Best of the ISP-Lists

How Cheap Are College Students?

Members of the ISP-Marketing list discuss marketing to college students. They can be easy to reach (they live in one place) and cheap to acquire, but are discounts for college students worthwhile?

[April 26, 2001]

On the ISP-Marketing list in April, PW inquired,

"My head of finance wants to do away with our 20% discount on dialup for college students. I say it's a cheap piece of marketing, not to mention the fact that college students do enter the real world at some point (most of them). I assume this is a standard discount among ISPs. Any thoughts?"

A number of respondents advised caution when dealing with college students:

[JA offered] "I have always been told to stay away from colleges. When you try to do good by giving them discounts, they end up giving out their passwords to other students to save them even more money and take up precious bandwidth. It is a nice thought, but be careful."

[BR added] "We do not give student discounts. Our experience is that students are bandwidth hogs, both with dialup and DSL. By our measurements, the typical student uses more bandwidth, and is online longer, than three non-student customers.

Our student usage peak is 10pm to 2am (the only good thing about them: off-peak usage time), but when they are on, they spike our bandwidth monitor significantly higher than our corporate customers do during business hours. We're going to get our share of students anyway, but since their typical usage is high, we see no need to discount. When we discount, it's normally to corporate employees, the elderly, and the poor, because they tend to not use the service that much."

[MS agreed] "I say get rid of it. I think you should offer the faculty a discount bulk rate. Say they sign on 1000 accounts, the price is $14.95. Make it a tiered structure. It worked well for us."

Others took it a step further, suggesting that discounts in general are a mistake:

[MM noted] "I feel that discount service is a slippery slope because once you start, it's hard to stop."

[SW recalled] "One reason I decided to avoid giving any discounts to specific groups is that another ISP in town was giving a discount to city, state, and federal employees, and while he did gain some customers that way, it cut into his profits more than he had thought it would. Also, he said he had problems with other groups complaining that they wanted a discount too. The only discount I give is for prepaying for service."

[MV added] "My opinion is, give discounts when you have to. If you have to choose between losing money without a discount and breaking even with the discount, then give a discount, but always put a termination date on it. And always make your discount competitive with the other guys, but never too low: avoid attracting the bottom feeder who ties up your modem and support and then jumps ship at the next good deal."

— End

 

Related articles:
	[Apr. 21, 2000]	ServInt was a Dorm Room Startup
	[Jul. 16, 1999]	Special Offers: Handle with Care