How to Market to Students Better

We talked about this prior to the Stormfest event and I looked into what was done on campus to make students aware. I know St. John's is trying to improve and they are but lets try and make some positive suggestions to help the cause. I wrote up some thoughts here...

http://johnnyjungle.com/featured/how-to-market-to-students-better/

Great suggestions, Dave.  Here are some things that I (a student that DOESN'T go to St. John's but has observed/spoken to some students) think need to be done:

1)  The games need to be free.  Why would someone pay $10 (individual game) to see a crappy product on the floor and have to endure through crappy customer service (more on this later in my post)?  (Word is that Carnesecca games maybe $5 this year?)

2) The treatment of fans by St. John's administration that DO show loyalty to the team is borderline pathetic.  For fans to be yelled at by security and administrators for jeering the opposing team is completely ridiculous.  SJU needs to be less politically correct and let college kids be college kids.

3) Security needs to tone down.  My least favorite part of going to an SJU game, especially at Carnesecca, is the pat down and frisking by those security guards when you walk in.  Very unfriendly experience.

if you're selling sh!t, put it in a baby ruth package.  just understand that after a few bites, the suckers will catch on.

The security at St.John's is straight up gangsta.
Anyone that visits leaves thinking SJU is in the hood.

Whoever had that idea should be removed, but then again
We have so many idiots working there.

I’m not trying to take this off topic, but I feel the problem goes even deeper in that the school is ineffective at marketing period. It’s not just the students where they are missing the boat.

We’re in NYC for goodness sake, where are the big business connections? Yes I have a collection of Allstate ice scrapers, and every season they trot out the head guy from Astoria Savings (or whatever bank it is), and Aeropostale gives us a winter hat, but we should have dozens of major names sponsoring us.

I can hear the argument now that sponsors like winners, but we are not exactly NJIT.

Side note: did anyone else get the 28 page high gloss Hofstra Athletics Annual Report that was mailed this week? Sweet marketing.

I’m not trying to take this off topic, but I feel the problem goes even deeper in that the school is ineffective at marketing period. It’s not just the students where they are missing the boat.

We’re in NYC for goodness sake, where are the big business connections? Yes I have a collection of Allstate ice scrapers, and every season they trot out the head guy from Astoria Savings (or whatever bank it is), and Aeropostale gives us a winter hat, but we should have dozens of major names sponsoring us.

I can hear the argument now that sponsors like winners, but we are not exactly NJIT.

Side note: did anyone else get the 28 page high gloss Hofstra Athletics Annual Report that was mailed this week? Sweet marketing.

Ok so we got problems now lets hear some solutions. What can St. John's do?

I don't mind the security upon entering. It takes me an extra 30 seconds to get into the arena and I have the comfort of knowing I'm safe inside. The world is a scary place.

I do mind the security hassling the students all game and some of that comes from administration or Ft. Maher off the bench. Students want to go to games to have fun not to be scolded. I think students shouldn't use foul language but other than that let them have their fun. They pay a lot of money to go to school and they are scholars not criminals.

If the world is so scary, why doesn't the garden do it too?

I’m not trying to take this off topic, but I feel the problem goes even deeper in that the school is ineffective at marketing period. It’s not just the students where they are missing the boat.

We’re in NYC for goodness sake, where are the big business connections? Yes I have a collection of Allstate ice scrapers, and every season they trot out the head guy from Astoria Savings (or whatever bank it is), and Aeropostale gives us a winter hat, but we should have dozens of major names sponsoring us.

I can hear the argument now that sponsors like winners, but we are not exactly NJIT.

Side note: did anyone else get the 28 page high gloss Hofstra Athletics Annual Report that was mailed this week? Sweet marketing.

We are a below 500 team playing a boring style of basketball. If you were a college kid in NYC basically going to a commuter school would you go to the games instead of a million other better things?
The only thing you could conceivably do is:
1. Not sure what kind of discount the SJU students get but whatever it is, it should be cut in half!
2. Dress the cheerleaders in a different $lutty Halloween costume every game. ex French maid, librarian,Marco Baldi
3. Since it is clear they do not wish to hire a real coach, Fire Norm and replace him with a different student every game. They could hold like a $2 lottery before every game and randomly pick the winner. The school would save $ on a new coach, make whatever the get from the lottery and the place would be packed with students wanting to see one of their own coach the team. One other positive is the team would be better coached every game.

Ok so we got problems now lets hear some solutions. What can St. John's do?

I read the press release yesterday where they hired a company to handle their corporate marketing, so maybe we will see a change shortly.

As for marketing to the students, I think the current students and recent grads like yourself would be in the best position to tell the school what works and what doesn’t.

If the world is so scary, why doesn't the garden do it too?

I couldn't give you an exact reason but I'd guess that they have more ushers or paid security inside. Queens vs Manhattan? Liability insurance?

Either way I don't think its a big deal to get a quick pat down. I got nothing to hide and 30 seconds of my life isn't a big deal. I don't think anyone should focus on that being a negative.

Quote from: Dave on October 27, 2009, 02:50:33 PM

Ok so we got problems now lets hear some solutions. What can St. John's do?

I read the press release yesterday where they hired a company to handle their corporate marketing, so maybe we will see a change shortly.

As for marketing to the students, I think the current students and recent grads like yourself would be in the best position to tell the school what works and what doesn’t.

Who are you, Norm Roberts? Stop dodging questions. Lets hear some ideas out of you.

Students love free sht. At halftime, their have to be free giveaways or contests. Also, how do the players fit in on campus? Are they friendly with the regular student? That might help to get asses in the seats

  Students should go the games for free.  Like Marco said, students like free stuff.  Only the direhards are going to spend what little cash they have on basketball games (in the program's current state).
  Of course putting a winning program on the court would solve a lot of the problems.  But you have no control over that.
  The a very friendly personty cheerleader idea is good too! .

Who are you, Norm Roberts? Stop dodging questions. Lets hear some ideas out of you.

Wow, it’s been a tough day here in the Jungle but I’ll play along.

My name is not Norm Roberts, but thanks for asking.

In my opinion I am not the best person to give direction as to marketing to the students, nor is any 50+ year old fan. I can ask my own kids who are in colleges other than SJU, but other than the general suggestions such as sending out text message reminders, they won’t be much help as they don’t know the layout and the student traffic flow of the school. I think current students could give better suggestions.

You brought up the point of the flyers getting lost on the bulletin boards. I would ask students, do they even read those notices on those boards? If not, where do they think things would get noticed?

As for the corporate marketing, the first thing I would do is to get more sponsors. I know things are tough out here in the real world, but there is still money being spent. It’s a matter of phone calls and knocking on doors, anyone in business can tell you that.
This school has many grads in local business, use those alumni connections to tap into their corporate wallets.

More corporate sponsors would mean more money in the athletics budget to do the next phase of CA renovations while we are still young enough to enjoy it.

Advertising the team seems to be something from the past. I don’t remember hearing a radio commercial promoting an upcoming game in a few years. Yes it’s expensive, everything takes money. (see more money above).

I can not answer for what efforts have been made, but I can say that we are not seeing results. I would imagine that they too would like to see the fruits of their labors.

Quote from: Dave on October 27, 2009, 03:56:58 PM

Who are you, Norm Roberts? Stop dodging questions. Lets hear some ideas out of you.

Wow, it’s been a tough day here in the Jungle but I’ll play along.

My name is not Norm Roberts, but thanks for asking.

In my opinion I am not the best person to give direction as to marketing to the students, nor is any 50+ year old fan. I can ask my own kids who are in colleges other than SJU, but other than the general suggestions such as sending out text message reminders, they won’t be much help as they don’t know the layout and the student traffic flow of the school. I think current students could give better suggestions.

You brought up the point of the flyers getting lost on the bulletin boards. I would ask students, do they even read those notices on those boards? If not, where do they think things would get noticed?

As for the corporate marketing, the first thing I would do is to get more sponsors. I know things are tough out here in the real world, but there is still money being spent. It’s a matter of phone calls and knocking on doors, anyone in business can tell you that.
This school has many grads in local business, use those alumni connections to tap into their corporate wallets.

More corporate sponsors would mean more money in the athletics budget to do the next phase of CA renovations while we are still young enough to enjoy it.

Advertising the team seems to be something from the past. I don’t remember hearing a radio commercial promoting an upcoming game in a few years. Yes it’s expensive, everything takes money. (see more money above).

I can not answer for what efforts have been made, but I can say that we are not seeing results. I would imagine that they too would like to see the fruits of their labors.

Ive seen a ton of advertisements for Fordham basketball, and they suck. I think I saw one on during a yankee game if im not mistaken.

Students love free sht. At halftime, their have to be free giveaways or contests. Also, how do the players fit in on campus? Are they friendly with the regular student? That might help to get asses in the seats

They do have alot of free stuff, especially towards the end of last year and for soccer this year, and the problem is that so many of the students come just for the free giveaway, and then just sit there and bullsht with each other the whole game. We had about 15 buses go to the Duke game last year and maybe the capacity of one of those buses actually cheered and cared about the game.

This is what I propsed to Redzone last year. Get students on both student sections behind the baskets. Have giveaways, whatever they may be, but whichever student section makes more noise gets the giveaway at the end of the game.  They liked the idea but for whatever reason decided not to go forward with it.

I think a huge problem, as has been stated, is that it's $10 to for a game at CA (Theo says he heard its $5 this year, we'll see i guess), but the games at CA should be free. I'm completely ok with having to pay for the games at MSG. I think, just like every other sport, you should just have to swipe your stormcard and recieve a ticket for games at CA, and maybe have like a $50 season ticket package for the MSG games.

We could argue all day long about what the school should do to get more students to the game, but the bottom line is this is an extremely diverse school and obviously mainly a commuter school, so no matter what they do theres just not gonna be huge interest in athletics. That's not to say that we shouldnt be able to pack both sides of the student section on an almost daily basis, but it ultimately boils down to wins. If the team starts to win, the students will show up.  I can tell you, however, that each year that I've been here the freshman class has grown, along with the interest among students for the games (especially this year). Just win and there will be more students butts in the seats.

I don't understand why they just don't bill the tickets right into tuition much like they do the "free" laptops.

Quote from: redstormhoopsfan on October 27, 2009, 04:36:23 PM

Quote from: Dave on October 27, 2009, 03:56:58 PM

Who are you, Norm Roberts? Stop dodging questions. Lets hear some ideas out of you.

Wow, it’s been a tough day here in the Jungle but I’ll play along.

My name is not Norm Roberts, but thanks for asking.

In my opinion I am not the best person to give direction as to marketing to the students, nor is any 50+ year old fan. I can ask my own kids who are in colleges other than SJU, but other than the general suggestions such as sending out text message reminders, they won’t be much help as they don’t know the layout and the student traffic flow of the school. I think current students could give better suggestions.

You brought up the point of the flyers getting lost on the bulletin boards. I would ask students, do they even read those notices on those boards? If not, where do they think things would get noticed?

As for the corporate marketing, the first thing I would do is to get more sponsors. I know things are tough out here in the real world, but there is still money being spent. It’s a matter of phone calls and knocking on doors, anyone in business can tell you that.
This school has many grads in local business, use those alumni connections to tap into their corporate wallets.

More corporate sponsors would mean more money in the athletics budget to do the next phase of CA renovations while we are still young enough to enjoy it.

Advertising the team seems to be something from the past. I don’t remember hearing a radio commercial promoting an upcoming game in a few years. Yes it’s expensive, everything takes money. (see more money above).

I can not answer for what efforts have been made, but I can say that we are not seeing results. I would imagine that they too would like to see the fruits of their labors.

Ive seen a ton of advertisements for Fordham basketball, and they suck. I think I saw one on during a yankee game if im not mistaken.

Which leads into the meat of the issue....you need to win in order for marketing to have an effect!

I don't understand why they just don't bill the tickets right into tuition much like they do the "free" laptops.

Agreed, it's absurd!  Just tell the students its free.  It prob comes out to billing each student an extra 10 bucks or something.  chalk it up to "amenity" fee.