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)

:)

How to save money on costly utility bills

Today, we have a guest - Luke from The Student Blogger.

Hello ladies and gentlemen! I'm Luke, aged 22 and from sunny old Essex! As of June 2013 I’m a graduate of Birmingham City University from the Applied Performance course, from my experiences I decided to start blogging, of all my experiences from university life, from housing and money saving to day to day life. Hopefully this will help someone!


Here are Luke's tips for saving money on utility bills......



"Everybodys favourite word, BILLS, you take this for granted when living at home but you soon realise that everything costs money, from watching TV, eating, taking a shower and being able to see in a room which isn’t like a fridge freezer! Having to shell out so much money on them can seem a pain, however there are some things you can do to help minimise the amount you spend.

Use price comparison sites to ensure you're not paying more than you have to

(An average customer can save £100′s over one year just by switching to a cheaper company. Remember that new TV you’ve always wanted?)

Money Supermarket

uSwitch

Sites like these are your best buddy as a student, they will help you to find the cheapest tariff for your home, but remember to have those energy bills ready because you’ll need to input some figures to calculate the costs, or you can estimate your usage by home averages. You’ll often receive a discount for signing a longer contract however they may impose charges for leaving early, so always read the small print! Remember our guide on saving money whilst shopping? You can get cash back on your energy ‘shopping’ as well!

Turn down your thermostat

It costs more money to heat a home at a higher temperature and by turning your temperature dial down by just one degree, you could end up saving around 10% on your energy bill. That’s equivalent to about £55, which is a massive saving for something you probably won’t notice. It pays to be savvy!

Use your heating at night

It’s a well-known fact that energy is cheaper at night, so it makes sense to use the bulk of it then. Try to put off heating your house and your water until after 7pm, or if you need to have it on before, have it on a lower setting. If you find that heating is costing you too much, it may be worth investigating whether you can switch to another tariff, which suits your usage better.

Use energy saving light bulbs

Energy savers use less energy than traditional light bulbs to generate the same amount of light, however they can take a little while to warm up, so plan your light switch on time strategically! They can also save you a huge chunk your energy costs. Go out and buy some!

Don’t leave the light on

This is common sense. Though you might forget to flick the switch when you leave, there are no advantages to leaving the lights on; it’s bad for the environment and bad for your bank balance. Try leaving post-its by the switches and get into the habit of stopping and thinking before you walk out of the room.


Turn your electronics off

This applies to Xbox/PS3′s, TV’s, laptops, the whole lot! — if you are not using them, they are costing you money for no reason!




Save your washing up for one wash

A brilliantly popular money saving technique that seems too good to be true! However, rather than heating water in drips and drabs, it is far better to boil the kettle and fill a washing up bowl with water to do all those dirty dishes in one go. Go on, we’ll let you use us as an excuse to put it off for a little longer, just this once.

Shower, don’t use the bath!

Using the bath is far more expensive to showering, especially if you like filling yours to the top (like me!). Consider the bath a treat and hop in the shower to get clean, plus knock off those extra few minutes you spend in the shower each day and you’ll be saving yourself even more!


And if all else fails, stock up on lots of jumpers and blankets and be prepared to walk around in your duvet!"

Thank you to Luke for sharing those tips with us!

Beyond the student union building

As soon as you start at university you will be bombarded with information about finance, accommodation, and study skills. Every local pub will be vying for your custom, every local clothing shop fighting to get you to spend your money with them. The student market is huge with millions of pounds being spent in the UK alone. Students can easily use more than £2,000 a year on living costs alone, without even thinking about accommodation. With over 1 million full-time students in the UK at any one time, that is a lot of money up for spending. 

A lot of this money will be spent within the university itself, through its official accommodation agency and its various shops, bars and services. But on-campus businesses are not the only ones to cater to the needs of the modern student. There is life beyond the four walls of the student union building, or indeed beyond actual bricks and mortar. These are just some of the independent services that I have found over the last few years which could be of interest to you.

Job Shop

Forget about the university careers and job centre. Some employers can take advantage of your student status to get cheaper labour, which is fair enough. However, you should consider selling your services and skills to someone through StudentGems.com. This is a site where you can register your skills and talents (such as copywriting, photography, or web development) and find someone to pay you for one-off projects. Yes, they’re still wanting cheaper labour, but you’ll probably earn more than working in a local take-away and you can build up your portfolio in the meantime.

Accommodation

Official university accommodation is usually better quality than private accommodation, mostly, though it can be more expensive. There are alternatives to both university and private accommodation though. Through UniHomeSwap.co.uk, you can find another student to swap your rooms in your family house with. This won’t suit everyone, but is worth a look and could save you and your financial sponsors (i.e. Mum and Dad) thousands of pounds a year.

Art

If your university projects have the potential to earn you money, then you need to look further afield than the university campus. Although some universities have business development and start up facilities and resources to help you kick-start your fledgling business, these sometimes tend toward business in the science and technology sectors.  If your potential lies more in the art production industry, then take a look at BuyStudentArt.co.uk, who help sell your products to the general public on a commission basis.

Textbooks

Most universities have a bookshop and very handy they are too. They always have a good stock of the exact books your lecturers have recommended for your course. But textbooks are not cheap and honestly, you won’t use them that much, though it’s always better to have them than not come the essay deadlines. Try using a site like us, TheBookPond.com to buy your books from another student first. Or check out your department noticeboard for buying used books and other essential course items. 

Careers

Your university careers service is going to be one of the best on-campus resources available to you, even if you don’t realise it until the very end. Please use them. Don’t forget though that there are other companies to help you in your graduate job search. Most of us will have heard of milkround.com, but what about newer and smaller companies like giveagradago.com? Always worth a look to broaden your reach. 

What independent companies have you found useful that you would recommend to other UK university students?

The battle between e-books and traditional textbooks

I have said it before. I am a huge fan of traditional printed media. I think that certain publications will weather the storm that has been whipped up by the introduction and development of e-books, indeed some publications will thrive on it. However, I am more cynical about the application of technology to university textbooks.

This infographic below (totally borrowed by the way - Source: http://www.onlinedegrees.org/e-textbooks-vs-print-textbooks) shows how university/college textbooks fare against their up-and-coming e-book rivals. 

The one thing that rings true with me, and the biggest driver behind my development of www.thebookpond.com was the fact that real books can be re-sold. If you look at the price of buying a new book and then selling it at a reduced price, more often than not, it's a better value alternative to e-books or textbook rental. That's my thinking anyway.

What do you think? Do you agree with the facts on the infographic?