When I was down in New Orleans last month, someone had a bunch of flyers up at Loyola U. for Nolaringtones.com Looks like it's not even an affiliate site, but rather some musician creating his own tones. Would love to know if he makes any money doing that, but I bet he would make more promoting artists people have heard of.
Offline Marketing for Ringtones - Possible Good Idea?
- Thread starter LazyD
- Start date
- Status
haha, nice- I assumed that was taken, didn't even check.
Gatorparade- good luck w/ it!
No, so long as they aren't private or colleges.
For example, TM Registration No.3382965 is for Penn Foster High School- but I can almost guarantee you (without googling) that this is a charter school.
You may open yourself up to some kind of defamation suit... maybe... but the litigiousness of every school district is dependent upon how much money they have to throw at lawyers. Judging by the inability of most school districts to even pay their teachers well, I'd say this is probably nil.
Wow, the server that domain is parked on sure has some classics....
nicherssfeedgenerator.com
and
easy-sixpack-abs.com
nicherssfeedgenerator.com
and
easy-sixpack-abs.com
i dont think it would be worth it. What kind of volume could you get from doing this at a highschool. A different offer at a college might work better. Alot more people and easier to get acces to the cmpus grounds to put your fliers up
Update: 07-06-2008
Today I created a subdomain for a school that my friend attends. Next I found a nice ringtone landing page on DP, and PM'd the owner. He said I could use it for free! I tweaked it a little bit to match up with the school. Finally, I found an offer on NeverBlueAds and put it in the iFrame and installed some tracking software.
Gresham HS Gophers: Download the hottest ringtones now!
Let me know what you guys think of the page so far.
Methods for promotion (so far!):
Does anyone see anything illegal with what I am doing? And should I open up a new thread as a case study?
Today I created a subdomain for a school that my friend attends. Next I found a nice ringtone landing page on DP, and PM'd the owner. He said I could use it for free! I tweaked it a little bit to match up with the school. Finally, I found an offer on NeverBlueAds and put it in the iFrame and installed some tracking software.
Gresham HS Gophers: Download the hottest ringtones now!
Let me know what you guys think of the page so far.
Methods for promotion (so far!):
- Flyers: won't really be good until school starts
- Facebook PPC: apparently doesn't allow Ringtones promotion... any ideas to get around this? I'm not very experienced with Facebook.
- MySpace: Bulletins, Groups, Profiles, Messages, etc.
- School Newspaper: I could take out an ad for free, but won't come into play until September
- Banner at School: Probably would get me shut down real quick
Does anyone see anything illegal with what I am doing? And should I open up a new thread as a case study?
HarveyJ
He is - THE CACTUS!
Legally speaking, you can get done over for using the school colours and logo as it's clearly deceptive practice, unless you get the school's permission.l
Putting posters up in a way that they can't be removed (i.e. cornflour slime paste) will get you done for vandalism, and potentially damage-to-property, as well as trespass if you didn't have permission.
With your own school you could probably quite easily get permission if you had a business studies type class, and convinced the teacher that you were trying to do this as a case study / extra credit assignment / general entrepreneurial thingy that school pride has instilled in you. Teachers love the "I have school pride" shit. Then, when they ok it, you just have to go to the principal / headmaster and make sure they're cool with it too.
Then at least you have one school that's ok with you doing it.
Have you considered doing a short MMS/SMS campaign? They go viral pretty quickly if you send it out to 10 people that you KNOW love to forward shit on.
Also, do you know if your friends phones have the ability to use QR codes?
If so, you may want to put the QR code on the poster / banner that you put up, so they can just go straight to the site from their phones.
Because I'm a nice guy, I've attached the QR Code for your site (works on my phone at least, anyone else with QR enabled want to test it?).
Best thing about QR codes is that you can just paste them up anywhere, and people that understand what they're for will generally load them up just to see what it is.
Putting posters up in a way that they can't be removed (i.e. cornflour slime paste) will get you done for vandalism, and potentially damage-to-property, as well as trespass if you didn't have permission.
With your own school you could probably quite easily get permission if you had a business studies type class, and convinced the teacher that you were trying to do this as a case study / extra credit assignment / general entrepreneurial thingy that school pride has instilled in you. Teachers love the "I have school pride" shit. Then, when they ok it, you just have to go to the principal / headmaster and make sure they're cool with it too.
Then at least you have one school that's ok with you doing it.
Have you considered doing a short MMS/SMS campaign? They go viral pretty quickly if you send it out to 10 people that you KNOW love to forward shit on.
Also, do you know if your friends phones have the ability to use QR codes?
If so, you may want to put the QR code on the poster / banner that you put up, so they can just go straight to the site from their phones.
Because I'm a nice guy, I've attached the QR Code for your site (works on my phone at least, anyone else with QR enabled want to test it?).
Best thing about QR codes is that you can just paste them up anywhere, and people that understand what they're for will generally load them up just to see what it is.
Attachments
HarveyJ- The SMS campaign is a great idea. I'll add that to my list and see what I can do tomorrow morning. Rep for the QR code. My phone read it... but the school I am initially targeting has a pretty low income level, so I doubt it would work there. Definitely could be useful in the future though.
Regardless of my promotional techniques, should I promote my page as a place to get free ringtones?
Regardless of my promotional techniques, should I promote my page as a place to get free ringtones?
LOL one idea is "better" than the other
A few things:
SMS/MMS unsolicited marketing can IMO get you in trouble. There's a reason why your phone isn't barraged with unsolicited SMS messages, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal. Do you honestly think you're the first one to think this one up?
Keep in mind that minors have special protections under the law and "get free ringtones, but in the end the parents get charged 9.99$ a month" idea can really stir up some trouble.
Additionaly: many times the terms and conditions for ringtone campaigns state that the person submitting the number must be 18+ or have parental consent.
All-in-all this is pretty bad idea IMO. There are way better ways to make money online/offline than this. Don't rely on WF gay affiliate forum advice, get a real lawyer to explain to you how and what is legal.
A few things:
SMS/MMS unsolicited marketing can IMO get you in trouble. There's a reason why your phone isn't barraged with unsolicited SMS messages, because I'm pretty sure it's illegal. Do you honestly think you're the first one to think this one up?
Keep in mind that minors have special protections under the law and "get free ringtones, but in the end the parents get charged 9.99$ a month" idea can really stir up some trouble.
Additionaly: many times the terms and conditions for ringtone campaigns state that the person submitting the number must be 18+ or have parental consent.
All-in-all this is pretty bad idea IMO. There are way better ways to make money online/offline than this. Don't rely on WF gay affiliate forum advice, get a real lawyer to explain to you how and what is legal.
Gotta add a few more things before this guy does something really stupid:
Trespassing on school grounds to post "posters" or give out fliers is definitely illegal.
Even posting posters on public streets is illegal and called "street spam", let alone high school, which is likely considered government property and trespass laws apply to it.
I mean imagine some corporate giant going to high schools and posting "Our product rocks dude!!! Go to our website!!!" posters?
1) Ditch the idea
2) Ditch the ringtones market, until you got 20-30k to loose on testing.
3) Do something that actually makes sense.
Trespassing on school grounds to post "posters" or give out fliers is definitely illegal.
Even posting posters on public streets is illegal and called "street spam", let alone high school, which is likely considered government property and trespass laws apply to it.
I mean imagine some corporate giant going to high schools and posting "Our product rocks dude!!! Go to our website!!!" posters?
1) Ditch the idea
2) Ditch the ringtones market, until you got 20-30k to loose on testing.
3) Do something that actually makes sense.
HarveyJ
He is - THE CACTUS!
Which is why I suggested sending it to only a couple of people that he knew would forward it on.
It's not an auto dialer sending it at random, it's him sending it to a few of the drama-llamas as this school that live their lives by SMS and twittering all the time.
I think it is a great idea if done right. Anything is worth a try. As far as going on the school grounds I am against that. I like the have people you know wear t-shirts.
The difference is he is not a corporate giant and honestly the worst that could happen to him is they say stop.
Maybe think about it a little more. Honestly though I like the idea of offline marketing to local markets. I have always thought there is not enough people doing it.
Why be so negative. Taking chances is what got everyone on here to the spot they are at today. OMG he might get a cease and desist order.
I just searched for Gresham Gophers and it is not trademarked. Not sure how accurate that is.
The website is horrible BTW
Gresham HS
Update: starting to have some bad feelings about this because of that.
Mabye I should target college kids who are responsible financially for themselves?
Fuck it, go for it...
Do you think a parent is gonna go after a website that provided ringtones? I think they are more likely to bitch there retarded little kid out for being a douche and signing up for something that costs $10 a month...
Do you think a parent is gonna go after a website that provided ringtones? I think they are more likely to bitch there retarded little kid out for being a douche and signing up for something that costs $10 a month...
- Status