Air Social offers marketing mentorship to the students of the University of Surrey
Air Social has embarked upon an exciting new project alongside Woking Works (part of Woking Borough Council) to help students from the University of Surrey to promote the two companies NearSt and Too Good To Go. Both companies are part of the economic development plan funded by the government to promote an increase in footfall in Woking.
As part of their studies, students from the Surrey Business School will be working to market these two real brands and experience firsthand the challenges involved with the support and mentorship of Air Social’s Managing Director, Alex Vinall.
Alex and the marketing team at TGTG & Near St met with the students (over Zoom) to brief them on both brands and introduce them to the fundamental elements of running a successful digital marketing social media campaign.
As the students develop their ideas and start to strategise how to implement their campaigns, Air Social will continue to support them and help them to realise their vision. The team at Air Social is passionate about supporting new talent, and Alex is looking forward to seeing such an amazing practical concept become a reality.
Alex started by getting the students into the right mindset, clearly working out their goals and concentrating their attention first on thinking about how they can encourage retailers to sign up to join both NearSt and Too Good To Go, apps that help retailers shift unsold food and reduce wastage. Alex then introduced the students to the methods Air Social uses to support companies in marketing their business online. There’s a huge range of tools available, and it’s important to pick the right one for the job. Decisions made in the early stages of a campaign can have ramifications down the line, so it’s essential to always maintain focus. A successful marketing campaign is the result of many good decisions, never just one, and due to the nature of the beast, plans need to stay liquid to adapt to changes both predictable and unpredictable.
To create a good marketing plan it’s essential to know all there is to know about the product you are selling, to this end, the students were given a briefing on the business models of both Too Good To Go and NearSt so that they could clearly plan a suitable advertising strategy that complemented their business and highlighted their most marketable attributes.
We were pleased to see that the students were inquisitive and asked plenty of questions, marketing is all about asking questions, answering questions and giving solutions to the problems you think consumers have – so this was very encouraging to see. One thought we posed was the following: If we could time travel to the end of November, what would a successful project look like to you?
If this could be answered, then we were all set.
The students have now been left to their own devices to gather the information needed to formulate their campaign ideas, and we all look forward to seeing what they come up with in the preliminary stages.
