Some people may find it crazy that we not only pay €4500 to be a Knowmad but also do the marketing for the school. Shouldn’t it be the school’s responsibility to market the school? Isn’t it up to the school to bring in the students?

Not at Knowmads. This is a different type of education.

It’s all about getting in the thick of things and doing real life projects. With this marketing project everyone benefits. From building the Knowmads brand, bringing in more students, practicing our marketing skills, and getting the world to know about Knowmads. It’s figuring out what kind of ruckus we want to stir up in the world.

There’s a lot to do and a lot of opportunities to learn and apply our marketing and social media skills.

Every 6 months or so, Knowmads tribe members get the chance to work on the marketing for Knowmads in order to recruit new Knowmads for the next tribe. In the past there have been videos made, stickers, bookmarks, and brochures produced, and as well as many ideas developed but not necessarily put into action due to lack of time, money, commitment, etc.

So here we are four Tribe 5  members plus Guus, spending our entire Friday working on a game plan for our marketing campaign these next 2 months. First thing we did was study and analyze some of the great videos and marketing campaigns that we’ve discovered. Videos like the DollarShaveClub, Chipotle, Google’s Impress a French Girl, Girls going wild in Red Light District, and Kansas State’s Vision of Students Today were analyzed on why each was a success and what we could take from them to create our own entertaining videos and marketing campaign.

Then came our own ideas on how we could market Knowmads. No brainstorming on this because brainstorming can sometimes limit ideas and we wanted a plethora of great marketing ideas. We had 10 mins to work on our own ideas then share them with the group.

After we all presented our ideas on stage, we took our post-its and markers and wrote down everything that Knowmads means to us. We answered questions like “What the heck is Knowmads? “Why did we decide to go to Knowmads?” “What was the turning point that made us choose Knowmads?” “What makes Knowmads different?” and “Who goes to Knowmads?”

Next came organizing all of our ideas into categories like online/offline, products, events, where, social media, and video. During this session there was lots of debating on which is the best type of creative music to work with. Being the lone American amongst 4 Dutchies, I felt I couldn’t win with the music. I think my phrase of the day was, “Next song please.” Surprisingly there wasn’t any techno on the playlist but another type of Dutch loving music that they thought I would enjoy which to me can best be described as the 6 Flags commercial music.

After the dance party of ideas we finally got down to the real stuff; creating a timeline of the actions and products we want to produce and then action mode.

Each of the marketing magic team now has ownership of something and we have set deadlines/goals as to when we want to accomplish things. This is the most important factor because if there’s no accountability who knows what will get done. Since our overall goal is to of bring in 50 students to the next application workshop in July, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

We’ve got Laura working on a poster and a strong story. Leo on creating a video and taking strong photos. And Robert and I working on all aspects of social media. With our powers combined (plus a few other tribe members who are on holiday), we hope to crank out the best marketing campaign to date! What a day!

Side Note: Robert and I are determined to keep you informed about our marketing magic as well as what the heck is really going on here at Knowmads. Hold us to it!