Hopkins AMA creates consulting branch

By ABBY BIESMAN News & Features Editor

Nest Strategies, a marketing consulting branch of the Hopkins American Marketing Association (AMA) chapter, launched in October.

Last year, members of the Hopkins AMA chapter attended the AMA International Collegiate Conference in New Orleans. They learned about consulting agencies within other AMA chapters and began to discuss forming a consulting group of their own after the conference.

Junior Sigal Landau, vice president of consulting for the Hopkins AMA chapter and chair of Nest Strategies, discussed some of the reasons for the group’s creation on campus.

“We thought it was a really great opportunity for our chapter to be able to give our students more experience within the marketing field,” Landau said.

Nest Strategies offers three main services one of which is conducting market research surveys, gathering results and performing analysis. Landau discussed the process of conducting surveys.

“We ask students what social media outlets they are using most often,” Landau said. “Where do they get information about campus events? Do they read “Today’s Announcements?” Do they read specific articles in The News-Letter? Do they read the Hub? How often do they check Facebook?”

Nest Strategies will also help clients create and implement a marketing plan.

Additionally, Nest Strategies creates basic graphics. They can do logo and flyer design as well as branding.

Landau said Nest Strategies will also perform market research for free for student groups on campus.

“That’s a service we definitely want to promote at the moment,” she said. “We want to give our students the most market research opportunities available. We do generally plan on asking for a suggested donation amount.”

There are currently about 30 students, freshmen through seniors, involved in Nest Strategies. Thus far they have worked with Not Yours Apparel, a student-founded company, and Stick it to Sarcoma, a women’s lacrosse initiative.

Landau explained that Nest Strategies reached out to the women’s lacrosse coach as well as the women’s lacrosse players.

They all changed their cover photos to a graphic supplied by their client, a Hopkins alumna whose father died from sarcoma while she was on the lacrosse team. A Facebook event was also created.

Landau discussed the other promotional strategies used.

“We did get it in “Today’s Announcements” emails once or twice,” Landau said. “The Hub actually did cover it which is great because the Hub gets a really large readership.”

Not Yours Apparel is a startup cofounded by Hopkins sophomore Hansel Romero and two of his peers at the State University of New York at Oneonta. Romero, director of public relations for Not Yours Apparel, discussed his experience working with Nest Strategies.

“I actually met Sigal a couple months ago through mutual friends and she started talking about the work she’d been doing with AMA and how she was looking to expand the consulting branch of the organization,” Romero said.

As the project began developing, she reached out to Romero, who responded saying that he believed Nest Strategies would be able to help his startup company. Nest Strategies recently released its market research for Not Yours Apparel. It did not advertise that the research was for Not Yours Apparel to avoid biased results. Nest Strategies also assisted Not Yours Apparel with consulting work, including helping Romero create angles for meetings and helping him strategize what points should be emphasized.

“They... launched a survey for students around campus to gather information on different types of media and usage around campus, clothing opinions around campus,” Romero said.

Romero said he has had a positive experience working with Nest Strategies.

“They’ve been a really big help with actually developing not only our company’s standpoint on that but also my knowledge on that,” Romero said. “Sigal’s an amazing leader. She’s incredible. I have no complaints. It’s been a great experience so far.” In addition to working with Hopkins groups, Nest Strategies is in touch with three external organizations: a start-up and two small businesses.