In order to help advance Women4Change’s presence on IUPUI’s campus to attract members and develop a useful census of recommendations, we sought to distinguish what methods they were already using, as well as to discover what new methods might prove to be successful. We looked through online databases and hosted an online local study to help gather useful information on attracting college students to new organizations. 

 

Research Completed through ProQuest Databases

This information was obtained from online articles written by advertising experts that were found through specialized ProQuest databases through IUPUI containing over 90,000 authoritative credible sources as well as in depth Google searches. This research was then supported by a local study sent out to our fellow students on campus to gain insight into what attracts them to different organizations on campus and how they respond to these advertisements. 

 

From the ProQuest databases and internet searches we sought to improve our knowledge of what makes for effective advertising to attract students to events and see what others say worked most effectively. As we continued our research, we were able to narrow down the list to what we thought were the best ideas for Women4Change that they had not tried before. We went through multiple stages of finding new tips and tricks to help with advertisement, allowing ourselves to weed out the stronger ideas from the weaker ones, to develop a list of some of the most talked about recommendations from experts and articles which include the following:

 

• Free items at tabling events 

• Boost social media (Twitter) through other organization’s accounts

• In person advertisement at different organization meetings 

• Peer to peer advertisement (referrals) 

 

Through the ProQuest database, specific search phrases were used to aim us in the right direction to find those solutions for the Women4Change marketing scope. These phrases included the following:

 

• Marketing AND “college campuses”—Google + ProQuest

• Marketing Strategies —Google + ProQuest

• College Campus AND “advertising”—Google + EBSCOHost + ProQuest

• Professional Advertising Tips —Google + ProQuest

• Advertising Tips AND Strategies—Google + Proquest

• “Studies” AND “effective advertising” —Google + ProQuest

• Articles on Effective Advertising on College Campuses —Google

• Marketing Strategies for College Campus Organizations —Google 

• Women4Change Marketing — Google

 

After reading all of the online articles and viewing what other businesses and college organizations had done to help, we gained extensive knowledge that gave us the confidence to provide Women4Change with our ideas for their organization. 

 

Research and Data Acquired from the Local Study Generated with Survey Monkey 

In order to identify the specific results for marketing and finding the optimal way to spread the Women4Change organization, we constructed a survey that consisted of questions that would identify the critical data we sought after. Our team did have a minor inconvenience with the Survey Monkey program as the number of responses were capped at 40 respondents. Our data still gave us an accurate representation of successfully reaching the correct audience. This was our second wave of research on how known the organization was and how to reach the attention of college students. The following questions were asked in the survey: 

 

• Have you ever attended an event or activity hosted by IUPUI’s Women4Change organization? 

• What forms of social media do you most often use? 

• What types of free items/prizes do you like to recieve?

• How often does your student organization invite guest speakers to your meetings? 

• Have you ever had a speaker from another IUPUI campus student organization come speak at one of your meetings and did you attend an event or meeting of theirs after their presentation?

• How likely are you to recommend a student organization event to a friend?
   

Through the study that our team designed, we identified the information that could lead us to developing the best recommendations that we could offer to the Women4Change organization on IUPUI’s campus. This allowed us to progress with conducting our primary research to identify the unknown information that we sought for our secondary research discoveries in the local study. 

​

For more information on the local study, visit Appendix D.