak of their mental plasticity and available brain-power, are nearly always digital natives, and would have grown up with powerful mobile technology recognisable and comparable to today’s modern devices and standards. Where you might be better served to simplify an online contest to appeal to someone who grew up when the only contests were TV phone-ins and through newspapers, with students it might be more appropriate – depending on the contest – to deliver a more nuanced, more gamified experience.
More sophisticated game elements for more engaging brand experiences
Students, typically aged from 17 to their mid-20s, with obvious exceptions for mature students (and the occasional Dougie Howser MD situation), are at the beginning of their adult lives. Conveniently, they’re at the height of their mental powers, making it the perfect time to absorb and process information, and develop tastes and appetites. As well as having typically more free time than other demographics, or at least more flexible schedules, the fact most of today’s students are also digital natives, and can easily intuit the codes of most video games and gamified media, means they’re the perfect audience to target with more complex, gamified competitions.
For example, instead of a single Wheel of Fortune style instant win game, you could create a series of instant win games, interspersed with Quizzes, points-based branded casual games, and informative pop-up content using Drimify’s Dynamic Path™ format. By giving them multiple chances to win over a set period of time or in the build up to an event, you can tell your brand story over time. You also distribute promotional codes throughout to incentivise purchasing, make an impression on the users, and ideally, turn them into advocates for your brand.
Creating a long-form contest experience like this is typically utilised in the build up to Christmas or a significant holiday, but would be perfect to put in alongside a campaign for freshers week in the UK, or an orientation period in the US, to help educate a new crop of students about your business and your products or services.
The role of universities and schools in the lives of students
Now we’re going to switch gears and look at how online contests can be used by institutions to engage with their student populations, such as universities and colleges.
As well as an education provider, universities and colleges essentially act as a government for students. Even after leaving student villages, dorms, or halls in first year, students still live in their own societal bubble. Student unions, bars, eateries, affordable gyms, discounted housing, student hardship funds, as well as numerous societies, hobby clubs, and sports teams are provided by or administered through the offices of the school. They carry a pastoral responsibility, and a responsibility to positively influence culture and behaviour.
How to gamify different elements of the student experience
Gamification is a broad term that boils down to leveraging game mechanics to encourage desired behaviour and actions. Contests fit into this category, as the chance to win a prize or an award incentivises participation. By the same token, educational institutions can run competitions and contests that give students an opportunity to win a prize, with the trade-off that the entrants will engage with targeted messaging designed to influence them.
The prize could be almost anything, but relevant premium experiences (like VIP festival tickets) and cash would probably be the most effective prizes to appeal to students.
For building campus community
For building an appropriate campus culture and promoting values among a student population, universities could create a Dynamic Path™ with a series of Quizzes with informative intermediate videos. This essentially becomes a more interactive and engaging public service announcement (PSA), but with the possibility of winning a prize, or being entered into a prize draw at the end as an extra incentive to start.
The key to make this sort of experience work with students, and in fact, any user type, is to make the content interesting. For extreme examples, let’s say it’s to educate your student population on best practices to mitigate the risks associated with an incoming strain of flu, or a disrupted stinging insect swarm. When writing the copy and designing the content, remember who you’re appealing to.
Students are intelligent. They typically have a lot of energy and creativity. Use the games to build scenarios and get them to apply the ongoing learnings in a challenging and interesting way. Make it situational and put them, in the context of the game, into the position of a leader or a decision maker. The topic could be anything, and the specific combination of game engines and mechanics are only limited by your imagination.
For extra-curricular academic incentives
The concept of using a Dynamic Path™ in corporate environments for professional training is well established. It’s a practice that in all likelihood will grow, both as gamification becomes more widely understood, and technology continues to advance.
It could be seen as good preparation for students to create extra-curricular contests based on this format. As it’s built on the purpose of proposing situations to which they can then apply ongoing learnings, it can be applied to any subject. If such an experience was created as a challenge during half term or the winter break, with the highest performers being rewarded with an instant win game and a chance to win guaranteed prizes on their return, this could be a great way to encourage your students to be more proactive in their learning.
Contest creation is easy with Drimify
Drimify is a games creation platform that makes creating online games and contests easy. With no coding knowledge and no technical experience, you can easily create experiences to engage students, whether that’s for marketing purposes or academic purposes.
Contests ultimately give players or entrants an opportunity to win something in exchange for them engaging with your brand and your messaging. It’s an opportunity to reach a lot of people by offering a grand prize as a carrot. Targeting students specifically can be especially productive, as it’s when human minds are most malleable.
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