How would you entice people to post a flyer around their hometown?

C

CLKeenan

Banned
Jun 24, 2006
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Boston, MA
So I run a high school resource website that provides educational resources for students and teachers. Students love the site because it helps them study more effectively and teachers love the site because they can use the resources as supplemental materials for their lesson plans.

I had a flyer designed that I'd like to get students to post on their lockers, local libraries, grocery stores, etc. I was thinking about starting a 'Ask not what Course Notes can do for you, but what you can do for Course Notes' (twist on a historical quote) campaign. I'd create a page of the top 10 things you could do to help course notes. One of those things would be to post the flyer around town, another would be to post links on their blogs, submit their notes/outlines to the site, help other members on the forum, etc.

So how can I entice them to do these things? I was thinking of doing a contest that gives a prize to the person who takes a picture of themselves with a photo in the most unique locations. Another prize could be given out for the most creative promotion of the site.

Any ideas would be appreciated!
 


Kids generally won't post blatantly commercial material. The one exception for men is if the material has half naked women on it. My suggestion would be to print some up with a small logo of your site in the corner.
 
what would motivate you if someone asked this of you...?

take a 3 pronged approach - revshare + contest + ?

Or what if there was money involved, but the winner gets to choose a favorite cause to donate it to?

Or if you had a points system on your site (that couldn't be gamed easily) you might have people vote like digg for ..?
- making it more community based would have certain benefits too

If you have good traffic, ask on your site too.
 
What do you think of this idea? Flyer Photo Scavenger hunt... I give them a list of places to get the flyer posted around town and assign points to each location. The team with the most point gets a prize. Thoughts?
 
Contact homeless shelters and hire some bums as independent contractors.

Also, some places are pretty anal about flyering and might come after you.
 
Flyers are the wrong approach, IMO. Get some beer coasters printed up and send girls bar to bar giving them away to the owners. The owners WILL use them since they get them for free. Customers (students) WILL see them because everyone drinks.

Pay the girls much more than you'd pay the average schmoe and get them to wear the coasters as a bikini top while passing it out. You'll get a better ROI for sure than just posting flyers.

college chicks = attention whores

beer-coaster-bikinis.jpg


Also, talk to some fraternities and sponsor a few keg parties. Big ass banner & beer cups branded with course-notes.org ... cost of entry to the party, sign up for the site.

The other thing that worked well for me (I used to run a teacher review site years ago) was to have some tables set out amongst campus in between buildings and pass out a piece of pizza for people coming up to the table. We used to get a couple hundred signups / day and for < $100 worth of pizza.

We also got some shirts printed up and gave them out to people that referred > 10 people to the site. It was odd seeing people walking around campus with them on ... was never able to measure the effectiveness of this but I'm positive we got a lot of good exposure this way.
 
erect said:
Flyers are the wrong approach, IMO. Get some beer coasters printed up and send girls bar to bar giving them away to the owners. The owners WILL use them since they get them for free. Customers (students) WILL see them because everyone drinks.

Pay the girls much more than you'd pay the average schmoe and get them to wear the coasters as a bikini top while passing it out. You'll get a better ROI for sure than just posting flyers.

college chicks = attention whores

beer-coaster-bikinis.jpg


Also, talk to some fraternities and sponsor a few keg parties. Big ass banner & beer cups branded with course-notes.org ... cost of entry to the party, sign up for the site.

The other thing that worked well for me (I used to run a teacher review site years ago) was to have some tables set out amongst campus in between buildings and pass out a piece of pizza for people coming up to the table. We used to get a couple hundred signups / day and for < $100 worth of pizza.

We also got some shirts printed up and gave them out to people that referred > 10 people to the site. It was odd seeing people walking around campus with them on ... was never able to measure the effectiveness of this but I'm positive we got a lot of good exposure this way.
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I'll start off by saying, underboob shot FTW.

While these are all great ideas for a site that targets college students, I'm targeting high school students so having them dress like sluts and going to bars or sponsoring keg parties probably will get me arrested. Not what Im going for.

I do appreciate the time you put into the post and there are some good ideas in there. I'm thinking of doing the tshirt idea. Might get costly though for limited exposure (high schools are typically much smaller than colleges)
 
CLKeenan said:
I'm targeting high school students so having them dress like sluts and going to bars or sponsoring keg parties probably will get me arrested.
Click to expand...

Haha, didn't even know that.

High school newspapers are cheap advertising & almost everyone reads them. Try it on a single city basis and measure effectiveness before you expand.

You can also usually pick up a business card sized ad in annuals for ~$50.

But the biggest issue with advertising I see you having is that there are like 100 highschools for every college so advertising on a local basis becomes incredibly difficult.

You might be right, flyers might be your best option. You'll need to work out some kind of incentive program ... something like an entry to a $100 course notes scholarship drawing for every 25 people you refer.

You might also want to consider getting a chatbot written, kiddies hang out in chatrooms.
 
Have you thought of paying kids to locker stuff? Postcards at PSPrint.com is having a 60% off sale and most lockers have those vents that a postcard could be stuffed in easily.

Just an idea. Some would probably make it home and parents would think it was school mandated...
 
Does the School have a local Radio Station? i remember in high school we had one for our school and i think you could advertise that next to nothing because it was teaching the kids how to become radio personalities...
 
TeeBird said:
Have you thought of paying kids to locker stuff? Postcards at PSPrint.com is having a 60% off sale and most lockers have those vents that a postcard could be stuffed in easily.

Just an idea. Some would probably make it home and parents would think it was school mandated...
Click to expand...

Interesting idea with lockering stuff. The only thing I'm worried about again is the kid just trashing all the postcards and saying he delivered them. Unless I've got a way to make sure that doesnt happen, it would be a risky investment.

That's why I think something like the photo scavenger hunt could be good. I don't pay anything for printing (they do it themselves), they take photo proof of it being there, and then only a certain amount of money is being distributed to the top performers.
 
There are many college related programs that market to college students by hiring campus reps.. The reps get a little cash (min wage plus rev share) and something to put on their resume. This might work in high schools.
 
Perhaps instead of students you should look at businesses. There must be somewhere around town that HS kids hang out at (that's not the mall). Trendy coffee shop? pizza place? beach? I always had somewhere to go after school to hang out.

Maybe you can try to get a flier posted in their window or print up some cool bumper stickers to place all around the business. Heck the polls at my high school used to have stickers all over them to.
 
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