Celebrate Responsibly This Holiday Season!

Calendars fill with social engagements this time of year, and traffic swells with distracted drivers running holiday-related errands. Remind students to be extra cautious when they're on the road—no one wants their holiday marred by a car crash, or worse yet, an injury or the loss of life!

Holiday festivities almost always include alcohol, which makes an exceptionally dangerous partner with motor vehicle operation. Stress to your students that, as is repeatedly noted in your lesson plans, the most dangerous and most irresponsible thing they could as a motorist is to drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs!

The tips below can help drivers to avoid alcohol-related hazards:

If You're Attending a Party

• Designate a driver, who will not consume alcohol (at all!), who will be responsible for driving home the other members of the group.
• If no one in your group wants to assume the responsibility of designated driver, or if you're attending an event on your own and intend to consume alcohol,…
• prearrange a safe ride home from a friend or family member.
• summon a taxi or a ride-sharing service such as Lyft or Uber.
• call 800 . 400 . 4222 at the time you need a ride to take advantage of AAA's Tipsy Tow program, which offers a tow home from your point of pickup (free for up to 7 miles) from 6 p.m. on Dec. 31 to 6 a.m. on Jan. 1.

If You're Hosting a Party

• Provide guests a varied selection of nonalcoholic beverages.
• Help to arrange transportation home for impaired guests, or arrange for them to have a place to stay.
• Give a gift to guests who volunteer to be designated drivers.
• Take the keys away from guests who have had too much drink.

It's never safe to consume alcohol or drugs and operate a motor vehicle, and it's easy to avoid the dangerous consequences. Do your part, and help to keep everyone safe this holiday season. Whatever you do, it's far less expensive than a DUI; and you might just save a life—including your own or that of a love one!

Website Changes

This is just a quick reminder that any requests for changes to your TSC-designed and -maintained website should be made in writing (email) to the affiliate director with whom you normally work (Chris (email Chris) or Tara (email Tara)).

Please do not approach TSC's IT Department directly with these requests.

By helping us to streamline this process, you allow TSC to respond to your requests more quickly and efficiently and you enable us to develop more great curriculum products for your school to offer.

Thank you for your cooperation!

Marketing Using Themed Promotions

Marketing research suggests that themed promotional campaigns tend to have higher conversion rates than non-themed campaigns. Themed promotions, then, represent an excellent opportunity to attract attention—and customers—to your traffic safety school.

Holidays present an obvious opportunity for a themed campaign, and many businesses take advantage of these occasions. But because the competition for attention is fierce around general holidays, your ad may get lost in all of the noise. This isn't to say that you should avoid running promotions around the holidays, of course. But other events might provide just the opening you need to get your message out in a way that ties in nicely with your product.

A number of events relate very nicely with the theme of traffic safety education. Consider these opportunities to promote your school:

• Distracted Driving Awareness Month - April
• National Impaired Driving Prevention Month - December
• Global Youth Traffic Safety Month - May
• National Teen Driver Safety Week - third week of October
• Bicycle Safety Month - May
• National Pedestrian Safety Month - June

A number of events could also be associated with specific modalities:

• Online Courses
• International Internet Day - May 17
• Internet Day - October 29
• Booklet Courses
• National Book Month - January
• National Literacy Month - September
• International Literacy Day - September 8
• General/Classroom
• American Education Week - mid-November

The events noted above are national or global affairs, but many local jurisdictions hold similar happenings to promote traffic safety or other worthwhile initiatives.

Be on the lookout for any tie-in opportunities that you can use to get the word out about your business!

Welcome, Virgil!

Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc. (TSC) would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Virgil Palitang, who has accepted a position as our new Director of Information Technology. Virgil officially joined the team a few weeks ago, and has been onboarding with the help of his predecessor, Justin Miller.

A veteran of the United States Marine Corps (five years active duty), Virgil holds a master's degree in Information Systems and was formerly employed by a firm providing teleconferencing services. He is an enthusiast of embedded systems (computer systems with a dedicated function within larger mechanical or electrical systems), such as quadcopters, Wi-Fi^® modules, and ultra-small computer systems. He notes that he's disappointed in himself if he fails to solve a Rubik's cube in under 90 seconds.

Virgil's problem-solving and technical skills are an excellent match for the demands of this position, and he will be a strong asset to TSC and our affiliate program. Virgil will be working out of TSC's corporate headquarters in Los Angeles, and can be reached by telephone at 877 . 644 . 0117 or by email at virgil@trafficeducation.net.

Please direct any IT/Web development inquiries to Virgil. And please join us in welcoming Virgil to the TSC family!

Marketing Growth Strategies

Successful businesses know that they have to keep up with the latest trends to maintain their competitive advantage. Small Business Trends shares some marketing growth strategies that could help your school to prosper:

1. Mobile dominance. Over the past few years, mobile has overtaken desktop in usage and search—especially among younger users. As a result, there was a big push in 2016 for small businesses to ensure that their websites were optimized for mobile browsing. (Note that, as your traffic safety education curriculum provider, Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc., develops sites and courses that are mobile-friendly!) You might also consider looking into alternative payment methods, such as Square, to help you collect tuition from students of your classroom-based courses on-site at the time of the class.
2. Data-informed decision-making. Much has been made lately about "big data" and the need for business to become "data-driven." But most organizations—especially small ones—lack the sophisticated and expensive tools needed to fully embrace this strategy. But data doesn't always know best; insights from data analysis should be paired with your existing knowledge base and the opinions of experienced team members. You should, however, always track the effectiveness of your efforts, and be willing to make changes as needed to ensure success.
3. Better blogging and social media. You may already regularly be generating content for your website and/or social media accounts. But audiences are starting to notice the difference between noise and valuable posts. If your content isn't helpful and exciting, you'll have trouble getting customers and prospects to engage. And don't forget to monitor the data on the effectiveness of your marketing and advertising activities to improve the performance of your next campaign.

The original article offers some further tips. Check it out to learn how to get your school on the path to marketing success!

100 Deadlist Days for Teen Drivers

Ah, summer! Temperatures rise, schools let out for the season, and motorists hit the highways for vacation road trips. Students might view it as the optimum time to fulfill their driver training requirements. And teen drivers look to exercise their freedom and newfound driving privileges by taking to the streets. But the extra traffic and inexperienced drivers can prove tragic.

A recent study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that there are an average of 10 fatalities due to injuries from a crash involving a teen driver every day between Memorial Day and Labor Day each year. Worse still, the study notes that 60% of teen crashes involve driver distraction—and were, therefore, likely to have been easily preventable!

Make sure that you're reinforcing the following points to your students:

• All vehicle occupants should always wear their safety belt. It's required by law in most places. But even in jurisdictions where the seat belt laws are a little more lax, it's still a good great idea! Safety belts are quick and easy to use, and they are the single most effective way to save lives and reduce the severity of injuries in motor vehicle crashes. Statistically, wearing safety belts doubles the chances of surviving a crash and more than doubles the chances of avoiding serious injury.
• Don't be tempted by distractions. A study by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that drivers who text message while driving are 23 times more likely to get into a collision or a near-collision than undistracted drivers. And research by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety found that even hands-free technology is anything but risk-free. Furthermore, many states now prohibit any mobile device use by young drivers. Of course, those are just the tech-related distractions; there are plenty of other things to divert drivers' awareness. Some activities require our full attention—and driving is one of those activities.
• Keep your speed under control. Driving at speeds in excess of posted limits accounts for most traffic citations. And, aside from driving while impaired by alcohol or other drugs, about the most reckless thing a driver can do is drive too fast for the existing conditions. Speeding nearly triples the likelihood that a driver will be involved in a crash or near-crash. It reduces a driver's ability to steer safely around curves or obstructions in the roadway, extends stopping distances, and increases the distance traveled while the driver reacts to a dangerous situation. Worse yet, when speeding is a contributing factor in a collision, the bodily harm and property damage is frequently more extreme than average. Always obey all posted speed limits and be mindful of the Basic Speed Law, which states that a vehicle may never be driven faster than is safe for the prevailing conditions.
• Don't be reckless behind the wheel. When you're out of control, you're…well, out of control. And it's always good to be in control when you're behind the wheel. Whether you're trying to show off for your friends or just enjoy the "rush" of driving at the edge of your vehicle's performance envelope, driving recklessly is extremely dangerous!
• Never drink (or use other drugs) and drive. Perhaps the most dangerous—and most irresponsible—thing you could ever do as a motorist is to drive under the influence of alcohol or other drugs. Roughly 10,000 lives are lost in alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes each year in the United States—about a third of all traffic fatalities annually. Moreover, it's against the law for teens to consume alcohol, whether they're driving or not. Most states have some sort of Zero Tolerance law, and these regulations are strictly enforced. Unless you want your driver license to be short-lived, stay sober and safe behind the wheel!

By following these simple tips, we can help to prevent senseless crash-related deaths during the 100 Deadliest Days, as well as the rest of the year!

Develop a Marketing Plan

Companies don't just stumble upon customers—at least, not a lot of them. If you'd like to see your business increase, it's time to put some thought into attracting more prospects. Having a successful marketing plan will help to ensure that you're allocating your resources wisely and growing your client base to enhance profitability. Bloomfire offers the following tips based on the latest marketing trends:

1. Increase your social media advertising budget. Paid advertising on social media is hardly a new concept; it's possible you’ve been doing it for years. But changes in the world of social media—particularly Facebook—have led those networks to limit the effectiveness of organic reach in order to grow their paid advertising efforts. 2017 is expected to see a year-over-year increase of a whopping 33.5% on social media advertising spending. Keep up with the trend by boosting your social media budget, because you can bet your competitors will be doing so.
2. Produce more niche content. More content is published on a daily basis than ever before. This makes it nearly impossible for small companies to compete when it comes to broad content topics. There's just too much of it out there. But the key is the decline in the caliber of that mass-produced content. You can still reach prospects by identifying a narrow, more targeted crowd and producing high-quality content with their interests in mind.
3. Make more videos. Excellent video cameras are now available in many smartphones, making video production easier and more cost effective than ever. And four times as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Moreover, one in four consumers actually loses interest in a company if it doesn’t have videos, and customers are nearly 50% more likely to read email newsletters that include links to a video. As you develop your marketing plan, give some thought to what content could be (better) delivered through a video.

The original article offers some more suggestions for more aggressive marketers. Check it out! But these tips will get your started toward a more successful operation.

Great, Low-Cost Guerilla Marketing Ideas

Put gorilla guerrilla marketing techniques
to good use and boost your sales!

We understand that, as smaller businesses, traffic schools don't have the marketing budgets of huge, multi-national corporations. But drumming up business doesn't have to be expensive, time-consuming, or difficult—if you get creative. To inspire you, we wanted to share this excellent article on Cost-Effective Guerilla Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses!

Guerilla marketing is about mesmerizing your audience with beauty or curiosity while delivering a strong message.

Put your imagination to work and drum some business for yourself this new year! (And please feel free to share in the comments section any successes you've had attracting new customers!)

Important Notification: Quarterly Report Update

Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc., (TSC) has had to modify our back-end code in response to a readjustment of completion reporting parameters. As a result…

If you prepared and mailed your Quarterly Report for Q4 2016 to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) prior to 5pm on Wed., Jan. 18, 2017, you must go into your account on CACourseProvider.com and reprint only the "Student List" document. Mail the reprinted Student List to the DMV along with a brief note asking them to replace your previously submitted Student List for Q4 2016 with the document enclosed with that letter.

If you have already prepared your Quarterly Report for Q4 2016 but have not mailed it yet, reprint the Student List and replace the old version with the new version before submitting to the DMV.

If you have any questions, please contact Chris (800 . 487 . 1699 or email Chris) or Tara (800 . 863 . 2590 or email Tara).

We apologize for any confusion this may cause.

"Temporary" 2017 Curriculum Updates

As your curriculum provider, Traffic Safety Consultants, Inc., (TSC) is in the process of updating its traffic safety curricula to reflect new laws taking effect in California at the beginning of this year. We are still waiting on final word from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) as to precisely what language they'd like included with the updates. In an attempt to ensure that you have the latest information, however, we are issuing a temporary update to our traffic violator school (TVS) curricula at this time. A "permanent" update will be issued once we have clarification from the DMV.

Internet Curriculum Update

Your Internet-based curriculum has been updated to reflect the latest information, and your students are using it now. No further action is required for this modality.

Booklet Curriculum Update

Those of you who are offering the home study booklet must ensure that you are providing students with updated curriculum materials. Download from the CA Course Provider administrative website (login required) the temporary booklet insert file(s) you need and include the appropriate document with every book order that you ship. Again, "permanent" updates (including an expanded insert and a 2017-edition booklet and student materials) will be made available once we obtain clarification on updates from DMV.

Classroom Curriculum Update

Updated classroom materials will be made available as soon as possible. In the meantime, your instructors can review the temporary booklet inserts, and deliver that new information in any classes taught.