Back To School Special?

[Ender07]

Hey everyone, I was wondering if anyone has done a "back to school" special before and what you included in it?

I was thinking it would be a good time to promote having a safe computer for your kids by installing a parental control program, make sure its running well with a safety check/tune-up, and maybe something else to add a bit of value to it.

If you have anything to add or any good ideas let me know!

 

[DanF]

I'm starting to advertise parental control software as well. The government department responsible for education is promoting this issue a lot on TV and everywhere.

What kind of software do you use? I've used K9 multiple times.

 

[Ender07]

I was thinking of using either K9, OnlineFamily.Norton, or maybe Windows Live Family Safety. I know they are all free to use and some have more preferences and abilities than others, but I'm going to look into it a bit more.

 

[DanF]

A 'not so easy' situation you might get into when doing this type of job is when parents ask you to block websites like youtube, facebook etc... for their teenagers.

I've got parents asking me to block websites that might have traces of porn or sexual content for their young children who just started using the internet. Then I've got parents that caught their son surfing porn stuff that wanted me to block the above mentioned social networking websites etc... I was ready to block porn websites (and I think it can be set up with a single click in K9), but I had to explain to them about the others that they, in my opinion, shouldn't be blocked. Believe it or not, I feel bad for them haha. Fortunately enough most of the time they will understand and move on with blocking the sexual content websites only.

 

[Ender07]

Does anyone have any ideas as too what I should include in the special or any things you have done in the past?

 

[Craven_Morehead]

I actually talked about doing this a while back in a different thread.


Here's what I said:

I made a poster for a daycare, which I assumed had parents of teens. The poster basically talked about keeping kids safe online, and offered a couple of tips. The hook was a "Free Safety Evaluation" of their kid's pc, to check for viruses, adult site history, updates, and installation of monitoring software.

It went amazingly well.

You know teens have a great deal of problems, and not just their attitudes; as a result a "free" evaluation turns into ca$h. Cost under $150 for two 24" x 36" posters and a free repair for the daycare owner. I tracked back a cash flow of $900 per month for 4 months until some ****** kids ripped my posters down.

Not really a "back to school special", but it worked for me. I don't have the poster anymore, but it basically headlined with "Are your children protected online?" Then listed some pointers, along with scaring them about online predators. At the bottom was my safety evaluation offer with my phone number & website.


You know, if you got the money, you can make both, posters and tri-fold brochures. Done right, even if you don't offer anything free, you can still make a profit imo. Where I live, high school students have to register during the summer. If you can find out those dates of registration, you can hand out the brochures in the school's parking lot. (Parents should be present)

Also, for middle school, try making a very informative brochure. With that, you should have no problem having those left at the front desk. Of course, sneak in a offer for services somewhere, with some kind of discount for parents of students who attend that school.


Another idea:

Sponsor a local sports team, and force them to use your logo and give out your brochures (or other marketing material) to parents at the game. Even young kids have their own laptops nowadays, I'm talking as young as 7 years old.

 

[AFCSOFME]

I actually talked about doing this a while back in a different thread.


Here's what I said:



Not really a "back to school special", but it worked for me. I don't have the poster anymore, but it basically headlined with "Are your children protected online?" Then listed some pointers, along with scaring them about online predators. At the bottom was my safety evaluation offer with my phone number & website.


You know, if you got the money, you can make both, posters and tri-fold brochures. Done right, even if you don't offer anything free, you can still make a profit imo. Where I live, high school students have to register during the summer. If you can find out those dates of registration, you can hand out the brochures in the school's parking lot. (Parents should be present)

Also, for middle school, try making a very informative brochure. With that, you should have no problem having those left at the front desk. Of course, sneak in a offer for services somewhere, with some kind of discount for parents of students who attend that school.


Another idea:

Sponsor a local sports team, and force them to use your logo and give out your brochures (or other marketing material) to parents at the game. Even young kids have their own laptops nowadays, I'm talking as young as 7 years old.

I like your thinking on this....and 7 year olds with laptops...yup, ever so true, recently this state had a school district fund money giving Kindergartners iPads....yeah, I hope the other schools in the state point and laugh and not follow suit, unreal how much easier it is for kids to get online and go to where they don't belong. People would shrug this sort of thought off, but these days, ever so important to have a 3rd eye on kids.

 

[Peaceful]

Thinking of doing a back to school essentials sort of deal, aimed toward teachers and students...

install free viewers for word, excel, powerpoint, pdf
possibly some sort of open source calendar/task manager
open office install if needed/desired
security scan for bugs acquired during a summer of keeping up with facebook friends
install avast free a/v
install latest windows updates

Also toying with the idea of a back to school webpage with links
to all the above for the do it yourselfers
with a call to action if/when they run into problems

 

[ashesofheroes]

hmm how about a Back to School Special aimed at college students?

maybe something with remote support?

 

[callthatgirl]

Ding Ding! Just where I was going with this.

I am going to be offering a college kid credit account with us for remote services, marketed to my social media and current clients.

The kids get up to 16 (15 minute) calls in or 4 hours of time for $299. The services include many different areas of support too, not just repair. Still working on the service list, should have it ready by mid August to push out.

 

[Iconic]

I guess I could have put more effort into my Back-To-School special. I am simply offering 50% off the first hour for all service calls. I was going to go through something like DealFinder but they want you to discount 50% or more and then pay them 50% of the final sale. So if your rate is $80 you would discount to $40 for the 1 day sale and only receive $20 since you had to pay $20 to the company for the advertising. It sounds even worse if you are like me and still in the $60 range for your pricing.

 

[Ender07]

I was thinking on doing a couple different targets package specials.

For college students: a basic tune-up w/word, exel, ppt viewers, openoffice, etc. and an hour of remote/phone support.

For high school/middle school: basic tune-up, exel, ppt viewers, openoffice, etc., and a parental control/monitoring program (K9)

For grade school: basic tune-up, exel, ppt viewers, openoffice, K9, etc., and a lockdown of their privacy settings on their facebook/myspace/google+

I still am going to tweak them a bit, but what do you think?