How to Advertise Your Startup at a College

Published on January 22, 2024 • 15 min read
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Hey there! 👋 I'm excited to share my journey of marketing experimentation with you. As an engineer diving into the world of marketing, I've discovered some fascinating data-driven approaches to reach college students. What started as a simple flyer campaign evolved into a full-fledged marketing experiment with measurable results. Whether you're a startup founder, student entrepreneur, or just curious about guerrilla marketing, I think you'll find some valuable insights here. Let's dive in!

Here you can see my timestamped results from this experiment:

Scan Frequency

Thanks to openfreemap.org for lending me a wonderful out-of-the-box solution for visualizing my flyer map data. I promise I will contribute once this site makes money.

Project Overview

Goal: Get people using goplumeria.com/plan

Metric: Date queries

Background: My site creates customized date ideas for couples who need something to do or discover something new.

Version 1: The Manual Approach

Here's what I did:

Pros

  • Flyers stuck around for a few weeks
  • Traffic went up (10x)

Cons

  • Lot of manual work

Results: 576 Dates

Version 1 Results

Bonus Finding: The Boyfriend vs Girlfriend Test

An unknown was whether which performs better:
"Is your girlfriend bored?" vs "Is your boyfriend bored?"

I put them up in different locations with approximately the same foot traffic. After a few days, I was shocked to find the count was almost even: bf=89 gf=91 were the scan counts.

This was unexpected. But I found something even better - having both side by side would ~2x the scans even if you include both of them!

Version 2: Automation

Printer Interface Scanner Interface

Pros

  • Super easy to print (label printer, cost is ~3 cents per flyer)
  • Super easy to log (logs lat,lon,amount_scanned to firebase)

Cons

  • ???

Results: 657 Dates

Version 2 Results

Bonus Finding: Where to flyer

Given the heatmap at the top, you might wonder: where should i put my flyer to maximize the amount of scans. The answer isn't very trivial but my guidance is as follows: on poles on major walkways. Those had the highest and most consistent scan rates. My reasoning is as follows:

1. The posters last way longer because nobody takes them down like the ones in lecture halls.
2. People are bored while they walk and often with friends.

I took a break for a few months, mostly working on the iOS app because people just kept asking for that. I'll be releasing it very soon, if you're interested feel free to create an account at goplumeria.com/auth and I'll send you a personal invitation to the app once it's released. Oops, sidetracked. Back to the finale.

Version 3: Customization

Version 3 Flyer

Pros

  • Personally thought this was funny

Cons

  • The data doesn't lie~ was not our most successful run in terms of dates generated*

Results: 219 Dates

Version 3 Results

* Did enforce a free account creation which limits amount you can make without account
** Might be fatigue at this campus. Unlikely but possible people already heard and the buzz went around.

Version 4: Coming Soon!

The plan is as follows:

Final Thoughts

I hope this was educational. It has really been a kick doing this in the evenings and I am getting more and more roped into the data and how I can quantitatively determine what works and what doesn't.

If you enjoyed this, please feel free to write me at emailplumeria@gmail.com or DM on Instagram. This is a passion project to ignite joy and strengthen relationships by connecting couples with magical, accessible date experiences that turn ordinary moments into extraordinary memories.