To combat this problem, she set up a Facebook page where students could buy and sell from each other without the associated shipping. Fast forward three years, and Hazaar now operates at 10 universities across the UK and has recently won the University of Manchester’s ‘Brand Partnership of the Year’ award. Harriet and her team prove how to engage with students on a mass level – something we think in-house marketing teams at higher education institutions can learn from.

Good to catch up with you, Harriet. Please could you start by telling our readers what Hazaar is?

“With most universities not on track to hit net-zero targets, students worried about the rising cost of university life, and brands struggling to unlock the massive student market, we are building the platform that has created mass buzz in higher ed. Hazaar’s app becomes a place for students to buy everything they need for university and sell unwanted items, all while reducing their carbon footprint.”

What strategies have you found to be most effective when it comes to engaging with students? 

“We engage with students by creating ‘surround sound’ for them. Our marketing strategy consists of a top-down and bottom-up approach. Through the top-down approach, we provide all our university partners with really engaging marketing material that they can then share with their students. For example, we go onto campus and film videos for Instagram and TikTok, where we make the student the core feature whilst also featuring university landmarks. We provide lecturers with slides they can use in lectures, particularly because Hazaar often influences a lot of creative students.

We make sure we stay relevant to courses so that lecturers can advertise Hazaar as a relevant option to students. We also loop in with accommodation teams before students even come to university, as the open rates for these early emails are really high because students want to find out more about where they will be living.”

“We used to speak about Hazaar like it was something people already knew about, but more recently, we have changed this. Now, we will say “The University of Birmingham, powered by Hazaar”, for example, instead. This builds trust, particularly with international students, because otherwise they would be reluctant to sign up to an app that doesn’t mean anything to them.

Across all our communications, we tell stories that centre student’s pain points and how we are the solution. For example, how they can earn money and develop their career within the sustainability space so that they can then go on to secure a job after university.

I would say for us though, bottom-up marketing is more important than top-down. So, for every university, we employ two brand ambassadors and two digital content creators. The ambassadors run activations and events on campus and really help us to create that in-person presence. The content creators create content that not only we can share, but that can also be used as user generated content on central University channels.

How can universities view students as an extension of brand marketing? 

“Constantly employing students to help us with events and content has meant that we have a continuous loop of feedback. They are the people on the ground and interacting with students, which means that they are able to feed back to us anything that is working or isn’t. Obviously, every university and its demographic is different so having student representatives makes sure that we’re delivering the most value that we can.

From a peer-to-peer perspective, students listen more to each other than they do to us or a central University team. If ambassadors look like students and are in their position, then the value of their Hazaar experience is more influential. One example of this is one of our initiatives that is in collaboration with accommodation teams. We collect unwanted household items and then resell these to new students in September. When we do these events, we make sure that the students who are working that day were also the people who previously lived in that particular halls of residence. This means that when new students come to buy items, there are people on hand to advise them on what they do and don’t need for the year ahead.

This is a side of marketing that we otherwise would not be able to lean into if we didn’t see students as an extension of our own marketing team. Students seeing other students on social media platforms and at in-person events can help to build trust and successfully engage with students.”

How can universities channel sustainability to differentiate themselves and attract students? 

“I would say that actions speak louder than words. Often, university leaders focus on projects like decarbonising the estate, which might sound appealing to students’ parents but to students, that’s not the type of sustainability they can touch and feel. It doesn’t really position sustainability in a way that’s tangible or relatable to students. Whereas initiatives like Hazaar are examples of how students can engage with sustainability in an accessible and timely way.

Whilst carbon reduction is a great goal to have, universities should differentiate themselves by channelling sustainability in more ways that students can get behind.”

How is Hazaar collaborating with the industry? 

“Positioning sustainability as a tangible notion for students has definitely contributed to our strong presence at universities. A lot of our partners really like the fact that Hazaar is something their students can see on campus through things like pop-up markets, student selling events, where individuals can come together. This is also a good way for universities to prove to their stakeholders that they are taking sustainability seriously and prioritising the small ways that they can positively contribute.

This might be an example of a smaller, lower impact initiative in terms of reducing carbon, but if universities really want to instil behaviour change then they need to make themselves fun and exciting to students.”

What do you think the future student experience at universities looks like?

“Sustainability and affordability have to be at the forefront because this is what students are repeatedly asking for. A lot of vocational universities put a lot of effort into placement years and employability in a way that many traditional universities don’t seem to, so there definitely needs to be more emphasis on workplace skills instead of just research and teaching.

The student experience will hopefully focus more on practical learning, like financial self-sufficiency, and lean into Gen-Z’s growing interest in looking after the environment. This will then provide more value to incoming students.”

What brands do you look to for inspiration?

“A brand that we look up to at Hazaar is By Rotation. They are a rental platform and the largest shared wardrobe in the world. The way that they talk about sustainability is very impact driven, but they also lean into the social element that comes with ethical behaviour. For example, the fun that comes with sharing your wardrobe, the fact that you can make new friends – both whilst earning money from renting your clothes.

Especially when we’re in a cost of living crisis, we’ve learnt from By Rotation that you can’t always lead with sustainability and expect individuals, particularly students, to do the right thing. People value the money in their pocket and time more than acting in a sustainable way. So, we’ve got to think about how to make our offering more affordable and easier to engage with, that then can create impact. The benefits of what we do exist in other aspects, so we channel this alongside the clear environmental value and sustainable core.”