This appendix provides commentary on the resources used to pinpoint the specific recommendations and their analyses for marketing for the IUPUI Women4Change chapter, as well as any other information the team found important. This includes information on marketing to the right audience, using other organizations for help, how to use in-person advertisement, proper audience segmentation, successful use of Twitter, and the importance of consent from participants for local studies and surveys. 

​

Successful Marketing Comes from Pleasing the Right Audience

Capturing students' attention to become more interested in events and organizations can require some thinking out of the box. Emma Rensch, the author of "How to Get People Interested in Joining A Club," expresses in her article the importance of developing an organizational marketing environment that is inviting. She states, "Hand out free pens, stickers or pins to attract people to your table and ask them to sign up for a mailing list when they approach" (p.1). Noah Kagan, who wrote an article called, "Tips for Successful College Marketing," suggests that to engage students you need to make it appealing to attract an audience. He states, "If it isn't interesting, it's not going to be absorbed" (p. 2). Rensch and Kagan agree that bribing and engaging tactics to try to market to college students. Though Kagan stresses more informal ways and Rensch identifies more professional ways to market, both authors clearly value targeting your audience and using materialistic items to attract members.

​

Turning to Other Organizations for Solutions

Analyzing how other organizations promote events can be a smart way to obtain marketing skills. David Morrison, the author of, “Marketing To The Campus Crowd,” mentions various unique ways that organizations can make students eager to participate in college campus events. In his article, he states, "Success is built on relationships" (p. 2). He goes on to talk about how having the right connections and building relationships with people are important. In comparison, an author by the name of Kathie Pugaczewski wrote an article called, "Nine Marketing Ideas For Your Organization." Pugaczewski states, "Watch what other "big" companies are doing and see if some of their practices can fit your company" (p. 1) Morrison and Pugaczewski both provide reasoning for how smaller businesses can look up to larger organizations. Morrison, like Pugaczewski, also says, "Everyone makes a difference" (p. 2) Everyone, including other organizations, can be examples of what works and what does not work when marketing. Even though an organization might be smaller, looking to larger organizations and even reaching out to other on-campus organizations, can be beneficial.

​

Using Social Media Regularly Increases Prospects Seeing Your Advertisement

Social media is a daily tool used all around the world and is the best way to key in with young adults nowadays. An article from DesignRush states, “86 percent of users want to see authentic content from brands on social media – and posting regularly on social networks is a great way to achieve this. In addition, 87 percent of digital marketers use social media to push their content to consumers, making it the most popular medium” (The most successful, 2019). Claiming that a high percentage of users want to see more social media use and that pushing content to consumers on social media makes it more popular. Author Matt Alderton of the article “Marketing to College Students” agrees with the 2019 article when he writes, “Modern-day college students grew up with the World Wide Web and spend hours at a time online studying, surfing the net and socializing with their friends. Smart marketers will log on not only to advertise to their young customers, but to interact with them, too. Create a well-designed website that appeals to the college demographic, and link it to your social media profiles for maximum effect” (Alderton,2010). Explaining that the internet and social media are the best ways to reach teens and young adults. As well as using appealing content that relates to college students will produce positive effects. Both DesignRush and Alderton support the use of digital markers, well-designed websites, and social media to increase foot traffic on social media with young adults. 

 

Person to Person Advertising: Encouraging Referrals

These days, social media has been shown to be a great way to help advertise for events, but “person to person” or “word of mouth” advertising can be just as effective, if not more. Small business expert Beth Schoenfeldt argues, “that one of the best ways [to expand customer base]  is to provide an incentive to customers who refer friends and family members to your store. She also suggests, “business owners find opportunities to speak at lectures or teach workshop classes. This way, you not only reach out to a new audience, but you can begin to establish yourself as an expert in your field, which can attract more customer loyalty” (NuWire, 2010). Saying that going in person to group activities and encouraging a referral incentive is a great way to increase customers and get them to come back, and possibly bringing new people along with them. James Mitchell, vice president of developmental research for LIMRA would agree that person to person advertising with referrals is a great way to expand business. He says, “One way that referrals can be more in tune with today's WOM [word of mouth] marketing tactics is to actively encourage and target referrals (...) Referral programs work because customers tend to refer people like themselves. To gain maximum benefit, the program can be targeted to a company or firm's best customers - increasing the likelihood that the new' customers being referred will be the kind of customers the company or firm wants” (Mitchel, 2012). Expressing that people will bring people who are like them, and who will most likely enjoy the company, business, event, etc. Which will in turn get them to come back and bring more alike people who will do the same thing, and so on. Experts Beth and James both agree that “word of mouth” or “person to person” can work hand in hand with a referral incentive to work to increase attendance and overall help expand the business.

​

Successful Audience Segmentation Through Analysis of Audience Behaviors and Similarities

Experts in advertising often stress the idea of “audience segmentation,” which is a form of discovering a target audience to improve marketing strategies. In a report from Econsultancy’s “Social Media Best Practice Guide,” author Michelle Goodall (2019) states, “Brands should research their customers’ behaviours, which platforms are they using, where they are likely to be, what type media they consume and which brands are they likely to affiliate themselves with” (p. 27). Goodall claims that in the detailed investigation of a targeted audience, you must uncover how that particular audience behaves with the specific form of advertisement you are using, which, in this case, is various social media platforms, and how it all relates to each other. Robert Kim (1989), author in the “Bank Marketing” publication from 1989, agrees with the ideas of investigating the similarities and behaviors within an audience to boost marketing. Kim explains that to segment an audience successfully, it is important to “[find] the commonalities (i.e. areas in which motivations, financial style, and actions overlap) in the target audience(s)” (p. 27). Through researching these common attributes in an audience, a business or organization can better understand how their audience reacts and modify the way in which they advertise accordingly. Both authors, Goodall and Kim, describe the importance of exploring the nature of their target audience and uncovering their “commonalities” in order to properly segment and separate that audience from the rest of the world.

 

Using Twitter as a Social Media Platform for Student Organizations can Boost Audience Interaction and Their Sense of Community

Social media is one of the most common forms of virtual interaction for college aged students. Of these social media platforms, Twitter can be considered one of the more notable mediums. The many contributors to a business journal and members of the Prairie View A&M University College of Business, Ahmed Mahfouz, Kishwar Joonas, Dalain Williams, Ruixin Jia, and Margarita Arevalo discussed in their article how JCPenney, an American department store, recently gained more traction through the use of platforms, such as Twitter. The authors state, “Twitter offers such engagement, to promote a company’s brand, relevancy to pop culture, and immediate interaction with a community of over 300 million active users around the world” (p. 185). They claim that Twitter has the ability to bring their audience together through its “immediate interaction.” Such immediacy allows for a stronger sense of belonging in a community. Bohdan Pikas and Gabi Sorrentino agree with the authors of the JCPenney article as they feel various online pages are able to build upon those communal relationships. Pikas and Sorrentino state, “Research proves that the main motivators for using these web pages are driven by consumer’s need to build and nurture social relationships” (p. 71). While they do not specifically mention Twitter, they note that “web pages”, a category in which Twitter can fall under, help create and sustain social relationships. Because social media is so prevalent today, maintaining these types of relationships through such means is crucial as it can help sustain audience involvement.

​

Using Testimonials to Increase Participation and Attract Consumers/Followers

Experts in utilizing testimonials in advertising continually place importance of “attributes of the product” and “the motivation and the inferences”, which are key factors in determining how to improve marketing strategies and improve participation. In a report from Business Time’s, “The Testimonial Advertising Way To a Consumer’s Heart”, author Siew Li Kang (1997) states, “The approach is taken because they seem to add credibility and genuineness to the advertising” (p.17). Kang declares that with the inclusion of testimonials in advertising, one must know the audience to which the company or organization is trying to attract and that the product of event must have attributes that the consumer will benefit from. Han Kyoo-Hoon and Spencer Tinkham (2005), authors of “Endorser Attribution Effects in Noncelebrity Testimonial Advertising: The Role of Dispostional Versus Situational Attributions”, agrees with the ideas of the motivation and the “...impact on persuasion of testimonial advertisements.” (p.8) Kyoo-Hoon and Tinkham explain that “... predictable patterns of attributional responses to testimonial messages… will influence ad and brand evaluations” (p.8). Through identifying marketing strategies and the patterns that are created, a business or organizaton can influence their marketing to appeal to their consumers through relational benefits or commonalities. Both authors describe the importance of how to attract individuals based on testimonials and the content that is included to attract followers/consumers in advertising and marketing. 

​

What is Consent and How to Obtain It For Research Participants?

Obtaining consent is one of the most important factors when it comes to privacy and asking indiviuduals about their personal beliefs or attributions. Ian Huntington and Walter Robinson from (2007), state “It is now common to read in clinical research literature that informed consent is more than the act of signing a consent form-rather, it is a process that extends throughout the research subject’s clinical trial experience” (p.6). This claims that obtaining consent is half the battle. What comes out of the consent and how the individual is affected is the other half of the battle. Targeted News Service on the “APA Ethics Code Addressed When Obtaining Informed Consent From Research Participants Is Necessary” defined informed consent as “...the process by which researchers working with human participants describe their research project and obtain the subject’s consent to participate in the research based on the subjects’ understanding of the project’s methods and goals.” While the mention of informed consent is in regards to Facebook users, this is relevant and agrees to Huntington and Robinson and our proposal due to the use of social media and what we are required to tell/show our followers and consumers. Gaining consent from individuals is so important in today’s society. Especially when it comes to workplace communications or social media. Consent is crucial for safety and legal protection to the business or organization. 

​

Conclusion

The sources presented above were crucial to helping the team develop a stronger understanding of the marketing world. These resources were sought out to firmly back the recommendations suggested in the report and to cater specifically to the marketing status of the IUPUI chapter of Women4Change.