March 22, 2017
American Marketing Association (AMA) students from the University of South Carolina's Darla Moore School of Business won the Exemplary Collegiate Chapter Performance Award for the 2016-2017 school year.
The four student AMA members traveled to New Orleans to attend the 39th Annual American Marketing Association International Collegiate Conference. The three-day weekend included sessions ranging from product innovation from eBay to learning about business analytics in sports marketing from the Detroit Red Wings. Additionally, the conference offered the opportunity to compete in case competitions. Two members competed in a marketing strategy competition hosted by Mary Kay in which they had 20 minutes to read the prompt and prepare a 10-minute presentation for judging.
“It was my first time competing in a case competition like this and we might not have placed but I learned so much and I am ready to try again next year,” stated Freshman Jamie De Rouen, Vice President of Community Service. Chapter president Erika Carroll presented at a break out session to discuss the methods the University of South Carolina club used to grow and retain members. “It was a great opportunity to share some of the ways we have improved while learning from other chapter about their success,” said Carroll.
At the end of the three days, the Moore School's AMA chapter received an award for exemplary success in chapter planning and communications based on their chapter plan and annual report. Two years ago, the chapter had just 35 registered national members and of those, 14 were graduating. The retention rate from year-to-year was 11 percent, on average. After attending the International Collegiate Conference, AMA initiated various programs to increase membership and retention, improve communication, and overall chapter success. AMA members hosted tables on Greene Street during first-year move-in and offered ice cream during Welcome Week events to promote the organization. They also implemented a points system to reward students actively participating in meetings, during events, and on projects. From these initiatives, the club increased membership by 45.7 percent. The executive board decided to streamline communication using MailChimp for emails and third-party platforms for social media. Using the analytics from these sites, the club improved its open-rate and post engagement.
Most importantly, the chapter won the award because they were committed to offering a valuable experience to their members.
Contact: Erika Carroll at ecarroll@email.sc.edu or at 704-807-9602.