CM Club: Childmindersrus email ????

[moonstar04]

Have any of you received an email from
www.childmindersrus.co.uk/

If you have what do you think?

It sounds good but I wish they would give 7 days free trial before you sign up.

I haven't - is it offering advertising?

I got one but declined if I could nave had free trail might have done, but would like to see how it works first.

Just had a quick look at the site - aren't they doing what your local childrens info service do only charging for the pleasure? i.e. same info as on the childcarelink.gov.uk site!

I might be wrong but seems odd to me!

I think they may need to change their website address... 'r us' is a registered trademark, of a well known toy store, who are known to protect their trademark.

I contacted them and asked for a trail period, which at the moment they are declining. So I have opted not to join, emergency care do it all for free.

Hello, my name is Alex and i own Childminders r Us with my wife Pene.
First of all the R Us is not trademarked buy the toy firm.
With regards to free trials it is difficult because once you are registered there is access to downloads plus lots more information which would be downloaded and then people would cancel their membership.
Our aim is to provide fully automated advertising of your details and vacancies which you can amend when you like not just offcie hours plus provide relevant material which can be downloaded to help Childcare Professionals.(Menus, Accounts, Ideas, forms etc.
With monthly newsletters keeping you uptodate with the latest news and online Forum and soon online shop with relevant items for childcare.
We are Childminders ourselves and created this site because other childminders found it very difficult to gain information to progress with their business also many parents we asked found Goverment sites very difficult to navigate.
£15 for 365 days of support and advice.
Our site is new and will take time to be known and trusted which is why i am posting this message.
We have many childcare professionals already signed up and the feedback has been very good which is important to us.
Thank you for your time and i hope this answers some questions.
Regards
Alex.

Toys "R" Us v. Akkaoui
Plaintiffs hold an array of trademarks ending with the phrase "R Us."

You may wish to read the above case... it is a USA case, so the result in a UK court could be different, but the outcome could also be the same! Good luck.

I do not know a great deal about trademark law, so it is possible that if the entire word is not registered, then you can use it... but personally I would avoid using anything ending in 'RUs'.
If your lawyers have checked this out and found it to be fine, then good... but I thought it was wise to point out that using 'r us' could be problematic.

What uptake have you had so far regarding advertising on your website by childminders? What are traffic figures like?

Hi, after research it was ruled by the high court that the "R US" bit could not be trademarked after a case with a company in West Sussex funny enough but we are in the process of trademarking our name.

As far as uptake we have on average 10-12 Childcare professionals sign up a day and traffic is approx. 500 visitors a day and rising.

We have an advertisng programme which includes relevant publications such as prima baby, pratical pre-school and so on plus we mailshot health visitors, toddler groups and other family organisations.

We are very pro-active and always welcome any ideas or suggestions anyone may have.
Thanks for your comments.
Regards
Alex.

I'm sorry Alex, but I deleted your email. I'm very reluctant to part with my money and its not possible to ascertain whether I'd be getting value for money or not in terms of quality/quantity of info you'd give me access to.

I don't need to pay for an online listing - you may have a sponsored listing on google but I've done a few searches and I've yet to find your site anywhere else. I expect I'm not the only one who goes on autopilot & skips the sponsored listings (which often are irrelevant to what I'm searching for)!

As well as this forum there are a number of free childminding forums (some with files sections, eg Yahoo! Groups) and policies, advice etc is freely available on these and childminder's own websites.

IMO the CIS search facility is appalling and could be improved in a number of ways. Its true a number of parents I meet have never heard of it and some that have found it didn't give them up to date details. I'd prefer to see a search where a parent could put in their home or work postcode and have the nearest come up first. And it really p**s me off that our CIS won't put ofsted grades on the listing any more - I filled in pages of info they asked for yet they only put a couple of standard lines in my entry which makes all the listings look the same.

I expect a proportion of the current traffic is from the childminders who have recently received your email. of the remaining parents who've found your site the vast majority will live/work too far from me. If I'm going to pay for listing/advertising I need to know that the advert will reach a significant number of parents living/working within a reasonable travelling distance to me.

If I was you I would be giving childminders a free/discounted listing for a limited time period to build up your listings so when parents search your site they get results... childminders who get work thru your site will pay to renew and parents/childminders who find your site helpful/useful will talk about it.

In time, your site could become really well known and if parents prefer to use it instead of the CIS sites or if your newsletter, advice, forum etc can offer me something I can't get from NCMA, other web forums, childminders sites etc then I might reconsider.