Offline Marketing for Ringtones - Possible Good Idea?

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LazyD

LazyD

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Dec 7, 2006
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So, I had an idea fly through my mind at 2am while laying in bed thinking about how much of a failure I am at affiliate marketing...

Anyway, ive never considered myself much a marketing guru in terms of creative ideas but I thought this had the possibility to be something that was worth while - if not, feel free to flame me...

Step 1. Register a ringtone related domain for a highschool near you, for example, there is a highschool in town called Casa Grande Highschool - Grab something like casaringtones.com or if thats taken, casagranderingtones.com, basically something with the highschool's name and the word ringtones.

Step 2. Find a ringtone offer and iframe it into a page on your new domain, use the schools colors on your page as much as possible (I know you cant edit the colors of the LP inside the iFrame, shit happens), possibly even toss the school logo up if you can find it and have a call to action/headline specific to that highschool students 'Hey Casa Grande Students.... etc'

Step 3. Create a simple 8.5" x 11" flyer with some call to action text, basically taking a PPC ad and flipping it into a flyer, again, use the logo if possible, include your URL and possibly throw something in like 'Casa Grande Students, Get Free Ringtones through July 4th (Or some Friday date)'

Step 4. Run off 100 copies and go the highschool (Or pay someone else) on Sunday night to hang all of those fuckers up.

Step 5. Profit? Possibly?.....

Decent? Awful?

I havent seen this done, at least at the highschools in my area, I figure its only a 1 time deal or at most 2 times...
 


better than that do this

get a bigger poster made, nicely made with artists and mobile phone images and put them next to the entrances for the school. this way the kids see it when they are going in. THEY WILL all see it. put sponsored by the board of education since you're already thinking about trespassing, why not lie?

the flyers thing is dumb because kids just throw it away because EVERYONE does it (mostly djs and party throwers).. seriously if you make a nice legit looking poster, post it up and use a strong adhesive no one will take it down. Or put 3 posters on top of each other with the last one saying FUCK YOU FOR TAKING MY POSTER DOWN! RINGTONES @ your domain! bitches!

or you could put like ' GET 5 POINTS ON YOUR REPORT CARD IF YOU GET A RING TONE'

or if u want to use fliers find a hottie in the school (preferably a senior) and ask her to hand them out. (conversions go up the roof & pay her a minimal fee)
 
you could also put up posters next to cellphone shops or pretend you are an employee and hand out fliers

better yet heres a better idea. the mall. the mall has THOUSANDS of conformist dumbasses walking around every day (and many malls if u drive, easy 500K impressions per day if u follow my advice:)

get some of these made:
Display Stands - Poster Displays, Hundreds of Floor Stand Styles! - Displays2go

or find a cheaper solution but anyway, get those made and put them all over the mall. people will think its legit, ive seen it done with gay ass vacation cruises
 
or if u want to use fliers find a hottie in the school (preferably a senior) and ask her to hand them out. (conversions go up the roof & pay her a minimal fee)
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That's the best idea. Particularly because you wouldn't be trespassing and everyone pays attention to the hottie with a flier in high school.
 
Yeah but then her jealous boyfriend who plays on the football team will kick your computer nerd ass. So is it really worth it?
 
its not a terrible idea except that once the school gets wind of it they will probably stry to sue you for being deceptive / trademark infringement with their logo. You might get some press out of it though.
 
narsticle said:
its not a terrible idea except that once the school gets wind of it they will probably stry to sue you for being deceptive / trademark infringement with their logo. You might get some press out of it though.
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Do schools have trademarks though. Would they really waste the resources to sue you over something so trivial.

I like the idea and think you should hire students to hand out flyers and promote the site.

If you know people in the school or have cousins, family, friends you could do real well. Design some shirts.

GET RINGTONES @ <schoolname>ringtones.com

Come up with some very smart slogans and ideas you could really make a killing.

Since it is high school I would also put up other relevant campaigns for them. Like Free PS3s, MP3s and things like that. Just do not limit yourself to the ringtones.

One good idea would to also build a myspace page around your site since most of them have that. Get them to be your friends on there.
 
I've ran things with schools.
I have never had a problem and have used banners found on their websites.
Albeit, I've never touched high schools before... I would think a major college would have an issue before a H.S.
Here is an EXAMPLE
The target college was SIU
The key to it (in my mind) was getting the students to enter siu.edu (seems more trustworthy to them)
 
You just posted this today? I could swear I read something like this about 3 weeks ago. Were you on another forum maybe? Great idea though.
 
montydad5000, I dont recall seeing this somewhere else, I doubt that this is a new idea, im sure its just a little twist on a number of existing ideas.

productionhead, I thought about the big banner idea but wasnt sure what the cost on something like that would be, I mentioned 100 flyers because im sure that would be relatively cheap and wouldnt be sinking alot of time & effort into something should it not work or as someone mentioned the school has a big issue with it.

Does anyone know the average cost of a banner?

I can see the sponsored by board of education thing working out, until which time the county/school district decides to rape you horribly.

The other thing I would like to do that I think would help would be able to white label the LP, that way you could really brand the entire page with the colors, logos and text to that school.
 
dont know if this is helpful or not but ebaumsworld guy set his page as the homepage on every computer in his college which got the fad going so maybe that is a possibility to get those kids to your LP
 
@moores29 I thought about that but that is best done with a portal like ebaum is, he's doing a niche like ringtones and it is kinda a waste.

LazyD you can buy the cheaper stands for under $30 and then maybet $20 for a poster. you could chill at the mall with a laptop all day and watch if anyone actually moves your investment around. if not the first day its a safe bet it'll stay (maybe)
 
AdExhibitJason said:
Do schools have trademarks though. Would they really waste the resources to sue you over something so trivial.

I like the idea and think you should hire students to hand out flyers and promote the site.

If you know people in the school or have cousins, family, friends you could do real well. Design some shirts.

GET RINGTONES @ <schoolname>ringtones.com

Come up with some very smart slogans and ideas you could really make a killing.

Since it is high school I would also put up other relevant campaigns for them. Like Free PS3s, MP3s and things like that. Just do not limit yourself to the ringtones.

One good idea would to also build a myspace page around your site since most of them have that. Get them to be your friends on there.
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If they do have their name trademarked, just accept the fact (going into the venture) that you may have to give up the domain. But I'm sure most of the conversions you will get from the school will be in the first week or 2, and it will be at least a month before you have to worry about losing the domain before facing legal action.

Then again, I don't know much about how trademarked domains work. I'm just assuming that if you give up the domain right away you don't have to worry about any fees, etc.
 
-Matt- said:
If they do have their name trademarked, just accept the fact (going into the venture) that you may have to give up the domain. But I'm sure most of the conversions you will get from the school will be in the first week or 2, and it will be at least a month before you have to worry about losing the domain before facing legal action.

Then again, I don't know much about how trademarked domains work. I'm just assuming that if you give up the domain right away you don't have to worry about any fees, etc.
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then why not just foloder/subdomain it -

highschooltones.com/casagrande

casagrande.highschooltones.com

w/ all the myspace kiddies running around throwing a /XXXXXYYYYZZZZZ isn't at all 'odd' these days for them.

This way you have zero trademark issue, and don't have to grab new domains for every new school (plus if someone forgets to throw their school on there just have the homepage show the offer as well.
 
Sonny, it looks like someone jumped on your HighschoolTones.Com idea and snatched the domain up today...

Whoever it was, I would love to hear if your going to give it a go and how it works out for you... I may give it a roll and see if its something that would be worthwhile even if its only a reproduceable a couple times.

There are about 6 highschools within 20 minutes of where I live...
 
I just bought the domain... Couldn't resist.
I'm a high school student myself so I'm gonna target the 6 schools in my city.
Mabye I can turn it into a case study?

Thanks to everyone for the great ideas. I think I'll begin with MySpace to start the buzz... then go with paper flyers and Facebook PPC for targeting.

I might buy an ad in our school newspaper or promotional pamphlet for fall sports. If anyone has any other promotional ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Oh and if someone wants to use a subdomain off of highschooltones.com, like falcons.highschooltones.com just PM me.
 
I'd be interested in how you do, sucks schools out right now.. you could try leaving messages on myspace groups related to the schools and say "Did anyone see our schools new ringtone site?" I bet a lot of the kids that are starting highschool this year will be joining these groups this summer. Good luck with the idea!
 
I would love to see a case study, especially considering that you are currently a highschool student it obviously makes your access to the school and students a whole lot more open.

I agree that MySpace/FB targetted at your school/city is probably a good way to go, it seems like it would be a better supplement to the offline marketing aspect as you mentioned with comments like 'Did you see our school's new ringtone site, etc.'

gatoradeparade said:
I just bought the domain... Couldn't resist.
I'm a high school student myself so I'm gonna target the 6 schools in my city.
Mabye I can turn it into a case study?

Thanks to everyone for the great ideas. I think I'll begin with MySpace to start the buzz... then go with paper flyers and Facebook PPC for targeting.

I might buy an ad in our school newspaper or promotional pamphlet for fall sports. If anyone has any other promotional ideas, I'd love to hear them.

Oh and if someone wants to use a subdomain off of highschooltones.com, like falcons.highschooltones.com just PM me.
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