Treg Stark of Delaware, Ohio writes:
“For the past 14 years. I have worked locally with parents and kids, teaching them about personal safety (stranger danger). The character I created, Professor Safety, is featured in a DVD and companion CD for parents and day care centers.
“While those who have purchased my safety program rave about it, I have yet been able to get a following on the web. My site has been active for over a year and is just now starting to get good numbers, but I feel there is so much more to do and so many more people I can help, but I can’t seem to get publicity for the site. I have tried the conventional methods and am currently building a network of reporters that I can email with ideas.
“I was hoping your Publicity Hounds can offer more specific details for me.”
Treg should align himself with support from law enforcement agencies and anti- predator activists and list those testimonials prominently on his website. He should additionally enlist some of these experts to share interview time with Professor Safety to lend the program additional credibility. Add comments from satisfied parents who have used the character to teach their children how to be alert and practice safe socialization, and he’ll likely snag the attention of many more in his target market.
Branch out your audience to reach beyond parents and child care centers. Target schools, law enforcement agencies, libraries, PTA groups, churches, YMCA’s, etc.
Treg, if I have the correct Delaware in Ohio, you should be near Columbus. If so, try to contact the zoo and see what children’s days they may have coming up. I work at a theme park and we have Home School Days, Boy Scout & Girls Scout Days, etc. We often are looking for ways to add different elements to the day. See if you can become a part of those events. If so, the zoo may be able to link from their events page to your website. Make sure to have Professor Safety available for the events as well. If the day is covered by local media, a character is more likely to attract a reporter’s attention.
Speaking of Home School, check with the local Home School associations and see if they would be interested in listing you as a resource for their members. It would be a great referral and you could end up with more links to your website from theirs.
If you’re looking to publicize your website, then as the article marketing expert, I’m going to tell you that you need to build super virtual highway ramps to your website that can bring you tons of traffic, sales and leads. These ramps are expert articles within your niche that you should be writing and submitting online to the top websites, ezines and directories that accept article submissions within your area of expertise.
Yes, being quoted in a print publication is nice, but people can put the article down and forget all about you. The greatest thing about having your article published online, is you get a bio box at the end with an active link back to your website. If you provide a strong call for action, and sweeten the deal with a free offer, your prospects are more likely to immediately click on the link and visit your website. That’s why I’ll take an article published on About.com, over being quoted in a major magazine anyday! And yes, I have parenting experts who have been published on About.com like Brooke de Lench. Check out her article here: http://childparenting.about.com/od/activitiesandfun/a/youthsports.htm
If your interested in article submissions, sign up for my free article marketing newsletter at: http://www.articlemarketingexperts.com/articlenewsletter
And, if you’re still interested in just getting your name in print, then check out http://www.prleads.com.
PR LEADS will give you media leads within your niche every single day. The leads look just like the media leads you get in the Publicity Hounds Newsletter, where you get the contact info, and what exactly the editor is looking for. Now you can forget, blindedly submitting press releases and give editors exactly what they’re looking for.
Good luck
Eric Gruber
Your Article Marketing Expert
908-380-8564
http://www.articlemarketingexperts.com
Treg, I am mom of two young boys who are so friendly they would go home with anyone with a hotwheels track and a smile. So I was intrigued by your product on many levels. The site is nice, a good sales letter. I have a few ideas that might help. Ad a video clip to the site for people to test it out and post that clip on YouTube. You might want to add a free report to your site that people can sign up for by adding an email address and then you can capture their info to promote a special to them later. The other thing you can do is start targeting groups that you can make special offers to and contact them. For example, police associations, neighborhood watch groups, parents associations, day care centers, etc. Once you infiltrate a targetted group, get testimonials. And last create a blog with links to this site. It is free. You can write articles and short stories about “stranger danger” and you can post links to articles you find online about how kids have been protected by taking advantage of the tips you give.
Treg, congratulations on your wonderful and important work.
* I agree that a professionally produced trailer, posted on your Web site, would offer an effective “free sample” marketing tool. The trailer can also be distributed to the media, law enforcement associations, PTA and church groups — anyone who might be interested in your message.
* Offer your product for sale on sites such as Amazon.com.
* AMBER Alert is a public service that helps law-enforcement agencies quickly recover abducted children. The parent organization, Engaging and Empowering Citizenship (E2C), encompasses a number of public/private partnerships aimed at enhancing public safety. Consider teaming with this organization, which already has strong relationships with media, law enforcement and other organizations.
* Finally, National Missing Children’s Day occurs on May 23. Use this event as an opportunity to promote your product and your message.
I went to your Web site and it is not optimized for the search engines. You need to add more content to your site, build links to your site from other Web sites, and increase your search engine rankings so people can find you more easily.
* Write articles about Stranger Danger, child safety, and related topics and post them to free online directories. This has two benefits – you can include a link to your Web site in the author resource box, which means people who read the articles can find you and the search engines can also find you.
* It is very difficult to optimize a one-page site for the search engines. Something you might want to try is writing short articles that include keywords related to child safety and adding them to your Web site. Good content is key for keeping the interest of your visitors and it also plays a role in helping the search engines find your site.
* Start a child safety blog and make regular posts that include links to the main page of your Web site. This will build links the search engines can use to find you and will also provide more information for your target audience.
* Post in child safety forums and include a link to your Web site so people can visit for more information. Remember to post information, not spam.
Treg,
Some simple changes I think you can make right away would be:
1. Now, You Can Protect Your Child against Strangers… EVERYDAY even when you’re NOT with them!
(move this line to the top because it shows more ‘urgency’ and builds fear within the buyer) and remove the line with Goldmine above it. The Goldmine Line isn’t really an impact statement.
2. Take the banner across the top of the page and move that near the end right before the order button. That is really the closing statement and the emotional buy for readers on the fence.
3. Take the email sign up box and make it as a pop up or pop under on entrance and exit (there are a few free ones out there, you just have to search around for them) and put your safety list into a special report with bonus tips. Or ask a question that would make people more compelled to sign up to get an answer.
Until you make basic changes on the site I don’t think it will matter much to generate more visitors. After you have done the changes, you can keep users on the page and have a way to capture their email if they decide not to stay. Then you can go back and read through the other suggestions posted and try implementing and fine tuning other things like getting assistance with SEO Optimized sales copy, article writing, perhaps blogging and other traffic building tools.
Groups to target:
– grandparents (lots of on and off line plaaces)
– newsletters for churches, corporations
– flyers on bulletin boards (laundry, grocery store)
– apartment complexes
– Welcome Wagon
– community organizations (Rotary, BBB, Lions, Veterans, Optimists, church, etc.)
– joint ventures (dining, shopping, cleaners, gyms, smaller/independent retail stores)
– schools or student activities need to raise money (rather than coupons, candy, cards, etc.)
– Toastmaster speakers going to other groups
– Police/Sheriff/Fire Depts. offer fingerprinting at many public events, work with them
– arts/crafts or other entertainment / fun fairs
– larger flea markets (info booth with others)
– Big Brothers / Big Sisters type groups
– Scouts (earn badges for community service)
Open up to anywhere children or adults gather !!
I agree with Gail. We have a safety awareness program in St Louis. Most of our time is spent with educating businesses and I have several women, who are parents, that would love a copy of a video like this for their children. I would love to have a copy to watch and then promote as I’m doing my programs. I would also love to promote as a benefit on my web site since we don’t do a lot directly for children but it’s a concern for every parent we deal with. Networking is how my business has been growing. In addition to the other great suggestions, we have had a lot of success at local health fairs promoting our program. If you could partner, with a small percentage, to other programs like ours we would love to add this on to our services provided. There are a lot of avenues we could use it for promotions here!
Align with other online child safety organizations such as The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use and TheParentReport.com. Here are some other resources you could partner with: http://www.kidsolr.com/educationresources/page2.html
Position yourself as an expert and become a resource for local, regional and state media.
Tell the stories you hear from families about stranger danger to get the word out. What you are doing is wonderful and hearing how you have helped families and children avoid danger is always something people want to hear about.
Hi,
Since others have commented about the fact that there isn’t anything to follow right now (no blogs or articles) I’ll just add that this was the first thing I noticed as well.
As for a suggestion, I think your subject lends itself well to quizes and other interactive activities. You could post quizes/games (excerpetd from your material) that adults can use and possibly some for the whole family. Mix them up once and a while and use your newsletter to remind people to try the latest one. Also, encourage people to pass them along to their friends or use them as a basis for a contest or survey and offer results to the media.
Good Luck!
Hi, I noticed that you have no ranking with Alexa and no incomming links the search engins love strong links in to your site.
also build more pages each page should have a differnt keyword that has great information content
I had not noticed if you had one or not .. but your site and concept would lend well to a Character Professor Saftey that would be reconized for your site and name.
good luck you have a great idea and much needed
renee’
http://models-fashion-advice.com
it is really hard to build massive traffic on a website. you need to promote your website by blog commenting or PPC advertising*~;