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How to Start & Grow a College Ambassador Program

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The bottom line

A college ambassador program works when you recruit students who already love the app and treat them like real team members. It grew Drunk Mode to over 1 million downloads and supplied several of the company's later leaders.

Key takeaways

  • The best campus reps are students who already like the app. 3:26
    • Jake got a mass email built from scraped University of Alabama addresses, downloaded the app, and offered to help with marketing.
    • The CEO then made him the company's first campus rep, at the University of Alabama.
  • A rep's job is to represent the brand on campus. 6:13
    • Jake chalked sidewalks, put flyers in every dorm and building, and handed out t-shirts on gameday.
    • He also went to every fraternity and sorority event to get people to download the app.
  • Reps should be paid and treated like employees. 6:29
    • Early reps got equity, and real pay only began after about a year. Jake's first month paid about $500.
    • Later pay used milestones, such as a bonus for reaching 500 daily active users on campus.
    • Group chats with reps across the country and monthly Snapchat takeovers kept them feeling part of the team.
  • A rep program becomes a pipeline for future leaders. 4:31
    • XMode's Director of Sales, Director of Marketing and CFO all started as campus reps.
  • Reps must follow each campus's rules. 9:01
    • Campus security removed Jake for handing out shirts without a permit. His advice is to check with the university first.

Those are representations of your company, so you want to treat them as you would almost any other employee. Make sure they're happy and make sure there's room to grow.

Jake Ellenburg, CMO of XMode

Chapter summaries

0:00 A university-style email hooked the first rep

A dull email that looked like it came from the university worked because the app's pitch fit student life.

  • The email's copy mattered more than its design. 1:28
    • It was made to look like it came from the University of Alabama.
    • University emails are plain and businesslike, so the look came easily.
    • Jake is unsure Josh did it on purpose.
    • Josh is the process person who gets a message in front of the right people. Jake handles copy and imagery, and says the email lacked that.
  • The app itself was what hooked him. 2:40
    • Drunk Mode balanced finding the party with staying safe with friends.
    • Jake downloaded it at once and saw it only needed marketing help.
    • The email asked only for a download. Rep work came from Jake's own initiative.
    • He calls himself an opportunist who helps when he sees a chance.

3:26 Campus reps became the team

Drunk Mode kept filling its team from campus reps, and early reps were treated almost like co-founders.

  • Campus reps were the company's main route to talent. 3:50
    • The company focused on reps for the whole run of Drunk Mode.
    • Later hires came from different campuses.
    • TJ started as the rep at the University of Colorado Boulder.
    • Jessica took over Alabama after Jake moved up. Jamie, now CFO, repped at a Virginia university.
  • Early reps were paid in ownership, not cash. 4:45
    • Early reps were seen as near co-founders of the CEO.
    • Equity over money was a real gamble for students.
    • Jake's first reaction was what does that even mean.
    • He was in his early twenties and needed all the money he could get.

5:39 Why reps want in, and how they built the brand

Reps join to be part of a company's dream, so the brand grows when they feel like insiders.

  • Reps want a place in the company, not just money. 10:40
    • Students reach out to startups because they want to belong.
    • Skipping pay is the easy route, and it backfires.
    • Not every rep could become a founder, so pay moved to milestones.
    • Jake's view: those are representations of your company.
  • Snapchat takeovers made reps the voice of the brand. 7:07
    • Reps lined up to take over the account during spring break and fraternity events.
    • This was before location filters were big.
    • Posts read like "party tonight at Alabama, tomorrow night at UVA," and followers asked to be added.

7:59 What the first reps actually did

With no playbook, early reps tried many things, from stunts to monetization tests.

  • The first reps got loose goals while the job took shape. 8:12
    • The goal was hype, since few people had heard of the app.
    • Chalk messages were funny and about Drunk Mode.
    • As security told them to stop, one officer asked for a t-shirt.
  • Reps also helped test ways to make money. 9:57
    • They pitched local bars on paying for a push notification to people walking past.
    • Drunk Mode ran this system at one time.
    • Jake calls the job a mix of a lot of things.

In the growth library

Jake Ellenburg, CMO of XMode, former first campus rep at Drunk Mode. A college ambassador program helped grow the app Drunk Mode to over 1 million downloads, and it also became a hiring pipeline for the company's leadership. The episode covers how reps were recruited, paid, engaged and what they actually did on campus.

More from App Masters · The whole library, and ask it anything

Transcript300 lines
0:00

gonna want to know how to start a successful college Ambassador Program to help grow downloads for your app well we're gonna cover all of that and how much to pay them stay tuned what is up a petition it is the PM founder of at masters dot-com the place you go when you want action-packed content in the app business now I've got a snippet from our most recent virtual summit so make sure you sign up for our email newsletters to figure out when the next one is coming because it's gonna be happening in March so stay tuned for that so go to at masters com put your email in there we'll let you know when the next one is coming up here we've got my friend Jake Ellenberger who's gonna talk all about how they use a college Ambassador Program to grow their app drunk mode to over 1 million downloads pay attention to the sneaky way that they sent their emails how they actually use their fans to find the right College

1:07

ambassadors and how do you keep these college students really engaged so that they not only promote your app they do it well and they're happy to do it alright so let's talk it more about the college ambassador again so you first got involved because you're right so talk to me about like what did that email look like how did josh make it look like that it came from the University of Alabama yes so I mean it was just a typical like I mean it was a gray area of course because it was kind of like a lot of the emails were scraped essentially from you know the University of Alabama and then it was all about I guess the copy really was the more important thing like to try to make it look like it was actually from you a and you know I think I don't know if he really did it intentionally I'm being honest I think it was just more or less it's like you know universities aren't very creative in how their emails look

2:06

you know they're very businessí in a way and so I think Josh who's you know a super creative guy when it comes to like you know processes and like how to get into the right you know like how to get something into some like in front of the right person that's what josh is really good at doing I'm more of the creative side on copy and imagery in a way and so it definitely lacked that and it looked it looked like something the university would have made but not in like a great good way that like what did the e-mail say to you that got your attention you said it was more of about the email oh it it was basically just about the app man I had never heard of an app like that and you know of course being in college we got drunk a lot and didn't see in an app called drunk mode that was supposed to be a little bit of a balance between trying to find the party but then also trying to be safe with your friends and

2:59

everything like that really appealed to me at the time and so you know immediately was like downloaded it played around with it and was like this could be great you know it just needs a little bit of help and I'm always an opportunist you know like if I see an opportunity to help out I try to and so that's what I noticed that drunk mode is it just needed some help with this marketing and so were they asking you to become a rep or with were they just asking you to download the app okay so yeah no it was definitely for us to help load the app I took the initiative to try to say like hey man you know I think you know I can do a little bit better job and Josh saw an opportunity to have his first campus rep and that's whenever he was like hey man you know like if you want to be our first ever campus rep you can do it at the University of Alabama and and so that's actually why we kind of the entire time we ran drunk mode

3:52

that's why we focused on campus reps because literally we build a team out of it TJ who's now our Director of Sales at x-mode he started as the campus rep that our UA our University of Boulder in Colorado he started out there our director of marketing Jessica she actually was the campus rep at the University of Alabama after I moved up in the company and wasn't able to do those kind of roles anymore I mean I want to say even Jamie who's our CFO she at one time was the campus rep at her university in Virginia and so that's kind of like one of the things we found a lot of our talent through our campus rep program even that's amazing so let's talk about like what was now that you're on board what was your role like what was a what's a rep supposed to do and did you get paid for this like how was that exchange happening - well so it's interesting because you know at an early stage startup like drunk mode a

4:50

lot of the reps like myself and us that have worked our way up in the company we were kind of considered you know like almost co-founders in a way about the CEO Josh you know and so payment was a little weird because like I remember the first time I was offered equity over money and you're like what does that even mean you know especially when you're like in your early twenties in college and you need all the money you can get really and so it was definitely taking a chance because you know we weren't offered really money until the company was about a year old or so and I remember the month I got to send to MTV News that still only made like $500 that month just because we were that bootstrapping you know but know so you know as we grew and we started to go back and hire you know like to try to legitimize the campus prep program a little more because we couldn't bring everybody up to a founder you know that comes on and

5:46

so you know it became one of those things where we definitely tried to pay and we did it on like a kind of like a what is it like it's like milestones is how we did it right that was one of our big things like if you get you know 500 da yous around campus then we know you're doing pretty well and you would get like a certain bonus right and I think one of the biggest things I guess they answer your question about like what does a campus reps supposed to do it's it's literally in its name they're just your campus representative right like they represent your company on that campus and I think that's kind of like a lot of companies want to like they want to not pay those kids and they want to like take the easy route on it and that's kind of like in my opinion it's bad because those are representations of your company and so like a lot of the people you want to treat them as you would almost any other employee make

6:37

sure they're happy and you know make sure there's room to grow because a lot of people reach out the companies like these startups looking to be a campus rep not just because they need money man you know they're looking out to it because they have a dream to and they want to become a part of it you know and so that's one of the big things that we kind of tried to put an emphasis on as we grew out our campus rep program was you know treating them well make them feel like they were a part of the whole Expo team we started group knees and other things like that where we would have all of our campus reps from all over the country and you know we started a drunk mode it's a little different because we were able to start like a pretty lips nat chap like a snapchat account and so our reps literally like we're lining up to take over that account you know every month during spring break whenever their

7:23

fraternities would have a you know like events or anything like that and this was before like really like snapchat location-based filters were too big of a thing and so like it was basically like just a lot of people saying like hey there's a huge party tonight and you know you a or wherever the university is can I get the snapchat and then so we had like do like literally it was like you know here's this party tonight at the University of Alabama and then tomorrow night it'll be at UVA and so hey you know anyway it pretty much like just helped build the brand you know and that's kind of their job as a rep is to help you build your brand you know the in terms of responsibilities what were you responsible for and was that something that I know Josh you were like one of the first rep so like is that something you guys started building out like hey here's like a job description here's what we want each college rep to

8:12

do oh yeah so for me specifically I was given a kind of random goals because we were still trying to figure out what that you know what are those what is the process right like one of the things I did me and a couple friends we chalked the whole schools like sidewalks with like funny things and you know stuff about drunk mode and like then we went into every dorm and every every building almost on campus and put up flyers about it just argent people to download telling them about it just trying to get people you know like kind of like just introduced to the brand really because it was one of those things where people still hadn't really heard about it at the time and so and then you know of course walking around campus on like gameday and giving out t-shirts so that was a huge thing I actually got kicked off campus that day security they came because you had to have a permit to give out stuff apparently and I did we did

9:09

not check that as a young company and so just for anybody who may have a campus rep give out stuff have them check with the university before they do it or don't ask for forgiveness later I don't want to tell you how to run a company but it's just like that was one of the things we got in trouble for most definitely but it was still a lot of fun and it was still like literally as we were being told to quit handing out t-shirts one of the people asking us to leave asked for a t-shirt and so that was one of those you know like it was still a good win in a way but um so my responsibility is we're just basically like spread out all this swag do all this creative stuff on campus to try to generate a little bit of hype about the app and then go to every fraternity sorority and non fraternity sorority event and try to tell people about it try to get them to download it at the time so we were trying to work with

9:57

local bars and restaurants to help try to figure out how to monetize a drunk mode as well and so you know a part of that was going to local bars and trying to work out like hey if if somebody walks past your bar you know would you be interested in paying for a push notification to be sent to him and working out that kind of system that we had in drunk mode at one time and so you know it was just it was a definitely a mix of a lot of things the do you remember one campaign that you ran and as a rep that worked really that worked really well all right yeah if you want the full interview and access to all the videos of all the virtual summits that we've ran go check out at masters Academy com you'll find our entire playbook about ASO Apple features influencer marketing different growth hacks that we've revised all in the Academy as well so check it out at masters Academy com I'll see you on the next video click the

10:55

top video if you want to see one of our favorite growth acts of all time and how do you drive tens of thousands of downloads without spending a dime and click the bottom video if you want to see which marketing campaigns perform the best I break it down now tell you which ones to focus on