My business idea is FAILING! Please HELP! (BRUTAL feedback welcome)

I guess looking at the video which by the way is very good , my only problem would be the price as it does look like a video you can create in After Effects and buy on the market from Video Hive for max $50 some sell for $20.

I understand the frustrations but I think you may have out priced yourself ! selling a service like this is so saturated now you pay $5 at a pirate site called Fiverr and they will make them for you.

I would think about looking to sell the Xmas card on Videohive you may get a better response
Jason

Offer people a huge "introductory" price cut to get some testimonials.

I wonder, if I were in the skin of your prospect, do I wake up in the middle of the night thinking ...
Most likely, the answer is no. You've asked for brutal feedback. The brutal part is that you are in love with your idea but you're just trying to build a better mouse-trap.

Now, this idea has some merits but in the best case scenario, it would something "nice to have" not "I must have".

Plus, I don't really see the value in it, I don't see a good reason why I should pay $300 for it.

Want a solution? Ask yourself ...

... then ask yourself how you can tie this product with that problem. And try to detach yourself from the idea a bit, you see it as the best thing since toast bread when the customer may not give a damn about it.

When pricing, make sure you're solving a problem worth far more than the investment in your solution.

What problem are you solving, and what is it valued at by the buyer--not you--that you're solving for $300?

It should be at least a $3000 problem.

Not seeing that here.

Options:

Lower your price

Work on a funnel for next year

Move on to another idea.


Something we all need to remember is "You are not your customer"...meaning that just because WE are surrounded by After Effects experts and know all about online marketing does not instantly result in our CUSTOMER knowing anything about those topics.

What's normal to us is magic to others.

There are only two sides to business:

Traffic

and

Conversion.

I don't see a business here. You've thrown some traffic at a couple conversion methods and they haven't done well. The truly telling one was your buyers' list. Even the people who know, like and trust you didn't buy.

Email them again, asking why they didn't buy.

They obviously don't want to hurt your feelings, which is why they gave the "extremely positive" feedback...so they might not tell you the full truth here, either...but you'll get some info.

Which will most likely be, "It's a pretty idea, but it's not worth $300. I can buy a box of cards for ten bucks and mail them at two for a buck...and I'm only sending 200 out. That's $110 versus your $300 and I don't see a mind-blowing difference in the end result."

Wonderful! Thanks for your time, gentlemen.

I really appreciate the fresh perspective. Yes, I am way too close and need to let go a bit.

I have done my best to see it from my client's perspective. Here's "the problem" as I see it...

A small business owner sees a lot of companies are sending holiday messages.

They know that if they sent their own holiday message (in a fun and memorable way), their customers would love them even more than they already do. It's a great branding opportunity.

They're very busy running their business, we're already partway through December, they keep thinking about it, and they feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot by NOT doing anything.

So, gift cards. Signing a box of a hundred cards and standing in line at the post office and buying stupid stamps is all a long torturous hell. Takes days or weeks. Plus, when people receive them, they'll just throw them out after 10 seconds. They won't laugh, they won't share them with their friends, etc.

OK, how about sending a generic e-card then? They suck.

So, here's an opportunity for people to get something that's professionally-branded, fun and memorable, a marketing piece they can be proud of.

Yes? No? I dunno, what is the value of branding? Huge companies spend millions every year on it; what if a little guy invests in branding - will it make a difference in the long run?

Is it a $3000 problem? I can't really say. Is it painful? I know for me, it really was. I beat myself up about it every year for 5 years until I started putting them out. I make my "cards" (videos) every year now. People laugh, share them with friends, etc.

I thought it might be fun to make this accessible to non-techies. Professional video editing, hand-holding through an otherwise scary process, with a fun result.

Absolutely not scalable or sustainable, I won't argue there. Problem-solving? I think so. But yes, I'm biased.

Yes! This is a service. I guess I haven't really been communicating that very well...

Thanks for the idea of doing it more than just once a year. I'll play around with ideas there!

Your video looks amazing!

I think you need to Try to play with the price values... Maybe the problem is how much people are willing to pay for this is the key...

Don't forget that sometimes it's better to sell $5 product 2000 times than $50 100 times.

And sometimes it's the opposite... But honestly.. I've never seen such an expensive Christmas card


Dr. Gene Adam
Your marketing expert

Are you cutting yourself off because you won't be able to afford to have the business there or because you think this should only be limited to xmas time?

I was recently in a business marketing class where the instructor made a very good point.

It was all about sending a card to thank clients.

He asked how many of us send out those year end cards or some kind of greeting.

Then he mentioned valentines day. It made a very good point. Would you have your clients attention if you were to send them a Valentine? Or greetings on other holidays?

I agree the pricing is a bit complicated for what you have right now.

A few years back I was looking into sendoutcards. They have been around for quite some time, and the service is dirt cheap as far as sending cards. They also let you collect your client lists and send one reminders on when a relatives birthday is coming up.

Anyway have you considered changing things up to more of a membership site? One where I could go in for any event/holiday and send my greetings out on what ever the holiday or occasion?

I could see an increase based on the number of email addresses I am adding into my account. And some testing could be done with the number of greetings I can send out over the course of the year.

You need an "Obvious Adams" for this one.

I find that this would work great as a, app instead of a service.
So you provide a platform where people ca use their videos
to customize templates you provide. Then you can have two
different levels: Free (including your water market to brand you biz.)
and Paid (for around $30 per video).

You are presently asking too much for a service that the customer
has to do so much "work" of doing a video and sending it to you.
Also, you should have been promoting this at least 3 months before
Christmas.

You should make the service more general by including all occasions
and all holidays--not just Christmas.

For you FB ads, you could advertise as a Facebook message to
your friends--not as a business Christmas message (context.).

All the best,

-Ray Edwards

I will give you honest feedback, not brutal.

This is not worth anywhere near $300. Probably you heard a lot of marketers and inspirational speakers telling that you should ask for as high as you can and it is a good tactic, but you will also need to provide quality for that money.

Business owners or PR directors or whoever deals with this in a company are busy, maybe lazy, don't know geek stuff, but if they made such bad purchasing decisions they would have got their business bankrupt already. They are not stupid.

Let's sum it up, what they need before purchasing the service, what do you provide, what are the results, and what are the alternatives assuming that they can't use the programs you use.

They need an email list to send that message to.
They need a 5-line text or a short video message.
They need to choose a lot of stuff like background, etc.

This will take them probably one hour to prepare. One hour of precious time. This is not the kind of task that CEOs or marketing director does. They will tell to one of their graphic designers or interns to design this for them who will probably look on the web and find the right tools to do this without paying 300$ ( In some countries this can be a monthly paycheck ).

You give them a video with 5 choices for music, 3 for background, a logo which is not their company logo and 5 lines of text. What is the difference between 5 lines of text with a background and a christmas song and an image with same 5 lines of text as an image without a song ? At least most business owners know that this difference is not worth $300. Animations can be done is powerpoint and many other programs that are learned in some schools or obscure training programs.

What is the results ? Is the result in engagement after sending a video message worth $300 instead sending a simple image ? Most business owners or marketers does not deal with this themselves, instead they tell the IT guy to send that message. And the IT guy, or the person who provide maintenance will tell him that this is not worth that much. I think this is the main problem here. The ones that know how to send an email to a list should probably be aware that this kind of video can be easily done.

Maybe if you priced it at $10 or $20, most would have purchased this for fun. Or to give it for free and you get the email address where you can promote another service or something else.

You've had a lot of good feedback here.

Honestly, I really like what you've done. To the point that I seriously considered being a customer, except I have already done my holiday cards/gifts to clients for the year. Nothing as cool and unique as what you offer though.

I have a few suggestions that may help you better appeal to people like me.

1) I love the idea of developing cards for EVERY holiday. Create templates for Valentines Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, President's Day, Easter, MLK Day, Veterans Day, Labor Day, you get the idea. Keep adding new templates and really make this a year-round service, which leads us to...

2) If anything, I think you are not charging enough. But you are not targeting the right people. Think about your market carefully. It is probably not mom and pop shops or internet marketers, but mid-large sized companies. Hundreds of dollars for something like this is an easy decision for them. In fact, with just a few hundred clients, $300 is going to be cheaper than traditional cards (which is why you should be charging more...). You are not likely to reach them through web advertising as effectively as you would through more traditional methods though.

3) Over time, consider what else you can bundle with the video to make it more appealing. For instance, I just sent hundreds of Mrs. Fields cookie tins out to clients. They cost me $8.43/tin (for an assortment of 24 mini-cookies) plus $6.05 USPS flat rate shipping. I enclosed a fairly boring (but custom printed) holiday greetings card (which cost me about another $1 per card by the way). Wouldn't it be amazing to have instead teased their upcoming delivery with a custom video that incorporated that actual gift? I wound up paying around $15.50/client, times hundreds of clients. An extra few hundred dollars for a killer video would have been nothing.

4) Forget about making money this year, or possibly even next. Think long term, and build a real business out of this. It will take some work to find the perfect model, but you seem like you are talented and creative enough to keep at it until you make it work. It is more important to strategically bring people in to your world right now than it is to make profits, so focus on practically giving it away in exchange for those testimonials (note... you should charge something to keep the FTC from getting too interested in you)

5) Marketing idea... how about getting a list of marketing managers for your target market, and sending them a customized greeting card that wishes them a happy holiday season and then pitches them on doing this for their clients in the next year? You would probably not want to do it in an unsolicited email, but there are other ways to get their attention.

Good luck! I see no reason why this shouldn't work if you nurture it and market creatively to the right people.

You guys are all awesome.

Every response in this thread is awesome.

And, it appears, no two people have the exact same opinion...

In the end, I guess, it's really up to me -- there's no right or wrong way to promote it.

I came up with the idea in October but was horrendously busy. And yes, I definitely launched it way later than I wanted.

BUT ... there's still lots of time between now and Christmas -- and I KNOW there ARE business owners out there who really want to send something out but old-fashioned cards just don't appeal to them.

Right now I'm too attached, too serious about it ... I'd love to make one last final ad ... with totally unattached energy (not fully "I don't give a shit if you buy or not" but close).

Let's pretend that I DID decide to create an "ULTRA-LAST-MINUTE OMG" campaign. How would I word it? Who would I target? How would I adjust the pages on my website? Would I have "BUY NOW" buttons or would I simply invite a conversation?

XDude,

You say it's called the "X"mas card . . . and then in the next statement you say it's "not a Christmas thing, not a holiday thing . . ."

So why call it the "X"mas card? I believe your first error is not being crystal clear with your prospects about exactly what this is. It's confusing . . . and people don't buy things when they are confused. It might be crystal clear to you . . . but you don't count. There's a very old and proven acronym in marketing - "WIIFM." What's in it for me? When you're selling anything, you need to very clearly state what benefits the product gives to the buyer. People that are confused or are not sure . . . don't buy.

The second problem IMO . . . as others have stated, is the price. Hitting someone cold with a price over $50 rarely works well. How many people can absorb an unplanned for purchase of $300 just before Christmas? A few can, but not many.

Here's another problem that I see. Most small businesses operate on a tight budget, and at the end of the year, most don't have excess funds for operations. Many businesses only buy what has been budgeted for earlier in the year. You're asking a business owner to make a $300 "impulse" purchase because this is something that wasn't a part of the annual budget. I think this is a mistake.

Yes, I think what you have is a product that could sell well . . . but no under the current marketing and pricing structures that you have in place. Rushing a product to market is never a good idea . . . especially a new product that has not been researched or tested on appropriate samples.

Have you done your market research to identify specific demand for what you're offering? I don't see any evidence of that . . . yet, it is one of the most critical and important pre-sales activities you can accomplish to help you to understand your market and their desires.

Finally, have you pre-qualified your prospect audience? Are you marketing to just those that have already raised their hands and said they want something like what you're offering? If not, you haven't narrowed your prospects down to those most likely to buy from you.

The best to you in this project.

Steve

Lots of good stuff here.

Here's my reaction on the landing page:

"Hm, we jump right into it... okay... looks kind of cheesy, but it's for the holidays, so that's fine... $300?!! For what's essentially a Flash holiday card?"

I like the idea of an app. If that's feasible, then this might be a good program for next year.

But for this year, you're kind of stuck changing the price and the landing page.

IMO, your landing pages *looks* like it was built in 1999. Update it to something modern.

You also dive right into the order form. When I click through, I'm not even sure I'm on the right page. Maybe posting that Facebook video on the landing page, or detailing benefits? Explaining the value in dollar terms to the reader so you can justify the high price point?

I honestly don't think your offer works, at all. Sorry. If you had built a reputation around ways to keep clients happy, then had this as an upsell to your email list or something... people who already had a relationship with you... then it might be more feasible. Hopefully the next iteration performs closer to what you're looking for!

Okay.

You may have created a product that nobody wants, or needs. That may be why the response is great, but nobody's buying it. They all think it's a great idea (me too), but they may feel like at the end of the year, it's more profitable to do a Christmas/New Year's campaign, rather than an "entire year thanks" promotion.


Make sense?

Just another post to say how much I appreciate everybody's time and thoughtful replies.

There's more great feedback here than I can reasonably implement over the next few days ... alas, I really do want to sell at least A FEW of this thing before the holidays are over. And then, yes, it's definitely time to make some tweaks.

I stopped reading the responses after about the first ten so
I apologize if this turns out to be redundant.

The biggest problem I see is this product requires the customer
to do something at a time when most business owners are pressed
for time... and it requires them to do something most would be
uncomfortable with... making the video.

I'm sorry to be this brutally honest but I think it's time to move
on to another idea. I don't see this one going anywhere.

P.S. The time for getting most business owners attention regarding
what they'll do for Christmas was months ago. I have a friend who
sells advertising specialties. She starts taking Christmas card orders
in May. Your target market has likely already bought and paid for
whatever they plan to do for Christmas.

In my opinion, price can be a problem if you they don't see the value. So, you'll find prospects that will be willing to pay 5 USD but also prospects that will pay 250 USD. Although, usually, buying experience/expertise/time/etc. won't cost 5 USD. Video editing requires time/communication skills/good taste/etc.

As Dabk pointed, I would suggest to automatically create personalized videos instead of crafted videos. You would save a lot of time and money, and your clients will also save a lot of money. By saving time, you'll be able to scale and concentrate in selling your services/expertise instead of on producing the videos. This can be done with solutions like Sezion (I work for Sezion, http://sezion.com) or even with AE templates.

You can offer a lot of value if there is also an strategy behind. For example, videos can be automatically created from a spreadsheet or every time a lead fills out form or from a CRM... Then the videos will be automatically sent by email. So there you would be combining customer segmentation, marketing automation and personalization (I wrote a free ebook about it: The Power of Customer Segmentation, Automated Marketing & Personalization - Free Ebook).

From a message perspective, I think it really depends on your target market. Christmas / New year is a really profitable season, also from a communication point of view, since it give us an excuse to say "hi, were are here" or to just continue the dynamic used up until then.

In other news, I Googled my business name and christmas video ... this thread shows up on the first page. Oops.

Another thing to consider is people like to get cards, they are very personal. Also, they display the cards for all to see and how many potential new clients will see your card as opposed to nobody seeing your video card.

If I was to send a video card, and I do for family and friends, I use this site Funny Holiday Cards and Merry Christmas eCards - JibJab.com Easy to use and a lot cheaper. And it is a lot of fun to create and receive

al

Your copy confused the hell out of me. It says it costs $295. But at the top, it says "for less than 3 bucks each".

Am I buying one video for one client at $295?

Or am I buying one video for 100 clients for $295?

Or are you creating 100 unique videos for as many clients as I want?

I can't find this stated anywhere.

EDIT: More tips...

1) Lose the price and logo on top. Sell the benefits first.

2) Scratch everything I said...You need a funnel, man. Bad.

You need to collect leads and follow up on the backend. Instead of sending them to a salespage one time with a paid ad, you should send them to a lead collection page so you can invite them back next year, mid year or whenever you want.

This entire page should be #3 in your funnel. The first page they should see is a simple landing page asking "Are You Making This Critical Mistake With Your Clients"? No video on this page but you can show a screenshot of the video. That's broad enough to invite many businesses with clients and start building a list.

Then the #2 page is the promised video explaining how cards, emails, suck in 2016. The video will explain how video is making waves and highlight real world results from testimonials. The video will also pitch one video for one client at $7 after they watch that video. This is a tripwire offer to separate buyers from tire kickers. Once that's delivered, you provide the big offer (if that's what you're offering). At least with this method, you can offset ad costs with the $7 tripwire while building a buyers list. Then use that new list to promote every holiday and grow referrals.

Look up Tripwires by Ryan Deiss to get more info about funnels.

Awesome, thanks.

If you have 100 clients, then $295 is less than $3 per client.

Some people have 100 clients, some have 500, some have 1,000 ... I didn't wanna bore people with an explanation of my math, but confusing them is probably worse.

"Surprise and delight your customers this year (and generate endless goodwill) for less than 3 bucks each (and even less if you have more than 100 customers)!"

Seems ... way too long for a headline, no?

There's two problems I have with your product.

1. Its new and being new means big expenses in educating people on your product which you aren't doing a good job doing.

I'm sorry to say, but both pages aren't very good. And because your product is something new and lets be honest it's a luxury item... you need to really hammer those benefits because right now it looks more like a novelty product more than anything else.


2. I don't know about you but virtual giftcards never gave me the same impact as getting a physical card in the mail that's been signed.

Not to mention virtual giftcards were a big thing years ago when everyone thought email was cool. Nobody is going to pay $300 for a virtual giftcard. However you do seem to know your target market would be businesses. You might convince a couple businesses to try it out, but I don't see any unique value you are adding there... You have a 30 second animation video with some generic backdrops with text or a video on it. You aren't selling your value here well enough...

Another problem is your business is based around a small time frame in the year, nobody knows who you are, and if your website doesn't do a great job of getting across why anyone should spend $300 on this, then you are screwed.

I actually remember this thread from last year. And after an entire year of working on this... you made a slightly better website, but you still haven't addressed the concerns above.

I think this is just one of those ideas you should let go and move on. It sounds like the common mistake of putting the cart before the horse. You created something that the market doesn't want or need.

I hope you prove me wrong, but if this is the progress you've made in 1 year... I think you either need to hire some real help or move on.

Like I said ... brutal feedback is welcome.

Thanks for your honesty!

Do you tell your girlfriend/wife that you love her?

Do you have to add it to your calendar as a reminder? Do you say "OK, I did it once this month, I'm good for a while?"

No, you have to keep doing it.

Do it too little (or too often) and she might start looking elsewhere.

It's the same thing with relationship-based businesses. Clients that buy from you love you (in a way) and it needs to be maintained.

Businesses DO need to do SOMETHING every December. NOT doing anything is just letting relationships go to waste.

I have an alternative to boxes of boring greeting cards. If you have 1,000 clients, are you really going to sign 1,000 cards?!

So. It wasn't until a week ago that I actually started figuring out "what I really have."

Kinda like your typical 9-to-5 button pusher doesn't usually realize the value of what they do ... I've been pushing buttons for so long that I'm having a hard time communicating value (to others and also to myself).

I need third parties to come along and help me see things more objectively.

Honest replies like those definitely help! Thanks again.

Well, I'm grateful that you got to see my links before a moderator deleted my post.

I will take your advice to heart.

This morning I started re-thinking my whole life and all that ... so we'll see what happens.

If a moderator doesn't delete my account I might send you a PM in a day or so.

Thanks again.

It might be 'packed with great info', but because you deleted everything in the original post it's now f*&king useless for everyone.

Nice job.

It wasn't f*cking useless until a moderator deleted the original post #36, which had links in it.

I asked them to delete this thread. They moved it into the junk forum instead.

OH WELL

It's not very often that a whole thread will be deleted. Because you deleted the original post, no one who visits will have any idea of what the hell the original question was. Again, nice job.

External links have ALWAYS been discouraged, if not deleted.

This didn't appear to be the case when I posted this thread a year ago.

Maybe we could try getting into a pointless argument -- would they delete a flame war?

Are you just being dense? This isn't a pointless argument.

You asked a question in the original post - there were 30-something answers or back-and-forth responses. Subsequent visitors to the thread would understand what it was about, even if links in #36 were deleted.

So the mods delete a post with links in it, and your response is to delete the content of the original post, basically taking your ball and going home in a pout.

So NOW, instead of this being a thread about why your business idea is FAILING, it's become a thread about why you shouldn't delete original post content.

I thought you wanted BRUTAL feedback?

I did, but it's hard to get feedback if I can't post links.

The pages I linked to in the original post don't exist any more.

You can post a link to your site in a sig if that is the link you want people to see.

Mods don't remove threads on demand. There's quite a bit of good info in this thread whether linked pages remain or not.