5 Steps for Running a Killer Campus Rep Program

When I entered my dorm during my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, the first thing I noticed was a small package with travel-sized Tide laundry essentials hanging on the door.

Exciting, right? Tide picked my big moment, a college move-in, to start a relationship with me. When it was time to stock up a week later, guess what brand of detergent I chose? Tide won my loyalty, an example of simple collegiate marketing at its best.

College students are valuable. There are over 20 million enrolled in four-year universities in the U.S. alone, influencing $420 billion in spending power. If your company doesn’t market to them, it probably should.

The most effective way to reach college students is through a campus rep program. As students themselves, campus reps connect with their classmates in an authentic way. These programs provide a uniquely holistic branding channel—a public relations, marketing and sales strategy all in one.

At WayUp, we manage over 900 campus reps who have accounted for over 50% of our signup growth in the past year. Without question, it’s our most valuable marketing channel.

If you’re interested in establishing your own campus rep program, here are five steps that will set you up for success.

1. Get Granular

When it comes to establishing the goals of your rep program, I recommend getting deep into the details. College students have volatile schedules and shifting priorities, so you need to be crystal clear when it comes to expectations.

Break your goals down on a rep-by-rep basis. If you’re looking for app downloads, how many do you expect from each rep? How many sales should they bring in? What is a realistic amount of campus press won? I recommend giving students weekly or bi-weekly goals to maintain a steady pace of work in their crazy lives.

It also pays to align your reps’ incentives with company goals on a flexible basis. For example, we implement a new bonus for our rep program every week. If we want an extra push for signups, we’ll pay double for signups acquired that week. If we want to boost our social media channels, we’ll give an extra reward to those who take pictures of their campus with our logo and handle tagged.

By switching up incentives, you can make sure that the program remains a powerful, flexible tool even as business needs change.

2. Hire Very Carefully

Representatives serve as the face of your brand on campus, so they need to be thoughtfully selected. We recommend one-on-one or group interviews with candidates to get a sense of their personality and work ethic.

It’s especially important, and often overlooked, to figure out where students spend most of their time outside of the classroom. If you’re looking to influence fashion-minded students, for example, the astronomy club may not be the best place to start. When hiring on WayUp, you can be very targeting in your recruiting efforts, which helps immensely.

Finally, be sure to find out what your potential candidates are hoping to get out of being a campus rep. Are they looking for a paycheck? Experience? Swag? Make sure you can deliver on their expectations to ensure a successful relationship. This also makes for much more effective and devoted reps.

3. Scale Your Resources

Once you have a program with some size, it’s crucial to invest time making supporting resources to avoid sucking up your team’s time with redundant one-on-one conversations.

For starters, gather all relevant documents and collateral in one easily accessible spot for reps to review during the year. This can include detailed guides on how to win press, sample social media posts, a brand values presentation or a list with key messages and talking points.

Here at WayUp, we have an entire website dedicated to our campus reps, along with the resources to support them, but a Google Drive folder will do the trick as well.

4. Establish Accountability

Most college students have never had a “real” boss before. Translation: It may take some mentoring to show them what it means to be accountable and professional.

In this sense, it pays to stay up to date with them through weekly one-on-one meetings, team conference calls and updates on company news. Give students plenty of credit and praise. The act of contributing to a larger organization is still new to a lot of college students, so that kind of validation can sometimes be just as valuable as compensation.

Finally, keep your tone in mind when communicating with your reps, whether in person, via email or in instructional documents. You don’t want to come across as bossy, patronizing or intimidating.

Remember, this is a learning experience for them. The more inspired they feel about your brand and team, the better their work will be. They’re still getting used to this whole working-for-a-boss-thing, so do your best to be supportive and patient.

5. Listen to Your Reps

You might be an expert in your field, but you hired your reps for a reason: They know their colleges.

Listen to their ideas and suggestions, and get ready to adjust your plan to the nuances of each campus. In fact, you should lean on your reps to provide ideas that tie into their colleges’ cultures and schedules.

Test “big moments” like football games, move-in days or Halloween, and see what works campus-by-campus.

You can try small hacks too. Students are part of a big, highly-networked community, so even small stunts can spark a massive buzz. Check out what Coca-Cola pulled off in a cafeteria. You can bet that campus is buying more Coca-Cola these days.

When done right, a campus rep program can be incredibly powerful. Just remember these steps and your reps will steadily become your secret marketing weapon.