Getting resources, even free ones, to teachers can be a difficult proposition. The debate about whether these are appropriate or not was over years ago, and the reality is that most teachers and parents see these as valuable educational aids. Getting schools and teachers to request them, rather than sending out unsolicited material, has always been the approach of most reputable organisations operating in this area. However, direct mail, email and other types of response devices are expensive and can add to the clutter of communications targeting teachers in schools.

Free-Eds is a new magazine that aims to get free resources to teachers with minimal comms wastage. Free-Eds is a joint venture between PDC Education and EdComs which will be sent to all 6,500 secondary schools in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each school gets three copies so the unaudited circulation of Free-Eds should be around 19,500.

Advertising in Free-Eds is not cheap, with a single double-page spread costing £2900k. There are also advertising packages with a Gold package costing £26k, Silver £22k and Bronze £10k. Given the highly competitive cost of advertising in most print media in the UK, plus the growing competition from opt-in email services like Education Management News (run by Hamilton House via their website The Schools Directory), it will be interesting to see whether Free-Eds succeeds.
www.edcoms.co.uk
www.free-eds.co.uk
www.pdceducation.co.uk
www.schools.co.uk