My "marketing strategy" - Opinions?

hey there,

Here is my opinion...if your new to marketing, then I would stay away from adwords and facebook ads because they require a lot of campaign set up, testing, having test budget etc. Now if you have a budget and want to learn, then by all means...but for newbies with not a lot of money, this won't be useful at first.

Posting to forums is a good idea, but be consistent and strive to add REAL value! Use social media to get your product out there. You must have friends on facebook, talk to them about your product and ask them to tell their friends, create a viral thing.

You could also create a fan page on FB build up followers and likes then you can market this way.

Just a few things to think about

If you really have confident in your product then you should take a look into hiring someone from freelancer or upwork to do the marketing for you. But like Shaunybb said, stay away from adwords and facebook for now. You're just throwing money away if you don't know what you're doing.

Try some of the free methods first before going into the paid.

When you say 'receipts' - I am assuming you mean 'recipes' as in "How Not to cook Veal?"

"Expensive"...

...I recommend changing your definition and usage of this word.

If you spend $50 and make $500, is it "expensive" to spend the $50?

If you spend $100 and make $500, is it "expensive"?

Many companies are glad to spend $1 to make $2. Or $1.50. Or even $1.25.

What matters is your margin, not your advertising costs. As long as you can find a pre-qualified traffic source, and sell something for a profit, you're set. Then you scale & optimize until you've reached your targets...and then re-set them.

I often see the word "expensive" come up when someone cannot really afford the initial advertising to begin testing. At that point you really ought to be considering raising that money...by offering a service, or other means not of the typical IM model.

Jason had some great insights for you.

Beyond how to advertise have you done your research on the bigger picture of this market? Things like what has happened to others trying to do this exact same thing?

As far as getting the word out, forums, banner ads on sites that specialize in vegan recipes, partnering with or somehow advertising in local health food store chains etc.. There are many ways to do this but it depends on your funding and business goals.

Now sure you have a specific target, vegans and a specific geography BUT this idea is not new. There have been many start ups along these lines and several with decent funding. The road block they always hit is client acquisition costs. Turnover rate for this type of service is brutal. It costs lots of money to get a sign up and they do not stay around long. I strongly encourage you to study the lessons learned before learning them the hard way yourself.

What your goals are is important as well. Are you looking to make a few thousand dollars a month or build a million dollar business.

Pinterest is an amazing place for you to promote your business, you can find a lot of targeted traffic and good clients from it.

As a personal opinion, Twitter and Pinterest both of them will be your best traffic source, more than Facebook or Youtube.

The best part is that you don't need to spend money on it, you can find clients for free.

You also need a website, you don't need to have the best website out there, just a simple wordpress can make things done. There're tons of plugins for you, you can build a website without spending money, but I would recommend to at least have your own domain and hosting.

If you do your homework, Pinterest can be your main traffic source, trust me.

Facebook ads can really be great at targeting a specific group - if you create an attractive graphic and a catchy tagline, you could see some great results from this if you know who your audience is and whether or not they are active on Facebook.

You could send out just a few boxes to very high profile YouTubers who are willing to review your product for free/reasonable fee and track that traffic to see if it was worth your investment.

If you go the social media route and develop an interactive page that isn't just constantly spamming people, you can start to generate some great leads.

I think you are on the right track. Whatever you go into, make sure you have a way to track your time/money investment and that return.

Did you try promoting on instagram ?
I think instagram is a good platform for this niche create your account and start engaging with the followers and chose the right hashtags.
and you can immediately start advertise in instagram using instagram ads (you can do it from facebook power editor )
also you can buy instagram shoutouts it will help you promote your account and drive traffic to your website

Jan10101,

If I were in your situation, here are the things that I'd do:

1. To raise the value that I can get from my advertising budget, I'd create a compelling lead magnet. This is so I can continue to communicate with everyone who'll be getting my lead magnet even if they don't purchase my main product outright. I can even get useful data from them for my next products; and

Since many of your target customers tend to group together and mingle with other vegans in clubs and organizations like the Vegan Society of Germany and so on -- My lead magnet will be something that they'd want to talk about and share with their vegan peers and others whom they may want to talk into becoming a vegan, especially since there's an activist component in being a vegan. For example:

If my market research points out that over 80% of the 600K vegans in the Vegan Society of Germany among other German vegan groups are Android users, then I'd create a free Android mobile app that compiles links and descriptions of the newest vegan recipe videos in Youtube, as well as links and summaries of the latest vegan news, with those descriptions and summaries translated into German, along with functions for conveniently sharing, rating and commenting about these recipe videos and news items so as for other vegans to see ...

2. To create some buzz about my lead magnet, which could be like what I mentioned above (a free Android mobile app for vegan users where I can get their names, emails and / or mobile numbers before they can activate the app and for them to share the app in their social networks so as to unlock premium functions of the app) -- I'd learn all relevant things about digital media buying for mobile apps; and

I'd also learn all relevant things about getting press coverage for my lead magnet and main product ...

3. To start advertising my lead magnet -- I'd find ad platforms that specialize in German traffic, private site and blog networks and Web forums and Youtube channels in German (or those with lots of German users), and press release distribution and publication channels in Germany; and

I'd then do some test ad placement and PR distribution / publication campaigns, improve those that work so as for it to work better, stop those that don't so as to also stop spending on something that isn't producing at least sustainable results, and do more of the things that really work well ...

4. To take advantage of the visibility that my lead magnet and main product are getting at this point -- I'd contact those offline groups in Germany like the Vegan Society in Germany and so on. I'll tell them all about my lead magnet and my main product, and also offer them discounted prices for my main product as well as affiliate partnerships for my main products and future products ...

5. To promote my main product to the leads that my lead magnet produced for me at this point -- I'd give them detailed reviews and useful recommendations for other relevant products. Many of these could be my affiliate products like cookbooks and kitchenware in Amazon and so on for cooking vegan recipes, promo codes and discount vouchers for paid online vegan dating sites and vegan shops and stores and restaurants in Germany or those with lots of German customers (don't know if there are such platforms and stores and shops, but you get my point); and

I'd then offer them a promo code to avail of an exclusive discounted price for my main product, which would be limited to just my subscribers (people who grabbed my lead magnet) ...

6. To generate repeat sales and new sales -- I'd request for feedback about my main products from those who bought it, in which they'd get a discounted price for my future product in exchange for their publishable reviews (which I'd use as social proof in my ads so as to generate new sales); and

I'd then use their data to create my next product/s, which I'd then promote using similar strategies mentioned above, in order to generate repeat sales (and also new sales) ...

Hope this gives you some ideas. Best of luck!

Hi,

I will advice that you establish an online presence for your product.

1.Create a facebook, twitter, google+, Pinterest and youtube channel for traffic. You can use slideshare as well at the begin.

2.Look for popular blogs and forums where you can comment and share your product with their target audience.

For a very niche-specific product (like you have), I've found paid forum advertising to be amazing. If you shop around, you can get things like banner ads or a stickied post for surprisingly cheap (sometimes $20 or $40 a month). And those can be on very high traffic forums.

Also, sending food products to bloggers for review is really not "expensive". It's an incredibly cheap way to get coverage and links -- worth way more than a box of vegan food.

However... I have to ask, based on your questions, if you're fully prepared for all of the details of a venture like this? Have you done a market survey to see if there's even a desire for this, and do you have an idea of what your cost per unit will be when mass produced?

I advise caution only because developing a physical product like this usually requires the investment of a ton of capital and time before you see a profit. It's easy to lose your hat if you aren't careful.

All right, I like this thread.

If you are on a budget right now here are the top three free methods you can use right now:
1. Forum Commenting: make sure it allows signatures and that you are very consistently posting in there; reply to thread and open new ones with questions as well; make a plan to post at least X times per day and BE CONSISTENT;
2. Blog Commenting: find top blogs of your niche and set alerts for new blog posts to make sure you are the very first one to comment
3. Guest Posting: reach out to fellow bloggers in your niche and try to get an opportunity to write for them
4. Pinterest: massive amount of traffic if you have the right content, MASSIVE!
5. Instagram: same as above, plus this is a very "visual" niche.

If you want to dwell on paid advertising then I would definitely start with Facebook Ads and Forum Banner Advertising, as mentioned by some Warriors already.

Cheers
Dan

Just as an add-on, I think Instagram and Pinterest would be really great platforms to get involved on. Start sharing your recipe ideas intermixed with photos of your products.

And also as someone mentioned, making your own YouTube videos could do wonders. Film yourself making the recipes and show how helpful and convenient your service is.

google adwords is only effective if you have a monster budget. IE $100,000 or more. Why? because for google ad words is mainly a branding tool. Hence why Retaliate agencies use it because of the return on investment. As for social media, people don't understand that just because the medium is "Free" doesn't mean its effective. Social media only works as a brand awareness tool NOT for direct sales. Food for thought if your going to use social media make sure you have a google adwords campaign started and also make sure you have someone managing all the social media sites. Each site takes about 1-2 hrs a day to manage the more sites you have to manage the more time it takes IE it turns in to a full time job. Hence why you need to higher a social media manager. That may be 30 k a year. But only use social media if you are able to afford the google adwords because social media and google adwords is part of brand building. The reason why I say this as I do is because people miss the boat that just because its their doesn't mean it will be effective for your needs in fact it may brake your bank. In other words their is always enough money to do the wrong thing twice but never enough money to do the right thing the first time.

Things to focus on. Content creation, Blogs, Press releases, internet Videos, and a bad ass website. Remember Content is king, Marketing is queen. When marketing think viral marketing because if you want to build a brand this is the cheapest method if done right. Viral marketing is a hit or miss but when done right the rewards are great.

Avoid just having a youtube celebrity just review your product. people don't want to feel like they are watching an ad. often it will kill the youtube celebrity credibility and you lost your self your brand as well as a relationship with the youtube celebrity. the best way is to have the youtube celebrity interact with the product in a manner that is fun and engaging with their audience. Youtube king of random comes to mind. Be creative think outside the box. Use current trends to your advantage ie Ice bucket challenge. sometimes you can create content just for pure information entertainment and not even bother to showcase the product. Marketing doesn't always have to be the direct approach. for example BMW made a movie using top talent to rebrand their product line. It worked and was well received. the idea here is to let the content shine so that the viewer doesn't feel like they are being sold to. This allows the viewer to be more susceptible to influence because his mental defenses are down. don't rush in to pushing out content like this you have to really think about what your target audience is, the demographics, their culture and trends, and what makes them motivated to take action. IE if i buy this "product" will it make me "Feel" or will I "Belong" or will it "Solve all my problems."

Create an authoritative vegan related website and post regular content. As well as the high-value content, also post your recipes online.

Once you have built a community who enjoy your meals, offer your product as a recipe in a box solution.

You could post one recipe per week on the website and offer a monthly product with 1, 3 or 5 recipes and ingredients per week.

This way, people will be getting immense value from your website and if they purchase, they get 5x the value and all the produce.