IM and traditional retail: advice needed
Hi everyone 
*impending wall of text, TLDR found at bottom*
So I've been lurking around for a few months with the initial dream of making a pile of easy money for little work (lol, I know).
During this time I've learned a lot, and it's not an exaggeration to say that an entire new world has been exposed to me: the world of the online e-goods/info-goods sale, OTO, sell ups, it all makes sense now. I've always been the guy on the consumer side of IM advertising, and while I've never actually bought an e-product or clicked on any IM ads, it's all been really interesting lurking these forms and been exposed to what it's like on the OTHER side of the fence (ie, from the IM perspective).
OK, so where am I going with this? Don't worry, I've learned enough to realize the folly of my initial dream; quick, easy, for-nothing money isn't going to happen. Though, I do understand that IM works and is a legitimate way to make money (if you're willing to learn/be good etc etc), but I've come to the recent realization that I will need to pick and choose certain methods to work for my business.
Here's my current situation and what I actually want to do.
Background: My wife and I have been running a small business for the last year, it's a traditional bricks & mortar retail shop, we produce and sell our own line of beauty products and have some jewellery/accessories too. It's kind of like a beauty & fashion shop. Perhaps for an example our beauty line could be compared to similar products that you would find at The Body Shop.
Want I want: Soon the lease of our shop will be expiring and we will not be renewing it. It's likely that we will re-open in a different part of town, but we're happy to be patient and wait for the perfect spot, in the mean time I want to move the business online as much as possible. If I'm honest I'd like the whole thing to be online only, if online sales could match what our shop turnover is/was then I'd be over the moon.
What I need help/advice on: This means that, rather than marketing & selling info-products/e-products I want to market and sell physical beauty/jewellery products. Therefore, it seems to me, that a lot of stuff that I've read on WF isn't really that applicable to this kind of business model, while other stuff is totally applicable. This is basically what I'm having trouble with, can anyone offer any advice on what components are really essential and what are aspects that I might not have to worry about?
Also, before delving further it should be mentioned that I already have a functioning website with an e-commerce platform, it looks good and functions well - we already get sales online but it's pretty slow overall.
OK, so here is what I know I should be doing:
1) List building
2) Creating content ("5 tips to natural healthy skin" etc etc) to engage and sell to list, will have to pay ghost writers for this
3) That's all I've got
Here are some things I'm struggling with and would appreciate advice:
Typical IM advice seems to be: Step 1) create quality freebie, Step 2) create quality squeeze page, offer freebie in exchange for email signup, Step 3) Pull traffic to squeeze page & gain subscribers, Step 4) Send quality/relevant content to list, begin selling to list, Step 5) Profit.
How can I use this general idea in terms of a traditional retail model? I have no e-goods or info-products, so I guess the big thing I'm struggling with is how do I offer a freebie/what can I offer on a squeeze page?
Basically, the only thing I can come up with is offering a code for free shipping or some sort of discount in exchange for email sign up - but shit, that's fairly lame. I suppose I could pay a few hundred dollars and ghost write a freebie about beauty tips or something, and now that I've actually written that our it sounds like a good idea. Boom - problem solved, no need to reply, thanks for reading.
Just kidding.
Seriously though, if anyone in WF has experience in using modern IM techniques within the physical retail world I'd really love to hear it!
For the record, here is some more info that (might) change the game a little bit:
While my website can offer international shipping I really want to build my brand and sell to the local domestic market. We're talking a very small country here, a population of 4 million, which means that many of the traffic sources that IM often use are of no use to me. Many of the advertising/traffic methods that work so well in large countires, coupled with the ability to sell to multiple counties, seem irrelevant to me (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm talking things like ad swaps, paying to go on someone's buyers list, etc.
This also means that there are not many high quality bloggers or online 'experts' in my country that I could approach and attempt to gain exposure with (product reviews for example), and the ones that are available charge a heap of money for this.
It seems to me that I will be relying primarily on paid traffic, primarily Facebook and Google Adwords. While free methods are available (FB, Pinterest, social media etc), the consumer market in my country is extremely small compared to larger countries.
TLDR; I want to use modern IM techniques to sell physical products to a small consumer market (small country, population of 4 million), can YOU provide any tips about this? How does this change things compared to 'typical' IM (ie, selling e-goods/info-products to a massive consumer market spanning multiple regions/countries)?
That's it, my post over, thanks for reading! I'd love to read any/all replies, it all helps me to figure out in my head what I need to do to achieve my goals.
*impending wall of text, TLDR found at bottom*So I've been lurking around for a few months with the initial dream of making a pile of easy money for little work (lol, I know).
During this time I've learned a lot, and it's not an exaggeration to say that an entire new world has been exposed to me: the world of the online e-goods/info-goods sale, OTO, sell ups, it all makes sense now. I've always been the guy on the consumer side of IM advertising, and while I've never actually bought an e-product or clicked on any IM ads, it's all been really interesting lurking these forms and been exposed to what it's like on the OTHER side of the fence (ie, from the IM perspective).
OK, so where am I going with this? Don't worry, I've learned enough to realize the folly of my initial dream; quick, easy, for-nothing money isn't going to happen. Though, I do understand that IM works and is a legitimate way to make money (if you're willing to learn/be good etc etc), but I've come to the recent realization that I will need to pick and choose certain methods to work for my business.
Here's my current situation and what I actually want to do.
Background: My wife and I have been running a small business for the last year, it's a traditional bricks & mortar retail shop, we produce and sell our own line of beauty products and have some jewellery/accessories too. It's kind of like a beauty & fashion shop. Perhaps for an example our beauty line could be compared to similar products that you would find at The Body Shop.
Want I want: Soon the lease of our shop will be expiring and we will not be renewing it. It's likely that we will re-open in a different part of town, but we're happy to be patient and wait for the perfect spot, in the mean time I want to move the business online as much as possible. If I'm honest I'd like the whole thing to be online only, if online sales could match what our shop turnover is/was then I'd be over the moon.
What I need help/advice on: This means that, rather than marketing & selling info-products/e-products I want to market and sell physical beauty/jewellery products. Therefore, it seems to me, that a lot of stuff that I've read on WF isn't really that applicable to this kind of business model, while other stuff is totally applicable. This is basically what I'm having trouble with, can anyone offer any advice on what components are really essential and what are aspects that I might not have to worry about?
Also, before delving further it should be mentioned that I already have a functioning website with an e-commerce platform, it looks good and functions well - we already get sales online but it's pretty slow overall.
OK, so here is what I know I should be doing:
1) List building
2) Creating content ("5 tips to natural healthy skin" etc etc) to engage and sell to list, will have to pay ghost writers for this
3) That's all I've got
Here are some things I'm struggling with and would appreciate advice:
Typical IM advice seems to be: Step 1) create quality freebie, Step 2) create quality squeeze page, offer freebie in exchange for email signup, Step 3) Pull traffic to squeeze page & gain subscribers, Step 4) Send quality/relevant content to list, begin selling to list, Step 5) Profit.
How can I use this general idea in terms of a traditional retail model? I have no e-goods or info-products, so I guess the big thing I'm struggling with is how do I offer a freebie/what can I offer on a squeeze page?
Basically, the only thing I can come up with is offering a code for free shipping or some sort of discount in exchange for email sign up - but shit, that's fairly lame. I suppose I could pay a few hundred dollars and ghost write a freebie about beauty tips or something, and now that I've actually written that our it sounds like a good idea. Boom - problem solved, no need to reply, thanks for reading.
Just kidding.
Seriously though, if anyone in WF has experience in using modern IM techniques within the physical retail world I'd really love to hear it!
For the record, here is some more info that (might) change the game a little bit:
While my website can offer international shipping I really want to build my brand and sell to the local domestic market. We're talking a very small country here, a population of 4 million, which means that many of the traffic sources that IM often use are of no use to me. Many of the advertising/traffic methods that work so well in large countires, coupled with the ability to sell to multiple counties, seem irrelevant to me (please correct me if I'm wrong). I'm talking things like ad swaps, paying to go on someone's buyers list, etc.
This also means that there are not many high quality bloggers or online 'experts' in my country that I could approach and attempt to gain exposure with (product reviews for example), and the ones that are available charge a heap of money for this.
It seems to me that I will be relying primarily on paid traffic, primarily Facebook and Google Adwords. While free methods are available (FB, Pinterest, social media etc), the consumer market in my country is extremely small compared to larger countries.
TLDR; I want to use modern IM techniques to sell physical products to a small consumer market (small country, population of 4 million), can YOU provide any tips about this? How does this change things compared to 'typical' IM (ie, selling e-goods/info-products to a massive consumer market spanning multiple regions/countries)?
That's it, my post over, thanks for reading! I'd love to read any/all replies, it all helps me to figure out in my head what I need to do to achieve my goals.