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[e90]

I apologise for typing, I'm on a replacement keyboard at the moment and it's rubbish!!!



Just wondered if anyone out there had any good ideas they were willing to offer.

Basically it's for my website:
www  stuckin thehouse  co uk    spaces added to stop scrapers seeing it
Things I've done............

I downloaded the contact email addresses of almost 500 schools for Sheffield and Leeds and emailed the head teachers before the end of the school year and asked that if they thought the site was useful to parents over the hols they would pass it on.  Unfortunately I left it too late and many schools had shut, though I had positive replies for half a dozen heads saying the loved it and that it made the school blog/news letter (something I can verify from stats on the site).

I've tried getting contacts for scout/girl guides/child minders to let them know in the chance it can help with activities they wish to plan.  Though I've not collected many addresses for this, so not really pushed this angle.

I have a 'site twitter account' and I use an app to try and help get followers, in the last month I have going on 700 followers all in the S Yorks area (i.e. real followers and not just spammers from Mexico)

Facebook account, I hoped more people would help me but not much response here

I'm looking into having tshirts printed and giving them to close friends (in the North) to wear at weekends etc  spread the word

I have a 3 metre professionally printed PVC banner I've paraded around (to little success)

I'm currently playing with mozbar and google adwords keyword tool to try and get useful search results, but not much time spent on this YET

Listed on Dmoz, aboutus, and other similar sites

Made a presence on the Sheffield and Leeds forums with a link in my sig, worked well but very time consuming

Collecting HUNDREDS of flyers from tourist info and emailed people, so far approx 30 companies have signed up their own accounts and listed an attraction



Things I want to avoid

Paying, I've spent thousands (literally) of hours on the site, hundreds in server costs, couple of hundred to build a car mounted banner and print the banner, I simply don't have money to spend at the moment, though long term that may change

I want to avoid London at the moment.  It's a good place and I will absolutely focus on it one day, but I have to focus my attention on what is useful, and London is a league of it's own, when I do it I will do it right, and not in bits. 

Illegal advertising.   I don't want to flyer shop fronts, bus stops etc, this can get me in trouble and I don't need a simple whois on my domain to screw things up.



Things I have considered but not yet gone into

full search engine rankings (though my site fares well on pagespeed, is 'ok' at validating at last test, is quite SEO over all so many things are already covered)

I want to make a push to get attention from mumsnet, though again I want to do it fairly.  Now that I have a hundreds of visits I can try and get real mums to put proper comments on there, this is something I will do very soon.  I'm either thinking of doing an official post in the name of the site and ask people that use the site to comment in the thread..... or just manually ask people I know to spread the word there.

My own flyers? Not sure on this one.

Try a marketing scheme similar to JustEat, I'm not sure how they get window space in every takeaway, but if I could get museums to do the same ULTIMATE WIN !!

I have a 6ft gorilla suit, considering standing in the city centre one Sat afternoon with a 4m banner :s

Competitions on the site, simple, stupid, competitions as in whoever gets the most referers (not thought of code side yet) to win a family ticket to a (cheap) local attraction, something simple cheap and fun for a nice day out.

Car banners/stickers for the rear windscreen

Writing the site URL on the front page of the metro every morning with a pen on my bus, get some sneaky info out there lol




....and many others that scape me right now.

If anyone has a a nice simple, cheap angle I could try to get more attention to the site (and hope that people like it and come back) I would be very grateful.

It's a free site that many people (not just friends) have thanked and complimented me on, but there seem to be some great ideas out there I'm missing that people bring up sometimes so I thought I would be cheaky and ask lol


Any and all ideas appreciated

Andy

[Berath]

Schools are good. Getting it the address into School magazines/blogs/newsletters. Shame the timing was off for the summer.

Also guides/cubs etc.

And if you can, get someone to write an app, they may do it for free if they get a share of any money made.

To be honest, I wouldn't focus on things like tee-shirts, banners etc, to easily ignored and there is already so much rubbish being promoted that way. Need to be careful with flyers too unless you distribute them to targeted audiences at specific events/venues for the same reason.

I'd go for Mumsnet where you can clearly target and explain. And local newspapers...maybe they'd be willing to write a feature. There would be no harm in writing some press releases and just sending them out to relevant publications.

Some of the parents here can perhaps give ideas too. I'm trying to think where the parents I know might go and look for information.

[Zarf]

I'll PM you my sisters email if you like, she got a first in her Marketing degree. She might be able to throw you some free advice if you mention you know me (Neil).

Generally though to me it looks as if you're doing all the right things. Forums are the way to go though, pretty much all the hits  (several hundred a month) to the website I made for my mums cat breeding business come from them.

[e90]

I agree Berath, flyer advertising is a saturated market, I keep looking out for ways to be different (was hearing the other day about a group in Italy that advertised by cleaning the floor/wall, but through a stencil of the companys logo, they couldn't get prosecuted as they were cleaning and not spraying paint, ingenious !)

The timing is off for summer, but my 'plan' is to push attractions as much as possible.  In  late Sept/Oct Im going to start pushing 'events'.... attractions with a start/stop date (fun fair, Xmas parade, festive plays etc, anything that is a one off type thing) and then due to the positive reaction from schools push again, and say that in the festive season many events are being listed, so it's worth pushing again in their news letter

Over a year ago I held my 3-4m banner at a big 15,000 person event and a girl stopped by, asked me questions about it, about me.  At the end she identified her self as a journalist for Yorkshire post.  She wanted to run a piece on me, but she was absolutely not allowed to advertise for free.  I never heard back.  She had a lot of enthusiasm, all her own, so I presume that she tried but was told a flat out no.  Shame.   Not sure how to get around that.... getting in a newspaper 'local boy starts website' etc without it being classed as 'free advertising'

Mumsnet, absolutely yes, just deciding best path to get there, opinions appreciated ?

Thanks Zarf that sounds awesome.  Ps Is she fit/single

lol, sorry couldn't resist, hard coded into my genes.  Thanks, I've asked a lot of people/friends/family and everything now seems an overlap to what's already discussed.  But opinions from a pro would be greatly appreciated !!

PS several hundred for a car breeding site? I appreciate having a speciality gives you an edge, but that sounds like awesome figures for something peculiar !!

PS - If anyone wants to follow on twitter/facebook and push to their friends I wont complain

x

[Jebus]

Having done a fair bit of marketing for start-ups etc I am happy to share some thoughts. I would say the first thing you could think about is being very specifc on who your target audience is. You going after 6th formers? Parents with young kids? Uni Students? Pick one and start there and be as narrow as possible. Makes it easier to target both your users and your attractions. Build a niche.

Would look at foursquare (similar idea) and consider some of the stuff they do to get people using and interacting. Badges and rewards for getting people to do the actions you want them to do is very affective. Check-in/share type interaction is useful both for you (gives you data for advertising etc) but also introduces a way for people to share their activity and promote the site for you. I get endless Facebook updates from young parents going to some day out or other it is being done directly anyway. Also means you can point to popular/trending places as places to go (or avoid?).

I would def get a Facebook like button on your site (not just a link to your page).

You seem to have covered the SEO points so it is now a case of building up links. Something to think about in the future is offering widgets to attractions, that they can add to their site and show check-ins or similar. A lot of US tv shows are doing this with GetGlue/Miso etc.

Agree with berath on shirts - expensive too. Also sending out press releases to anyone who writes about local events online and offline etc. Having your twitter account tweet events that are coming up seems a no brainer.

Jemima Kiss at the Guardian does a startup pitch article daily which I got an article on within a couple days (brought in 2000-3000 uniques for about a week) so great for exposure but you only get to use it once so make sure the site is tight.

Anyways been rambling. Hope some of this is useful

[Jebus]

Also on your Facebook page I would either make a splash page and have that as your default or use the wall - not the info page.

[Junta]

Agree with Berath, my wife volunteers at our local primary school and the school newsletter IS an excellent way to get noticed.

Problem is getting onto it, and circulated around. You sort of need a "known face" to propose it at the school and get advertised via School communications. The problem is, what is in it for the school? Links to their homepage? Advertising positive news for the school? Fund raising banners for the school? Are there positive aspects of your site that would assist in learning? For example, younger kids learn Phonics these days, what does your site offer? Does it compete with the cbeebies website (always popular with kids and mum / dad knows its safe!)

[Guilt]

How about having some cheap ballons printed and give them out at parks/events with a flyer. the parents can't miss a web address if a kid is waving it around for the rest of the day. Maybe give them to ice cream vans to give out with a sale for mutual benefit.

The babycentre and moneysavingexpert days out forum are also a large online communities for parents.

[DeadlyAvenger]

Yeah - just getting your links to your site out there to as many places as possible will help with your website hits and search engine ranking (i.e. forums, signatures etc. etc.)

Also - it sounds like you've put a lot of time and effort into this, but I don't see any revenue stream for you? You havn't mentioned anything like advertising, click-through or anything like that and there's no advertising on the site? (other than the attractions - but do they pay you?).

One method of promotion you could use would be to try and contact the attractions and see if you can negotiate some form of discount (be it a reduced family rate or £2 off or something) and even better would be, like you say, to get a really good brand identity/logo set and build a 'mark' i.e. as seen on www.website.com with a logo or something. This probably won't work on the larger attractions, but would be good for some of the smaller ones perhaps.

I can't really think of any trade shows that would be applicable - they're usually quite good for products/services if you can find an appropriate one - but going into small shops (i.e. hairdressers, tourist information centres, toy stores, hotels, pubs) and asking if you can leave cards / flyers on the counter. Things like tourist information centres and pubs usually have racks and racks of information about local attractions etc.

Also...surely 'stuck in the house' means you couldn't leave to go to any of these attractions?

[Millicent Bystander]

I have a 6ft gorilla suit

Why?

Actually probably good advertising just to wear that and a T shirt with the site's address on it everywhere if you do it for long enough you'll get on the news

[e90]

In order of posting...

Jebus:
As I finally 'launched' at the begin of the school hols that has become my initial target, young families looking to entertain kids, primarily in the hols.  Completely agree on focussing on an initial target.  (it feels wrong saying kids are 'targets')

Direct Facebook Like button sorted this morning (you wont see it yet, it's in the next batch of code which I have another few tweaks to finish before I roll out version 6

GetGlue approach, yes already in the long term pipeline.  I had envisaged a 'my area' score card, where you have to 'do' your area where you then become a 'recognised supporter of local attractions' where you tick them off one by one, and write a one liner comment on each, this gets published to places/friends etc.  I'm also looking into the retweet feature where it can say to your friends where you are going for fun and if they want to go, like an auto invite feature.

Tshirts, I was only going to get 4-5 printed, just for good friends that will use it.  I know it's expensive compared to things like twitter, but tshirts don't fall off the bottom of a news feed.  IF (big if) my mates just wear it now and again in their home town it slowly picks up attractions from now until forever, which is not like a 'facebook like' where after 24 hours it's invisible.

Thanks for the Guardian link, I know those kind of things exist, but no idea what or where.  In that case I will leave that for a month or two, get it a bit more polished and pro looking before I go for that level of coverage.

I'm struggling to make a landing page for facebook, any clues from any pro's ?   Can;t find how to do it, I just have a feed and an info page



Junta

What's in it for the schools? Well nothing direct, and I'm not sure what there could be as I'm not aware of anything I'm able to do (do schools advertise?).  The 'line' I've taken is that parents find holidays stressful and I think anything to help them find cheap things to do in hard times would be great, so more that they are helping the kids, which a few head teachers seemed to like.  If you can think of anything else...

I had a thought a while ago that schools could advertise sports days/theatre productions.  But then the devils advocate in me thought, do they want strangers from all over the county knowing when the kids are performing?  The only thing I could do then would be to limit who can see it, i.e. limit it to people in that city, but not sure how to achieve this from the IP.  Thoughts?


Guilt

Balloons, I love it !!! I live near a very popular park and giving free helium balloons free with icecreams might work, the ice cream van gets an added advantage that their icecreams get a free balloon, something many kids would beg their parents for.  Will think about that one.

Also nice idea with the other two forums, not gone there yet, might have a gander later (-might +will)



Deadly

There is a lot of scope for revenue which the site is already prepped for, however I want to get motion before I start asking for money.

Slightly bigger pins for pro accounts (single ping accounts will always be free for smaller companies, I don't want to charge them)
Other tools for pro accounts (trend tracking, promotional features etc)
Tie ins with taxi companies whose number will be promoted with local attractions to them
A couple of other smaller ideas.

To be honest I'm enjoying doing something useful, I never intended for this site to make me enough money to quit a job, however if it starts to pay for the server cost, and earn me a few pints then I won't complain, I just like the thought it helps people.

Agreed on getting a pin on their site, like I said with JustEat It's working out why they would link to me, what incentive, why will they give my visitors a discount AND link to my site if they can already get listed for free?

on the name (other small point, the acronym is SITH... oops)



Milli

Why not? Don't tell me you don't have one?  (I bought it for a fancy dress party, it was a BMF workout session and I did it in a gorilla costume, got a little warm in there)




New question.

I've always had my eyes on circus/funfair attractions that move around, would be good for them (as all they ever do is flyers a week before they arrive).  But I don't know how to get hold of them on a grand scale.

My only thought is to go to the companies that manufacture rides etc and ask them to pass a letter on.  What's in it for them?  More visitors to fair grounds = more profit for fair ground = more new rides.  It's tenuous but I can't afford to pay them, and this indirectly is payment for them.

Just an idea?


Thanks for input guys, really helpful so far

[Jebus]

In order of posting...

Jebus:
As I finally 'launched' at the begin of the school hols that has become my initial target, young families looking to entertain kids, primarily in the hols.  Completely agree on focussing on an initial target.  (it feels wrong saying kids are 'targets')

Direct Facebook Like button sorted this morning (you wont see it yet, it's in the next batch of code which I have another few tweaks to finish before I roll out version 6

GetGlue approach, yes already in the long term pipeline.  I had envisaged a 'my area' score card, where you have to 'do' your area where you then become a 'recognised supporter of local attractions' where you tick them off one by one, and write a one liner comment on each, this gets published to places/friends etc.  I'm also looking into the retweet feature where it can say to your friends where you are going for fun and if they want to go, like an auto invite feature.

Tshirts, I was only going to get 4-5 printed, just for good friends that will use it.  I know it's expensive compared to things like twitter, but tshirts don't fall off the bottom of a news feed.  IF (big if) my mates just wear it now and again in their home town it slowly picks up attractions from now until forever, which is not like a 'facebook like' where after 24 hours it's invisible.

Thanks for the Guardian link, I know those kind of things exist, but no idea what or where.  In that case I will leave that for a month or two, get it a bit more polished and pro looking before I go for that level of coverage.

I'm struggling to make a landing page for facebook, any clues from any pro's ?   Can;t find how to do it, I just have a feed and an info page

I think there are all sorts of opportunities for tie ins, revenue earning or otherwise, especially if you are encouraging repeat visits. See if venues will let you offer the xth visit free if they been/check-in y times. I like the idea of rewards (extrinsic or intrinsic) that show how many places you have been to etc - makes it a competition to have done the most. Especially if you can go on to share that fact in some way via social media.

If you checkout affiliate sites (affiliate window/linkshare/commission junction) a lot of them have attractions as clients who you can get links from (better than banners IMO as you can incorporate it nicely into the site) that you get a % from - again this will build up data (impressions/clicks) which will be useful in the future. Equally might be able to use Groupon/Living Social if they have an API or similar - might be able to pull certain offers from events and have have them displayed (think they pay out a %)

Email marketing can be pretty effective too if your content is useful, timely and interesting. Special offers or upcoming events (circus/funfair). Again these are easily shared and passed around. I found I had an open rate of 50-60%, with 5-10% forwarding which can grow your subscriber base very quickly. Also offers a revenue stream for attraction to be featured. (Might want to look at Mailchimp if interested. Will be free for your initial level of mailing).

You might want to check out some of the tools offered by http://involver.com. Some very good free ones espec for Facebook (link in your twitter account etc). In terms of the Facebook page, you just create an image (dimensions are the facebook wall width), then add this app (https://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=4949752878) to your page. You can the create new tabs. Call one Welcome! or similar and display your image. Few good examples for ideas are companies like Redbull, Gap and other fashion brands. You might find this pdf article useful: link

With Twitter I would have thought you would have a good opportunity to build up some relationships with local events/attractions. Retweet links, reply to people. You really need to be pro-active to get this to work for you. It is amazing how friendly and reciprocal people can be on there if you put in the effort. This goes back to your target market. Parents sounds good. I would be tempted to just stick to your home county to start. Makes it easier to build up 'friendly' relationships with companies and also get into local press if it is a 'local' story.

Last thought is more functionality. But thought it would be cool/useful if you could choose which type of pins to display (e.g. only show museums/historical). Might make it easier to find exactly what visitor is after?

[Power]

Make a huge ARG, by blocking all the doors and capping the emergency hotline number, so when people call to complain, that they can't get out of the house, they will only hear a creepy voice saying "so you're stuck in the house?" and then the URL for your homepage in morse code.

Sorry, I'm useless.

[e90]

No no power, that was.... insightful, thanks

(Martha, hide the children)