How Brands Can Attract Back-to-School Shoppers

Like most important events, the onset of the new college year will happen suddenly. Although everyone knows how to read the calendar, the need to start learning again is a surprise for both students and parents.

Okay, let this be a surprise to them. But this should not be a surprise to you. This means that retailers need to carefully prepare for the start of a new college year. In this article, we talk about what needs to be done in advance.

Start Exploring Trends

Since school and college supplies are in seasonal demand, it makes sense to develop a strategy in order to get maximum sales. And the first thing to do is to study what will be most popular among students in the coming fall.

So, here are the main back-to-school trends of fall 2019.

School Suppliers

• Twist Correction Tape
• Crayola Markers
• Inspirational Pencils
• Crayola Take Note! Erasable Highlighters
• Post-it Pop-up Notes
• 2020 Mood Tracker Planner
• Big Capacity Pencil Case

Uniform

Obviously, the choice of college uniforms does not always depend on the students themselves or their parents. However, in order to add a little personality to the student’s image, it is enough to supplement the form with successful accents.

For example, as an additional part, it is possible to sell:

• tights or leggings
• scarves
• shawls or headbands
• ties and butterflies for boys and girls as well.

Lunchboxes and Water Bottles

• PackIt Freezable Lunch Bag
• Stainless Steel Water Bottle

Accessories

• Modoker Vintage Laptop Backpack
• Mini Portable Charger
• Pineapple 32GB USB Flash Drive

Let's Shoot the Target

And now the most important question - who will buy all this? And these are not only students, but also their parents. At this stage, it makes sense to divide the marketing strategy into two areas and develop separate approaches to attract students and their parents.

Target on Parents

As we already said, approaches to marketing aimed at parents and students will be different. We suggest using the following tools to keep in touch with the parents.

• Email Marketing

While students spend time in Snapchat, parents still open their mailboxes from time to time. During the pre-school preparation period, it is wise to launch an appropriate email company and guide the parent through the sales funnel.

To do this, you will need a set of analytical data about the parents themselves and their college children. And also about their needs, preferences, interests, and solvency.

• Discounts, Promotions, Bonuses

It is expensive to educate your beloved children. Therefore, the words "discount", "cheaper", "free", "limited offer" act on parents like a red rag on a bull. Why not save if expenses are high anyway?

All kinds of discounts, promotions, Disney gift cards, bonuses, free delivery or any other promotion that you come up with will find a response among practical and economical parents.

• Useful Content

Every parent wants to provide their child with the best things for the least money. They will carefully read reviews, compare different products, and evaluate how this or that proposal will cover the basic needs for the life in college. For example, students can use logo maker that is completely free, has a huge collection of logos for any users, including students creating logos and icons for their school essay.

It's time to create useful content and highlight the benefits of your goods and offers.

• Contextual Advertising

Here you need to be careful. Don't get too involved with targeting parents. Show them contextual ads in the days when you did not send them an email message. Just to remind them of the need to buy their children everything they need for college, and of your online presence. Make sure you consult with a qualified Google ads manager for an effective strategy for your brand specifically.

Target on Schoolchildren

Of course, focusing on students and teenagers, you need to speak with them in their language. And do the same thing as they do.

• Focus on Mobile

A mobile phone is the main accessory of any student. This has already ceased to be a luxury item but has become a useful addition. Of course, young students will want to independently choose something for school, and with a great deal of likelihood, they will search for the right products from their mobile phones. Make sure all the pages including the longest ones like Terms of Use or Return Policy on your site are perfectly designed to be looked through from any device. 

• Social Networks

And this is a real Klondike. When was the last time you met a student who does not have a profile on social networks? That's right, you will never meet such a teen. Therefore, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat should become your main advertising platforms in August. The trick here is to come up with an attention-grabbing design. You can use tools like DesignWizard to make your Facebook page stand out. So, how to use social networks as efficiently as possible?

• Contests and Giveaways

Young people are adventurous, so they are happy to subscribe to the pages of brands and take part in their contests and giveaways. Of course, it is imperative that brands offer products that students want to have. Therefore, choose the most popular and necessary products as a prize in the competition. For example, use the list above.

Hint! To improve the coverage of your contest, ask participants not only to subscribe to your brand page and leave a comment under the post with the competition but also to tag their classmates.

• Influencers

It can be both good and bad, but the features of the unformed character of youth are such that they tend to accept the opinions of other people for the ultimate truth. What can we say, even an adult audience of social networks is more inclined to shop if the influencer has recommended a certain product.

Therefore, your task is to find out who is now held in high esteem among college students and agree on cooperation.

• Additional Ways

In general, you can also use email marketing, social media advertising targeted at students or turn to the most recent methods of conversational marketing using chatbots. To some extent, this may also work.

Conclusion

The period of preparation for college cannot last long. Therefore, your task is to think through everything carefully in advance to get the maximum payback. If you are innovative and already have some artificial intelligence tools for market research, you may go even further and categorize your clients by personal preferences. In any case, use our comprehensive tips to reach students as well as their parents at the same time, as each of these groups is influential in making purchasing decisions.