As I am sure you can imagine, in the conversations we have with customers and prospective customers of our services we hear all sorts of views about schools and their buying habits.
And while many of the people with whom we speak are rather encouraged by the levels of sales they are getting from their promotions since the general election, there are others who are more doubtful.
For it is true that a lot of schools are ordering up goods and services to be paid for with the money that they have saved through not having a full complement of teaching staff this year.
But some schools are sitting tight, waiting to see exactly how much money they get under the new formula announced after the general election.
This situation does mean that those companies that are advertising now are picking up a much greater size of the market than would otherwise happen, as schools are obviously getting a much lower proportion of advertisements than normal.
So it is to help those firms that are not convinced that schools are now buying again that we are, for a while, expanding our Payment by Results (PbR) service, through which you can advertise to schools for free.
All that happens is that you pay a commission on each sale you make as a result of the advertising. (And to be clear, you only pay the agreed commission based on the sales gained through our advertising, not on any other sales you make.)
In other words, the PbR service takes the risk out of advertising while still allowing you to get your advertisements in front of relevant teachers.
There are more details about PbR and how it works on our website or you can call 01604 880 927 or email Stephen@schools.co.uk
And here’s one great benefit that is tucked away in the service. There’s no long term contract, so if you find that our adverts really are bringing in the sales for you and you feel you’d like to move across to the more conventional “pay for the advert” approach – we can arrange that straight away.