Advertising to College Students

Offer a prize for certain goal. Noting is so called "Free"

I did a little bit of student targeting - mostly with CPA and one membership site...

Flyers - Somewhat obvious, post them on bulletin boards at school(s). The important thing is to try include a picture of the school's mascot on the flyer, it makes a big difference and makes it less likely to get taken down. You can also pay someone to hand them out of course.

Mobile - Focus on mobile if your niche allows it... I'm not sure how to do this for free, but targeting with ads on mobile apps works well. I did this with Android and used it for email collection for a separate students-list which I then blasted later. Collecting emails obviously works on mobile regardless of whether your offer itself is mobile-friendly.

Student Discounts - If you're going to go with flyers or campus forum-posting as you mentioned, it would benefit you do offer a student discount. I was promoting a membership site and did a student discount that made the first month only a dollar, obviously I got a lot of signups, but more surprising was that most of them didn't cancel... I'm not sure if they forgot they signed up or if they wanted to stay signed up, but even those that didn't continue to access the site would stay signed up for a few months at a time.

Gah, I'm forgetting one free method... if I remember it I'll return and post it...

Local or regional college blogs are good to target. You could get your posts published there with a backlink to your site. And, so long as what you are saying is specifically targeted to the college student's interests (maybe even with a local angle for that region), then you are likely to get college students interested in what you have to say.

One of my biggest sites is in the college humour niche. If you're looking for free traffic sources within this market, I'd suggest seeking out locations where college-style humour has a large presence.

The Duke,

So you're asking for free traffic ideas that target:

• College towns
• Business owners
• Local citizens
• Students

Just an observation to help you . . .

What you've identified as your "target" market for free advertising methods is not targeted at all. Your list could include every citizen and business in a college town. I don't know what you're selling, but I'm guessing that it really isn't a product or service that everyone is going to be excited about.

When you hone in on exactly who would benefit by purchasing what you're offering, then you should have a more workable target population to focus your efforts on. IMO, products made to benefit "everyone" rarely appeal to anyone.

The very best to you,

Steve

Not sure what you're promoting but I'll take a shot at it.

A number of years ago, when NetFlix started their affiliate program through some of the CPA networks, we got lucky and one of the networks we were with (Copeac) had it.

So..... we hit it hard promoting to college kids.

I started with the town in which I reside, Eugene, as I live here AND it's a "college town" with a MASSIVE student populous.

Perfect.

I decided the best way to reach the college students was to "piggy back" with business who were ALREADY reaching them.

Pizza Delivery

Developed a campaign lovingly called "Pizza and a flick night". We allowed ANYONE who ordered a pizza to get a free 14 day trial of Netflix AT THE SAME TIME they placed their pizza order.

It took a bit of "leg work" to get that done but in the end, that campaign made tens of thousands of dollars for EVERYONE involved.

The University Bookstore

A part of the bookstore was a computer store. They retailed and serviced thousands of computers a year.

We made tens of thousands of dollars with them and Netflix by doing 2 things.....

We had Netflix FREE TRAIL offers everywhere in that store. Banners, flyers, "gift cards" stickers on packages, etc.

And here's a good one...... they did service. On ALL THE COMPUTERS they serviced, they'd load desktop shortcuts to varios university services like student email, the sports page and a few others.

By now you probably guessed what happens next..... we got them to add in a shortcut to our free trial landing page.

Misc stuff

We did other stuff too but the two methods above were our biggest players.

Once I Got it to Work in Eugene..... We Duplicated it in Other College Towns..... and Then Did it all Over Again With GAMEFLY

Why this Worked?

We identified businesses that already had distribution channels to reach our market in place. All we had to do was show them how we could increase their revenue without major expense or work on their part. We usually split commish with them.

Also......

Netflix wasn't advertising a FREE TRAIL.....I had to ask for that offer - and I got it..... making me and my partners the ONLY ones from whom a free trial could be had

And THATS a side lesson here: if you want to promote something but think you can crush it with tweaks to the offer..... ASK for those tweaks.