Viral Marketing

I spend most of my time talking about technology and partners. I don't spend much time talking about marketing. So here is a snipit about the approach that Todd is driving and we will be taking.

Before jumping into that, just to back up. We are interested in motivating high school age students to explore and create. To find their passion. To learn by doing. To blow us away with the ideas that they have!

We think we will be able to help them to do this by providing a site that allows them to investigate and explore. When they find something interesting, they will participate in the relevant community or communities and do a project or activity. Out job is to insure that have what is required to make this a good experience.

So with all of that being said - how do we find the students. How do we get them to check us out? That is where Marketing comes in. We will market FreshBrain to the students using a number of different means. Some are fairly traditional but others are very web2.0:). Here are some examples.

• Flyers on Facebook, advertisements on other community sites. The cost is low and Facebook for example provides a way to target these flyers at kids in the 14-18 year old range.

• Blog and forum (is that a verb????) in the relevant communities. This will not just be us doing the blogging or interacting with folks in these communities. We will recruit folks who are active and leaders in these communities to do it for us!!

• Market the concept to organizations that support home school, charter schools and traditional school districts. Huge opportunities to leverage these as it will not be FreshBrain creating the curriculum but instead providing a project and activity platform in support of the curriculum created. As we become an option, the home school parents as well as the charter schools will come to us.

• Raise awareness with parents through sites and communities where they participate. In a manner similar to that described above for the students - connect with parents and help them to understand the benefits so that FreshBrain is an extra curricular activity that the parents support or promote.

• Introduce the site by invitation only. Rather than open it up and see if they will come, target an active initial student population through invitations. Give invitations out on a limited basis. Give students who complete projects or activities their own invitations to give out.
  

Hope that was interesting. Just a quick peak into some of the approaches that we will be pursuing!