Students are always busy.
There’s always more work to do when classes are done. There is already a lot of stuff going on campus every single day. They have to choose from all those events, and they have to also try to squeeze in some social life.
Social life you say? That’s it!
Find events where they hang out and organize fun social games. Since they’re also broke, a beer or slice of pizza will go a long way. They’re already at the event, you don’t need to convince them to make time for yours. Make it fun and non-intrusive. Since they’re more relaxed in that context, you have a better chance that, if you make the pitch fun, they will pay attention and learn something cool while at it.
You want to tell them about your new online product X? Give a free drink at a student social event for anyone who throws a dart at a target with the company’s logo and web address on it and gets at least Y points. They did not get enough points after three tries? Give them a free drink anyway.
Organize a treasure hunt event at the venue, or organize some fun games with pizza slices as prizes. Put the website on the plate or give away t-shirts to those that can trick someone into doing something funny (be very mindful of politically incorrect or bad connotations etc).
There are tons of social games that one can play and have fun, and you can use swag as game tokens: your own version of Werewolf (similar to Mafia), games where you secretly place a sticker on someone and then start counting them and if the count reaches ten without them finding and getting rid of the sticker they have to eat a cookie or do some silly, funny action (like karaoke) etc.
Make your pitch fun. Give a small gift and don’t insist. Bottom line is that you should not expect them to make time for your event, as relevant as it may be. You should go where they hang out.
Tags: internships, marketing, passion
