{"id":26581,"date":"2017-04-03T08:00:46","date_gmt":"2017-04-03T13:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/?p=26581"},"modified":"2017-04-03T10:41:46","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T15:41:46","slug":"marketing-for-a-cause-in-support-of-bsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/2017\/04\/03\/marketing-for-a-cause-in-support-of-bsu\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing for a Cause \u2014 In Support of BSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
BSU Director of Engagement Marketing Mike Mulry, second from
right, joins members of the BSU Collegiate Fishing Team on Dec. 2 at the Hard Water Ice Fishing Expo in Blaine, where they showed off the university’s Fossil Fuel-Free Fish House, designed and built by students from BSU and Northwest Technical College.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A<\/span> new member of the BSU Alumni & Foundation team is excited about finding win-win opportunities for businesses to market themselves while enriching the learning experience for Bemidji State University students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mike Mulry, who joined the staff in September as director of engagement marketing, is broadly responsible for forging creative connections with alumni and students. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>He’s especially enthusiastic about what’s known as “cause marketing,” in which vendors reach audiences through monetary or in-kind support of a non-profit venture. This strategy was a focus in his last job, in which he worked with the American Red Cross, among other clients.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Corporations have traditionally given money in return for having their logo placed somewhere,” Mulry said. “That has obvious benefits, but I’ve found companies are very much interested in two-way connections. They want to partner in an authentic way that involves their products and services.”<\/span><\/p>\n

One example of Mulry’s work so far involves the BSU Collegiate Fishing Team, a club sport whose participants have successfully competed at the highest level.<\/span><\/p>\n

Team members had already enlisted Bemidji Marine to furnish a 2017 Ranger bass boat and trailer for them to use at tournaments around the country. Mulry has raised the students’ sights with a plan to recruit an auto dealer willing to furnish a pickup truck to haul the boat.<\/span><\/p>\n

But first, he plans to involve BSU design students in a competition for a vinyl wrap around the truck, boat and trailer. The winning design will be the centerpiece of a sponsorship pitch to one or more dealers, hopefully this spring.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mulry and several fishing team members traveled to Blaine for the Hard Water Ice Fishing Expo on Nov. 18-20 to show off another project, a solar-powered fish house completed last year by students at BSU and Northwest Technical College.<\/span><\/p>\n

Already, the Fossil Fuel-Free Fish House has sparked conversation with Ion Augurs, which is interested in how solar power could be used to recharge its battery-powered fishing augurs.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mulry also is exploring the possibility of gathering sponsors to help convert an ice house that’s been used as the BSU ticket booth into an on-ice lab for aquatic biology students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Other projects that may lend themselves to cause marketing include a student-designed tiny house, which could feature energy-efficient windows and other innovations, and a recumbent bicycle whose fairing, or housing, may bear sponsor logos.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A<\/span> new member of the BSU Alumni & Foundation team is excited about finding win-win opportunities for businesses to market themselves while enriching the learning experience for Bemidji State University students.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26715,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[872,958,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepage","category-magazine","category-top-story"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26581"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26739,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26581\/revisions\/26739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bemidjistate.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}