Promotional announcements and recommendations

Repeated postings make the newsletters too long, reduce the value of other postings, and increase work for the volunteers. If you didn't receive the response you were expecting from your first posting, it is best to explore other avenues rather than repeating your post to the same audience.

The policy about repeat postings:

• One posting per newsletter about the same business, service, program, class, or event
• A maximum of 3 postings in 3 months about the same business, service, provider, program, class, or event.

Can my message be repeated every week?

Other Resources to Use besides BPN

Other places for childcare, preschools, schools postings

• Bananas non-profit childcare referral agency
• Craigslist online classified listings
• Greatschools K-12 school database
• Nanny & Au Pair Agencies
• Parents Press local advertising

• Bay Area Parent online community calendar
• Childhood Matters parenting radio show
• Constant Contact email marketing
• Craigslist online classified listings
• Facebook connect with your clients
• Local newspapers such as Berkeleyside and Patch accept advertising and have event calendars
• Parents Press local advertising
• Yelp consumer reviews of local businesses
• Make a website at google, yahoo, or similar place (free or low-cost)

Repeated Postings in the Childcare Newsletter

• Postings from parents: no limit on posting frequency
  This includes parents looking for a nanny or daycare, parents offering a share, parents recommending their nanny or daycare.

• Postings from daycares and nannies: 3 times in 3 months
  This means that if you are a nanny or if you have openings in your daycare program, you may post to three consecutive Childcare newsletters, but after that you must wait two months before posting again. Or, you can spread out your postings over three months, posting once per month for example.

Repeated Postings in Question-and-Answer Sections

Questions:

• One "wanted" posting per newsletter per subscriber, please. We are currently receiving hundreds of new questions each week, and we want to give everyone a chance to have their question appear in as short a list of questions as possible. Questions receive more and better responses when there is a shorter list of questions.

• Please do not post the same question more than once. Many questions posted to BPN do not receive any responses. If you didn't get the response you were hoping for, try a different venue such as Yelp. It is very unlikely that you will receive new responses to the same question because your question is going out to the same audience as last time. See How to compose a question that will get responses for tips.

• We cannot accept "follow-up" questions from the subscriber who posted the original question. Again, we want to give everyone a chance to have their question appear in as short a list as possible.

• You may respond to as many questions as you like, but please don't post multiple responses that have the same wording.

• If you are recommending your own business in your response, or a friend's or relative's, you must follow the policy above about Promotional announcements and recommendations: only one per newsletter, and not more than 3 times in 3 months.

Repeated Postings in the Marketplace Newsletter

• One posting per newsletter per subscriber
• Maximum of one posting per month for the same item from the same subscriber
• Maximum of three postings per month for all items from the same subscriber

Repeated Postings in the Schools, Preschools & Camps Newsletter

Guidelines for parents:

Please follow the Question-and-Answer policy above. For example, there is a limit of one new question per subscriber per week, and we ask that the same subscriber not post multiple reviews of the same school or camp in the same newsletter.

Guidelines for schools & camps:

The "Announcements" section of the Schools newsletter includes school tours and informational sessions, openings at schools and camps, announcements about summer camps, and other postings that schools and camps themselves post. The Repeated Posting policy limits the number of times you can post to a maximum of 3 times in 3 months for the same event or program . (See promotional announcements above for an explanation of why we do this.)

• Please don't post the same message in multiple sections of the same newsletter.
  For example, don't publicize your school's tour schedule in both the "Tours" section and the "Openings" section. It is OK to post about different programs and events in the same newsletter, though. This means that a particular school could announce both an opening in their preschool (one program) as well as a summer camp (different program) and/or a tour (an event) in the same newsletter. Be judicious though: when parents see the same school mentioned multiple times in a newsletter, the overall impression is that the school is having trouble with enrollment!

• Please don't post the same message week after week.
  Examples: (1) If you have openings in your program, please limit yourself to posting 3 times in 3 months. This can mean posting about an opening three weeks in a row, or you can spread it out over several weeks. (2) If you are publicizing your summer camp, you may post a maximum of 3 times in 3 months. Time your postings so that you alert the early bird parents, and save another post or 2 for the last-minute planners.