Marketing Strategy

let's get the word out!

Marketing Calendar

Depending on when you start planning to hold CSK, you might you either don't have much time before the event, or you have so much time you're not sure how to use it!

One of the best ways to fix this is by creating a marketing calendar: essentially, a calendar of all the time between the present and the event with all marketing strategies and dates included.

Have a few meetings with your entire team to iron this out! This is one of the most important things to get ready at the start but keep in mind it is not fixed: be prepared to adapt and change it as you progress through the timeline, for example adding new ideas or removing ones that turned out to be infeasible in practice.

Suggested Features

• Key: have a list of all mediums of marketing at the top that you plan to use

• Colour coding: use different colours for each medium of marketing (e.g Tik Tok, physical flyering, emails...)

• Tracker: you can pair a post tracker with the calendar to keep track of the status of each post (creation, final checks, posted, etc.)

Content you can include

• Physical marketing dates: tabling, flyering, presentations, event days

• Meeting dates and agendas

• Social media post dates: Instagram, Tiktok, etc.

• Application due dates + important dates to remember

• Informative posts: mostly for the actual participants, reminders and useful information to prepare for the day

Branding Reference Document

Things to Include

• Logos: consider having two versions; one long including "CS Kickstart", and a square one featuring a mascot or symbol

• Color Palette + Hex Codes: pick a few shades of your primary colour + some complementary contrast colours and stick to them!

• Fonts: you may need different ones for different sites/uses if some fonts are unavailable.

• Slide Deck: a consistent design and elements to use across all CSK presentations

• Outreach Document Templates + Formats: a standardised template when communicating with external parties - include the logo on the header!

• Instagram/Social Media Post Templates: this can be as strict or general as you want, whether that's creating a set of templates to cycle between, or just a general 'vibe' and 'aesthetic' that carries over all posts. What's important is making sure the posts all clearly belong to your brand, incorporating the logos, colours and fonts from above.

Sample Branding Reference:

Physical: Tabling

As much as we live in the digital age, one of the most effective ways to get the word out is tabling!

Tabling can be done on any regular day of the week, or for maximum reach try tabling on big school-wide events (for UC Berkeley, our big target was Cal Day, where prospective freshman visit the school!)

At the most barebones form, this can just be a table, a poster with "CSK" written on it, and two people ready to flag down passerby - here are some ways to upgrade your tabling strategies!

Preparing for Tabling

• Add something eye-catching: this can be as simple as a poster, but if you have more budget you can consider banners, tents, etc. - something to draw attention from anyone passing by

• Flyers: design a simple, yet informative poster that you can mass-print and hand out. This should include a short description of CSK, who the program is for, contact information and links to websites and social media for further information

• Merchandise: one way to keep people standing at your table (and listening to you!) is handing out some cute CSK-branded merch - it's also a great way to get the brand out there and visible. You could hand it out for free or require people to fill out an interest form! Some suggestions are stickers, buttons, lanyards, pens - anything you can mass produce for a relatively cheaper price, or if you have any sponsorships or partnerships you could hand out merch produced by them as well.

Tabling and Flyer-ing Pointers

• Practice: it can be pretty intimidating going up to people and initiating conversation - one of the best ways to get used to this is just by practicing and getting out there! If you feel intimidated, try going in pairs with a friend to make the experience more fun :)

• Hook: prepare an interesting one-liner to open the conversation and hook people's attention - for example, "interested in a completely free summer program for girls in CS?"

• Elevator Pitching: ensure all your tablers are armed with a <30 second elevator pitch summarizing the initiative and why someone would be interested - tailor this to your audience! For example, parents might want to hear more about the educational aspects of CSK whereas the students themselves might want to know more about the social benefits.

Digital: Social Media

As you might expect, one of the best and easiest ways to reach out is via digital means - namely, social media! It's inexpensive, fast, and effective - so definitely concentrate a lot of effort here.

To help with the process, use the marketing calendar and trackers to keep a posting schedule consistent and make sure you cover all bases! The key is to post consistently to keep up engagement, build momentum and work with the algorithm.

Platforms to consider

• Instagram

• TikTok

• Discord

• Reddit

• Snapchat

• Facebook

Social media ideas:

• Instagram stories: these can be prepared posts or more spontaneous snapshots of college life/CSK

• "What is CSK": introduce CSK's mission, history, and example events through a series of posts

• Introductions: introduce the members of the leadership team

• Interviews/Q and As: interview the members of leadership on their CSK experiences or more general school life! You could even interview random passer-bys on common questions from incoming freshman, for example

• Story takeovers: have members of the leadership team do a "day-in-the-life" series and take questions on Insta!

• Application deadline posts: a series of countdowns to the CSK application deadline(s)

• Promotional videos: a more professionally shot and edited video to use on social media + presentations

Digital: Outreach

Social media is great - but sometimes reaching out to other organizations with online presence or influence can help get the word out and build an audience.

Outreach here might look like posting on public forums, doing collaborations with other campus clubs and organizations, asking other accounts to post about CSK, emailing school departments for help with reaching out to students, and more!

Areas to target

1. Campus clubs: it's especially good to target clubs with similarities, like being STEM (or women-in-STEM) focused

2. Official school accounts: departmental, whole-school, etc.

3. Freshman groups: Instagram "class of ___" accounts, discord servers, Snapchat groups

As a reminder, all these are just good starting points to consider! Make sure to adapt these ideas to your campus and event - whatever works best for your version of CSK :)