TOS is Creating a Large Focus Group Can you write about quality homeschool products?
Greetings!
TOS Magazine needs YOU!
Climb aboard the most exciting blogging adventure of 2008! How would you like to work on a special project with The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, joining a small handful of people who are the hand picked cream of the blogging crop? Have you always dreamed of having your words published in a magazine? Do you love sharing your opinion on hot homeschool products? Do you have a blog with a following? A Yahoo group of homeschoolers? A support group?
What is a focus group?
The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC is the largest Christian home education magazine in existence. HomeschoolBlogger is a popular homeschooling blog community. Our combined websites average over 12 million page views per month, and the magazine is produced both in print and digital format. TOS is growing by leaps and bounds, and we want you to be a part of it. Within the first six weeks of the digital magazine launch, TOS experienced fully 10% growth based on our print magazine numbers - astonishing!
How? The Internet is busy with homeschoolers talking, sharing, and networking. It is natural to recommend our favorite homeschool resources, products, books and more. We love to share!
The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC is embarking on an exclusive "whisper campaign" with up to fifty of our magazine advertisers. You can help us start out as a whisper and end in a roar known as "viral marketing". Are you game to be a part of it?
The effective way of advertising or producing brand exposure through social networks. The technique spreads throughout the network rapidly by word of mouth or by Internet resources like e-mail, blogs or other services. Like a virus, it replicates and spreads quickly.
This focus group will kick off when we assemble the right team of advertisers and bloggers.
So, where do I come in?
Well, for starters, TOS only needs 100 blogging, emailing, cyber talking, home educating parents for this exclusive focus group and will begin the screening process for the top 100 next week.
We are inviting 50 of our best advertisers to take part in this special viral marketing program. These exclusive advertisers are going to send you a selection of their hottest products to try.
Your job as a focus group participant is to thoroughly use the products in your homeschool. Then, blog about them, email, tell your Yahoo groups and get the information out, helping us go viral. Not only do you get to use the product, but it is a free gift, for being part of the focus group!
If you are a support leader, then you should send out information about some of the focus group items to your support groups. Additionally, support group leaders are asked to take some of these exclusive products with them to physical meetings, and do a "Show and Tell," sharing their experiences with the items they are reviewing with their groups. The more you write, blog and share about the items, the more fun you have and the more viral this campaign goes!
It all works quite simply.
The accepted vendors will ship the select products you are to review directly to you. Naturally, they will send you catalogs and brochures. If this viral marketing campaign is to work, they need you to become intimately familiar with the focus group items they send you. Use them. Think of yourself as a lab worker - thoroughly testing, studying, and then writing about your findings.
Is this the same as a TOS Reviewer? No. You will be a special independent reviewer exclusively for the focus group. TOS will put you in touch with these companies. You will provide the homeschool community with an independent review and analysis of the products YOU use!
Do you get paid? No. You are, just like a regular reviewer, simply agreeing to test products and write about them on your blogs, within your newsletters, and through emails to homeschooling friends. You recommend your favorite books and restaurants, now you can recommend wonderful products specifically for the homeschool community!
You should also verbally/physically share your thoughts about these products with friends at park days, at your support meetings, whether you are a leader or not, and just in any other day-to-day contact with homeschool friends. Because you'll have company contact information, such as website addresses, toll free numbers, etc., due to all the supportive materials sent to you by the companies, you should include this information in your reviews and emails so that others visiting your blogs or lists can go check out the products for themselves.
Our goal is to get as much information out about each product reviewed as we can, and into the hands of as many homeschoolers as we can. This is the viral part!
Will I be published in the magazine?
Actually, YOU MIGHT! The Spring 2009 issue of our magazine will have a very large feature about this focus group project, and the best half of the 100 focus participants will be quoted in some way or another. Challenge yourself to create excellence and write great, truthful reviews!
We will excerpt comments from your blogs or newsletters so that our readers can see just how you used the product, what you love about it and why. Readers will also see how this exciting focus group project played out over the months. There will be a number of sidebar articles about specific products, and your experiences in writing about them after using the products!
We also want to see from your perspective, as the writer, your thoughts about how a whisper campaign gone viral like this can work in the lives of homeschool moms looking for good products. Not only can you try out some great products for FREE, give your opinion, and have a chance to have your work showcased in The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, but you can also review the process for our marketing team!
We KNOW it will work. But, we need the right 100 writers/reviewers to make it happen, who are committed to going viral with this campaign!
What is in it for me?
What else do you have to do? Not much. All we ask is that you make the commitment and follow through. Use the products! You will receive most of the products through the mail. Some of the products will be downloadables.
Read the materials the companies send you throughout the months. Answer questions as you go along - some of the companies might contact you via email - respond to them QUICKLY. Some might want to chat with you on the phone for a few minutes to explain various details about their product(s). Make yourself available. Think of yourself as a news reporter - detail is very important! You have to put the time in. The more thorough you are, the better chance you have of opening up the Spring 2009 issue to see your words in print!
ONE of you will be chosen as the Top Focus Participant. You will receive a $250 gift certificate to the TOS Schoolhouse Store and a write up and photo in the Spring 2009 issue! There is always free shipping in the Schoolhouse Store, so all of the $250 can go toward merchandise that you can use! TOS is always looking for talented individuals who have a gift for writing, so you may also be offered a place on TOS Magazine's review staff under Kate Kessler. Or, you may also receive an offer to work on the TOS Marketing Team under Nancy Carter, Director of Marketing. We will discuss these possible opportunities with you next Spring.
I am interested, tell me more!
Any questions? Send us a note directly and tell us the following:
What qualifies you to be a focus group participant? Where is your blog? If you do not have a blog, tell us how you would get the word out--Yahoo group for instance?
If chosen as one of the 100, will you commit to follow through? The focus group will be ongoing for several months.
Do you respond to email PROMPTLY? You'll work directly under Gena and assistants - fast responses are key. Fast response to the accepted vendors is also mandatory.
Are you willing to put the time in on the phone and/or email with vendors? It is HIGHLY important you understand their programs perfectly, so you can accurately describe them. Tell us why we should choose you.
We look forward to choosing the 100 focus participants, so respond today! If you are currently a Product Reviewer for TOS, you are NOT eligible to be a part of this focus group. All Independent Contractors working on various projects with TOS are excluded as well.
Publisher@TheHomeschoolMagazine.com is the address to use when applying. Screening will begin next week. Please get back with us, replying to the four points above, to be considered. We look forward to forming this exciting new focus group!
Curious about The Old Schoolhouseฎ Magazine but not quite ready to commit to a subscription without seeing it first?
Check it out for FREE! We're so certain you'll love our publication that we'll gladly send a FREE sample to anyone new to The Old Schoolhouseฎ Magazine - we even cover the shipping!
Welcome to the HSB announcement blogboard from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine,
LLC. We hope you will enjoy the articles posted here by the Porch Team. Please feel free to leave comments!
~ Tia Linschied, Senior Editor of HSB
Purposeful Planning - E-Book ($9.95)
This time-tested method of planning will give your family new direction for the future.
Start today! Choose the dates for your planning weekend,
read her book which has the entire how to included, and go for it!
Our e-Newsletters give you wonderful, informative information about homeschooling, news bits, contests and PRIZES for homeschoolers, articles to encourage you, calls for writers, free unit studies and lesson plans, and just a lot of FUN. Bring the community to your inbox and no worries, we never sell, trade or give your email or any other information out to anyone.
Come join the homeschool party!
The Homeschool Minute is our most
popular newsletter, full of encouragement and support just for YOU!
Subscribe to *FREE* newsletters offered by The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.
Curious about The Old Schoolhouseฎ Magazine but not quite ready to commit to a subscription without seeing it first?
Check it out for FREE! We're so certain you'll love our publication that we'll gladly send a FREE sample to anyone new to The Old Schoolhouseฎ Magazine - we even cover the shipping!
Well, for starters, TOS only needs 100 blogging, emailing, cyber talking, home educating parents for this exclusive focus group and will begin the screening process for the top 100 next week. 
