The University Daily Kansan 2013 Marketing Plan As 2013 began The Kansan realized that as a media organization we needed to approach our marketing in both new and innovative ways. We needed to continue to brand our core print product but also needed to work on introducing new digital products that would help us in the short term but also build a better future for us. We decided to attack these challenges individually. Challenge#1: Readership of our daily print product – As with almost every media organization that has print as part of its product mix we have faced challenges with our readership. To truly move the needle and get both current students and incoming students to read our print product we decided to take some more aggressive approaches. The Back to School Blitz -‐ For years The Kansan had done weekly Readership Rewards where 1-‐2 readers per week caught reading our products on campus were awarded with prizes from participating advertisers. For the Fall we decided to take this concept to a higher level by creating a two week long campus event called “The Back to School Blitz”. With this event we would literally saturate campus for the first two weeks of the Fall semester looking for any and all students reading The Kansan and awarding them with dozens upon dozens of instant prizes such as free cookies or burritos from participating advertisers. In addition all instant winners were registered to win larger prize bundles that would be part of a sweepstakes including hotel packages or to an autographed basketball from the Men’s basketball team. We also purchased over 1,000 t-‐shirts with The Kansan logo on them to pass out to all winners as well so that they could continue to brand us all year long by wearing it out. Our marketing manager worked all Summer long to gather hundreds of prizes from local advertisers valued at over $3000. The blitz culminated with a massive party at a local dance club called The Cave which was attended by hundreds of students and at which over 1200 students were turned away due to capacity. Thunderbolt Days -‐ For the last few 2 years The Kansan had carried out extra distribution of 3,000 apartment doors across Lawrence for all special sections. This distribution has helped grow both our audience as well as the revenue for these sections. We decided to carry this concept a step further with something that we dubbed “Thunderbolt Days”. With this we would literally create such a presence on campus during a day of publication that it would almost be like an act of nature treating a standard day of publication as if it were a special section. We launched the first Thunderbolt Day in conjunction with our October 3rd Weekend edition published before Homecoming Weekend and Late Night at the Phog, the first public Men’s basketball practice. For this edition itself we created a special commemorative poster wrap that honored KU basketball. We did heavy promotions on all Social Media encouraging students to pick up a paper for both the wrap and to also be spotted on campus reading it for the opportunity to win prizes. Marketing team members were stationed all across campus and we also had all staff members each take a bundle of 20 papers with them to their individual classes to pass out to their classmates if they did not have a copy. The first Thunderbolt Day was tremendously successful as the buzz for the issue across campus was tremendous and by the end of the weekend ALL of our distribution racks were barren. This is a concept that we plan on repeating multiple times in the Spring.
Challenge#2: Branding and growing digital products RockChalkliving.com – In February we launched a new housing site that we built from scratch to help us keep as much of our housing category revenue as possible. In addition to building the product from scratch we faced the challenge of building an audience for the product from the ground up. We started with a print ad campaign built around the slogan of “Search, don’t Settle”, continued the campaign online and then looked to grab the attention of students at different locations on-‐campus through the use of table tents with the Rock Chalk Living campaign at the Student Union dining center and ads on campus buses. Off campus we built yard signs featuring a similar campaign and put them in the yards of participating apartment complexes and in the front lawns of houses in heavily student populated areas. All of this helped move the needle on traffic leading to over 11,000 individual page visits for the site to date. Mobile app downloads – For the last few years The Kansan has had a presence for the distribution of our Insiders Guide orientation issue. For this year we worked above and beyond to create promotions where students could register to win prizes at New Student Orientation such as a free sports combo pass for KU basketball and football. For the summer alone this led to a 61% increase in our total mobile app downloads.
Challenge#3: Connecting better with the average student Event marketing – To better reach the average student we looked to do group events on as large of a scale as possible. For both the Spring and the Fall we held apartment fests on campus attracting thousands of students to each one. In the Spring we also partnered with a number of local merchants for the “Style on Mass Street” fashion show. And to take full advantage of all of the buzz surrounding the KU-‐Duke men’s basketball game in Chicago we held a massive watch party at the Granada dance club which was attended by close to 500 students. All of these events attracted different demographics of students but also helped to brand The Kansan and all of its products with them at the same time. Conclusion – At the end of the day all of the above tactics helped The Kansan increase its footprint on the local market for all of our print and digital products. It helped us keep our return rates at a steady number and increase our digital footprint for the future helping to ensure that future generations will continue to read The Kansan and future staffs will continue to learn while working there.
The University Daily Kansan 2013 Marketing Schedule January – Distribution in line of daily paper to all students attending KU Basketball home games (continues through March). -‐Readership rewards begins (continues through the end of December). March – Kansan bracket bash contest begins April – Spring Apartment fest Style on Mass fashion show May-‐ Publication of Insiders Guide Orientation issue. Presence at all 26 New Student Orientation sessions. -‐Kickoff of mobile app download campaign at New Student Orientation. August – Distribution of Back to School edition on doors of all KU dorm rooms. August-‐ September: The Back to School Blitz (takes place for first two weeks of the semester) Back to School party at The Cave October – First Thunderbolt Day takes place Homecoming edition publishes, Kansan float at the homecoming parade Fall Apartment Fest November – KU vs Duke watch party at The Granada dance club
The Back to School Blitz
To push as many readers as possible we launched a massive two week blitz during the first two weeks of class. Our marketing team canvased campus during this time period looking for any and all students reading The Kansan (bottom left) and were awarded with instant prizes such as free cookies and burritos and then registered to win bigger prize packages including an autographed basketball from the Men’s basketball team. We also had a heavy presence at all Hawk Week Back to School events. In addition we set up specialty days on campus where students could register to win some of the larger prizes by stopping by our table at Wescoe Beach and downloading our mobile app. At the end of the two weeks we had given away hundreds of prizes as well as hundreds of t-‐shirts all to students caught reading The Kansan in print or digital. The promotion culminated with a massive Back to School party at The Cave (bottom right) dance club attended by hundreds of people where the larger prizes that people registered to win for during the Blitz were given away. The party was such a success that nearly 1200 people were turned away. The Blitz helped us brand ourselves with students on campus from day one and kept our return rates at a steady level for the entire semester.
Finding new ways to attract readers
Thunderbolt Days – For the Fall we introduced a new concept called Thunderbolt Days for the 10/3/13 issue where we created an act of nature on campus that would in turn create buzz and enthusiasm with both our readers and out staff. The date was chosen specifically as it would be the issue that came out right before “Late Night at the Phog” the kick-‐off of m en’s basketball season and attended by 16,300 fans annually. Editorial worked to create unique and attractive content for that day’s paper with a special basketball commemorative wrap for the issue as well. The ad staff in return worked overtime to m arket it through street teams, special signs on racks (see above left) and through a heavy presence on all social media. Staff members also took extra copies of the issue to their classes and passed them out to any and all students who didn’t have one in front of them. For the day we also did a heavy saturation of readership rewards to as many students as possible that we saw reading the issue (see above) The promotion was a great success and led to empty distribution racks all across campus and we will continue this concept for multiple days starting in the Spring semester.
Basketball home game distribution-‐ One of the m ost cherished traditions at KU is attending home men’s basketball games. For each home game we sent members of our m arketing staff out to pass out copies
of The Kansan with a special poster for the 4,000 students in line for each game to hold up. We also had them dressed in special Kansan full-‐body suits to make sure our marketing team had an identity.
Event Marketing Kansan Apartment Fest – To help present students with the best housing options possible we teamed up with over 16 separate apartment complexes to present housing fairs in both the Spring and the Fall. Thousands of students attended while at the same time receiving merchandise related to our new housing site, RockChalkliving.com
Style on Mass Fashion Show – We decided to branch out and try something different this year by partnering with local clothing stores and presenting a fashion show at a local bar on a Friday night in April. Hundreds of students attended and then danced the night away at an after party at the same bar.
KU vs. Duke Watch Party – To capitalize off a November game between the Men’s basketball team and Duke University we published a special section for the game and held a watch party at a local dance club with the game displayed on a movie theater sized screen. Hundreds attended and watched KU pull out a victory in the closing minutes while also participating in prize give-‐aways and reading copies of the special section for the game.
Rock Chalk Living.com Print campaign – We opted for a humorous approach in our print campaign for the site focusing on common situations where an apartment didn’t meet a student’s expectations. Other ads featured broken air conditioners, dishwashers and laundry machines. The campaign was also repeated in a guerilla campaign with 11”x17” flyers posted across campus in high traffic areas.
On-‐campus advertising – We looked to grab the attention of students as they went about their everyday normal campus life by promoting the site on the interior of campus buses (see below left), through the use of hundreds of table tents at the three campus Student Union dining facilities (see below center). We also purchased bottle openers and pens to provide top of the mind awareness to students who used them everyday (see below right).
Off-‐campus advertising: To draw further attention to the site, we took our advertising off-‐campus through the placement of dozens upon dozens of lawn signs. We partnered with some of the largest apartment complexes in Lawrence and placed these signs in their front yards with different campaigns for the different regions of the city. In addition we partnered with companies leasing houses in heavy student residential areas and placed similar signs in the front yards of those houses. Each yard sign had a strategic message based on its geographic location in the city. For example signs near the football stadium discussed “tailgating”.