How to market to UK students

Earlier this week I received a message from a TheBookPond user. They said they loved the site and it was a great idea but there are not enough books on there, and that I should do a marketing event at the local university to get more interest.

They're right. The site is a good idea, and there are not enough books listed on there, and I SHOULD do a marketing event at the local university. However, and I am grateful for all the feedback and interaction I get about theBookPond, I just don't have the budget to be able to market to students in the way that larger companies do.

Take my local university for example. The University of Hull is a great institution. There are around 17,000 students there. The student's union is one of the best in the UK and frequently wins various awards. It is also hideously expensive for small businesses to get involved with. A stall at the annual freshers fair costs hundreds of pounds. An official one-off event on campus costs hundreds in exhibition stand material alone, before you've even paid the students union for use of their space.

I could potentially spend hundreds of pounds and never see any return. Even if I get lots of students using the site, I won't make that sort of money back in site sponsorship or advertising. I have other things to waste my money on.

Marketing to students on campus without paying will mean I am banished from the campus forever. Marketing to students around the campus area takes time I just haven't got.

I did once go out and speak to students armed with sweets and leaflets. I got 12 email address. 12. We were out for two hours. Please don't tell me this is an efficient use of my time because my experience suggests otherwise. 

Please don't think that I am here all day long waiting for people to use the site. I have four children, I also work part-time (paid) as a copywriter and social media manager. I have to prioritise my family and paid work. As much as I'd love to spend time out there talking to students and drumming up interest in the site, it just doesn't pay back for me.

So I have to look at other methods. I have put leaflets and posters up around various universities as I have visited them. I have done at least Hull, Durham and Edinburgh. I get pretty good results from this. Sadly, the posters are all taken down at the end of term (or before if I'm unlucky), and I can't get to all 117 UK universities (and rising) every single term. I am not omnipotent, contrary to rumours.

I have put leaflets through doors in student areas in Hull and Durham. Again, this takes time and effort, but is fairly easy to do. But again, the numbers don't justify me doing this very often. 

I have also paid others to do this for me in other areas of the UK with mixed results. I have to rely on them doing the job I'm paying for and not just cashing the cheque and dumping the leaflets. 

Also, I have to consider that anything I do will have to be repeated at least every three years to catch the new students, if not every year.

A big draw to our site is via search engines. I know people are finding the site. Lots of people. I know these people are looking for places to sell their textbooks free of charge (because that's what the search terms indicate). But people aren't being brave and listing their books with us. I can't do much about this I'm afraid. People have to list them for there to be a large enough stock of books to give people the confidence to list them. I'm currently stuck in critical mass purgatory.

I try and get articles with back-links on authoritative blogs as much as I can. I have made some great connections doing this. But it's hard work again. The good blogs that target students are few and far between. There is no community in student blogging and marketing like there is in other blogging genres like parenting or fashion for example. Bloggers are often suspicious of being approached by someone they've never heard of before. I have other blogs. I know that getting content on to blogs without any form of payment is tricky. I am grateful to those that have let me guest post. But there is a limit to how much I can do this.

Did I ever tell you that once we were featured on BBC Click!? Are you sure? Anyway, we were. (Click on the box top right of this page to see it). This got us a mass of interest and registrations. And about 20 books listed. 20. This is the BBC for goodness sakes! Worldwide. 20!! What do we need to do to convince you to use the site?

Our best shot at getting the site publicised with minimal budget is through social media. We are on Facebook and Twitter as you may know. Twitter is easy peasy to do but gets marginal results per tweet. Facebook gets better results but is much harder work, especially when no-one's listing books to create something to talk about. I don't just want to spout nonsense on there - posting random pictures of cats in hats, or cute kids with humorous captions just to get the 'likes' up. Honestly, I would rather stab hot pokers in my eyes.

I also know that running competitions to increase page likes and retweets have excellent results (depending on the value of the prize offered) but that the new likers are mainly compers who won't hang around. I'd rather just give the cash equivalent to someone who's been genuinely using the site rather than a random new liker who buggers off again as soon as the closing date passes.

Right at the launch of the site all those years ago, I did a prize draw for £100 vouchers for all those who listed books by a certain date. We ended the draw less than 100 books better off, and some of those were mine. That's more than £1 a book to get it listed. Someone got a nice Christmas present with the vouchers, which is brilliant, but I can't be effectively paying people to use the site. It's madness.

So, students of the UK and other interested peeps, I need your help! I need to know if theBookPond.com was your website, what would you do? Bonus points if you're doing a marketing degree. 

What suggestions do you have of getting more people to a) Know about the site and b) feel confident enough to list their books with us?

See, once enough books are listed, the buyers will find the site, I promise. All our listings are individually indexed with the major search engines and plenty of people have found our site by searching for a specific title to buy, or through a more general term like "engineering books in Glasgow". We need more academic textbooks listed to attract those buyers looking to save cash. If we build it, they will come!

Any suggestions you could give me would be awesome because I am fast running out of ideas. And money. And the will to live.

I know this sounds like a negative article and in many ways it is, but I'd like to use it to turn things into a positive.

Thanks

From Miss Hopeful (and Jeff the duck)

:)