Do you have a product or service that would help families with their homeschooling? We don’t accept advertising at this time, but there are four non-hype ways you can get the word out to the Ontario homeschooling community through the OFTP:
1. Submit a listing to our Resource Directory
It’s currently free to have a listing in our online directory of homeschooling resources. To submit a listing, send a brief description to us at website@ontariohomeschool.org. Your listing is not an ad, and will be edited, if need be, to remove any hype or marketing-speak. We would much prefer not to have to do this extra work, so please expedite the process by submitting it in an approval-ready state: purely descriptive and sufficiently informational about what products or service you offer, with a link to your website or a way to contact you. To help website visitors find your resource by grade, you may want to include a complete list of the grade levels for which your resource is suitable, including all that apply, in the following way:
Grade Levels: Preschool, Grade 1, Grade 2, Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5, Grade 6, Grade 7, Grade 8, Grade 9, Grade 10, Grade 11, Grade 12, Post-secondary
Please note: we are currently tackling a big backlog of listing requests and therefore appreciate your patience in waiting for us to get to yours in sequence. The amount of time this might take cannot be estimated, since it depends entirely on the availability of volunteer hours.
2. Submit free resources to the OFTP newsletter
The OFTP newsletter is published electronically, usually once a month, and sent to hundreds of OFTP members across Ontario. We are not currently accepting ads for resources that cost money, as that feels too much like spam to our readers. However, we’re glad to spread the word about free resources if they’re worthwhile. “Worthwhile” means it can’t just be a single worksheet used as a “marketing magnet” to bring them to your site where they’d have to pay for any of the rest of your offers. But if you have many free resources, we’d be glad to consider spreading the word about them even if you also have products or services for purchase. We reserve the right to decline newsletter submissions.
As with an online Resource Directory listing, announcements of free resources should not be worded as ads, but rather as a purely descriptive, brief but adequately informational paragraph about what it is and how to access it. Send your newsletter submission to newsletter@ontariohomeschool.org.
3. Offer an exclusive discount to OFTP Members
When suppliers offer us a discount exclusive to OFTP Members, we announce it in the members’ newsletter and add it to the Members’ Discount List webpage. Like free resources, a discount should be substantial enough to be of actual value to members, rather than just a “marketing magnet” of little value designed only to get eyeballs on your site. You can send your offer to us at newsletter@ontariohomeschool.org and website@ontariohomeschool.org.
4. Contribute to our Members-Only newsletter
We’re always looking for great content for our newsletter. If you have any pedagogical tips to share with our members, please feel free to submit an article to newsletter@ontariohomeschool.org — editable text only (so it can be copy-pasted), with no images. It cannot be a glorified ad for your products or services — it must be free advice of genuine value, the implementation of which does not rely on the purchase of any particular resource.
You may mention your business in the byline only, without any marketing hype. We will not accept your submission if it appears to have an ulterior motive that is purely commercial. But if you bring true value to our members in a way that is genuinely of service, we will be glad to help you connect with our readers through a link to your website in your byline.