Loyalty Program ideas for schools

[skent]

 Hello world, my question of the day is this.........Does anyone have any good incentive programs to draw in more schools in the area. 25% off first order, a certain % to give back to the school or PTO? Any help would be appreciated!!!


        Steve

[whitewater]

Ive given back at the local school here... the school my kids go to .....denied...wtf?

[royster13]

Why does everyone want to sell to schools?....My experience with them is lower margins and more grief.....

[EmbellishAthletics]

What we have found is that they are all different!  The problem is the turnover rates of the contacts.  Coaches are always moving around, booster club presidents and staff are changing yearly, PTO organizations are all volunteers and they change every year or two years.

We do our best to keep them happy with give backs and rewards although sometimes that just isn't enough.  It is definitely a high turnover market and as Royster stated in a lot of cases low margins.  The ones that are shopping on price and reward programs are the hardest ones to keep.  They are the types that will go somewhere else over 10 cents a shirt or other product.  I had one of them tell me point blank that they have 5 vendors that they request quotes from everytime they want something printed and they *always* go with the lowest price.  Their reasoning was that whichever one was offering a sale or special is the one they go with.

I have never understood the concept.  I believe what will (and has) happened is that the vendors they are using will eventually get tired of it and then they will be SOL but of course they can always find another one.

What we do is come up with programs and specials that we offer that fits our business model and if that is not good enough then we just move on.  I guess the school market is no different than any other and sometimes you have to be willing to walk away.  The worst part of it is the local schools seem to be the worst about it.

[aauusa]

Why does everyone want to sell to schools?....My experience with them is lower margins and more grief.....

Man I love schools!!!!!!   the ones we have locally use us for most of  there items,  I love bands, clubs, teams and any other thing I can get from them.  we charge a little lower but not much.  but then we also treat there order as sent from GOD and have it out with 2-3 days tops everytime.    they love us and we love them.

[tonypep]

We stay away from them. Approval by comittee is the worst and we don't back down on price. And we don't find them to be loyal at all.

[prozyan]

I don't treat school accounts as a monolithic entity.  Rather, I split them into two groups.  Individual purchasers, such as coaches, band directors, program leaders, etc and PTA type purchasers, which includes booster clubs and so forth.

The first group I target directly as in my experience they are easy to deal with, typically know what they want, and have reasonable expectations regarding price.

The second group I avoid like the plague as they tend to want gold for lead prices, can never come to a consensus on artwork, and after you've busted your ass getting this ready for them, they invariably have one member of the group whose third cousin will print the shirts for $2.00 cheaper.

As far as any sort of loyalty program goes, I used the same one for all my customers:  Give me your business, I'll give you a great product, delivered on time, at a competitive price.

[JBLUE]

We are like Prozyan. Avoid the PTA's like the plague. No discounts for the headaches that they cause. We do go after the clubs and the smaller run groups at the school. We do both schools where my kids go and they are all handled by my wife. I want nothing to do with dealing with 20 women that all have their own opinion on who is right and what shirt is best.

[jason-23]

Im still waiting on payment from a school job that I did two months ago...keep getting the run around. But they have been coming to me for the past 5 years.

[Dottonedan]

Loyalty schmoilty.  I used to pride myself on loyalty. More often, to a fault until, finally, I've not learned, but rather excepted that people are what they are.  I've been shown many times over that "loyalty" usually does not go both ways.

If a Co. does just as good as the next few who offer the same thing, provides whats needed in the time frame needed as equally as the others do, but is .10 cents or .30 cents cheaper, the cheaper one is getting the order 8 times out of 10. For most, it's all about the benjamins.

I'm not like that, to a fault, I'll pay more out of loyalty but thats not how may people are for all people. Customers, printers, artist, every walk of earth has the majority that will go where the grass is greener, cheaper or free.  Free is another thing that bothers me. It goes hand in hand with Loyalty.

Ever see how many people flock to "free things".  They take, take take and then when they have to pay "something" or a little for a portion of something, The room gets quiet and out come the complaints about quality, timeliness, bug issues and customer service. Never mind the 18 things they got for free that helped them get a 15% increase in annual profits.

I see a few other forums and how someone is getting flack for not having his "free" product up on time like he had planned. You can almost feel the crowds of people with pitch forks, hoes and torches parading through the forums shouting WHERE IS IT! WE WANT IT NOW LIKE PROMISED. You can give the farm away and someone will complain about something that was not included.

I remember once, throwing a keg party in art school. Flocks of people came, and girls everywhere. Then, the beer ran out so we needed to get everyone to chip in something to get another one. The room got quiet and people started rapidly disappearing. About 3 people out of 30 pitched in to make another run and the party people disappeared. That is a reflection of doing business with the general population as well.

I will say tho, FREE is effective to draw people in for a period of time.  I went to the ASI show in Orlando. I noticed a crowd of people at one end of the hall (after the show). So I goes t check it out and they were doing a drawing for a few  free Ipads. Musta been 150 people gathered. Once complete, it took less than 10 seconds to clear that area out as they headed for the freehors d'oeuvres. The free beer line was about 40 people deep and moving slowly but gathering length. Why?  Man, Why weight 15-30 min in line for one free beer?  Sheesh.