Here’s a full list of all the questions we’ve asked our client & his responses! Please refer to this regularly, especially when you need clarification. The PM team will maintain this document to ensure information is accurate.
Are we creating an app or doing a redesign of the concept site?
I want a website that is fully functional so students can sign up as an affiliate and connect them to brand affiliate/discount codes and then also send their information out to their network using that code. We want to make sure the correct person is able to connect to that code so that the money can enter their bank account. I am ok to be low-tech in the beginning to make it easier on our team as well (maintenance, management, etc).
If doing a redesign of the concept site, will this be separate from (or part of) the Life Scholar site?
It will be completely separate from the Life Scholar site. One is a not-for-profit site, and one is for donations. This also helps with the tax rules. This is advice from their attorney as well, keeping it separate will help their internal operations.
Morgan shared the flow that you were envisioning for Life Beautified. From your perspective, what will success look like for you at the end of this first phase (8 weeks)?
Thomas said: I am not sure how much is realistic for you guys to accomplish in 8 weeks, so it would be great for y’all to tell me what is feasible in the time frame. He elaborates: We have mainly used WordPress to try to make things as easy as possible.
The reason I thought that sticking with WordPress for the proof of concept might be the best is because we can utilize the out-of-the-box components as far as my understanding goes. But we are willing to see what ideas TF has.
Regarding IMPACT and the website/flow:
We just partnered with IMPACT which handles the affiliate links/codes. Once users have registered, they can look for Nike which takes them to the Nike store, and then they check out there with the link or code and then the portion of the money will go back to LB. LB will need to keep track of this money coming in.
So far only the basic newcomer site and affiliate plugin has been figured out, but not the accounting portion. Ideally we would like the money to go into their 529 account automatically, but we understand that it might take a bit to get there. We are willing to write checks and deposit manually for now.
We would like students/parents to sign up for whatever 529 account they please so that we (LB) aren't held accountable for market fluctuations. We are willing to streamline this in the future, but right now we want to be fully independent from the different 529 account options. LB just gets the account numbers from their students.
Based off this flow, would the site we are building come in at stage 1 or 2?
Stage 2. Just FYI, although stage 1 is for non-trad students, stage 2 is for all low income students. Stage 1 targets non-trad for the scholarships but stage 2 empowers all low income.
Also, just fyi the block “Develop affiliate marketing agreement w consumer brands” = done with 2 partners, IMPACT and a plugin (4rule? Didn’t quite hear him.)
Are there any apps or sites that have inspired this idea?
No, this is actually the first of this kind in this space (based off our research). There are for-profit companies doing something similar in the affiliate marketplace, but in our case no one is doing it at the non-profit level.
Have you considered alternatives to this project (such as, Amazon marketplace)?
Yes we have actually! When looking at the big picture for Amazon, we realized Amazon is not a brand owner but an aggregator. Also they are a public company, so first they must make a certain amount of profit before they give money to their affiliates. Because we don't have profit maximization in our model, we can give more to our students (ex. If Nike gives us 5% we can give 4.5% to students). Plus when we directly work with the brands like Nike or Yankee candle, it's a two way advantage because the brand gets more customers, which in turn encourages the brand to give more to the students.
Should we plan to use Woocommerce?
If there is a better solution out there that can accommodate all the functionality outside Woocommerce we can look into it, but we felt that Woocommerce was a universal software so it is easy for us to find people that can help us maintain the plugins and everything. It comes with APIs and everything already communicating properly, so it takes a lot of work out of it for us. Although salesforce/sap/better solutions exist, we don’t have the funds to maintain the monthly fees. Woocommerce is affordable and manageable for us and our volunteers.
How are you targeting partner brands?
So that one is basically - since we just got approved with Impact - Impact is an aggregator that manages brand relationships. So once we get a functioning site, Impact will tell brands what we are doing to help students and once brands approve us they will become a partner brand and IMPACT will handle the affiliate codes/links.
ANTHONY FOLLOW UP: With Travelocity being an example of an affiliate marketplace - why would someone come to this website? Are they trying to help a specific student?
Our initial goal is to be a supplemental source of income for students. We looked at the girl scout cookie model while trying to keep the focus on education (LB’s company goal). We want to give a student an opportunity to earn 5 dollars through their network of contacts/resources by giving them the opportunity to raise funds on their own by having these conversations with people in their life. The goal right now is to partner with brands to get commission off purchases, but the ultimate goal is to allow students to make the product themselves through brand affiliation (ex. making a candle) then selling that. This would allow students to make even more money because the brand will not take so much profit. We want to work with brands that are familiar and popular with the public that also give students a larger percentage of the profit. We are also planning to work alongside PTA (parent teacher assoc.) to help students achieve this.
Another question: can these plugins be used as a browser plugin and as long as its active it tracks the transaction?
Yes, Impact will provide us with a cookie that will keep track of the transaction. We do not track the entire process, we just use Impact to manage the cookie and keep track of the affiliate purchase to ensure that the money comes back to LB.
Can you help clarify our target user for this project (parents/children, affiliate side)?
This question is very subjective based on location etc, so we are going based off an honor system. There is no hard and fast rule. Parents will most likely be the ones signing up for minors, so we’ll need to have a separate area for them to input their 529 information. Minors are not allowed to click on certain links in school, so that’s why parents must be in charge of sharing a link (safety issue). That is why a code is ideal, so they can share this code instead of a link.