$30,000 budget... where should i spend it?

Press releases, tons of them!!!!

This isn't the place to try to sell your services.

I took a look at your website and products on Etsy. I do like the products, but I don't really see anything educational about them. You are basically providing promotional materials for kids to pass around to advertise their business of choice, no different than providing local businesses with a kit of business cards and flyers, etc..,

Nice kits, but you'll go much, much further I believe if you provide a really solid training course for kids about how to drum up local sales with their business. This could be your upsell or additional product that you charge more for.

Cover areas about distribution of the materials, budgeting, keeping track of sales, offering additional services to those who buy the main one - or additional products (lemonade+ food items or what have you. lol), expense tracking, etc..,

I would work on the product more in your case before diving headlong into spending that 30k on promo ads et al.

Here is what you're going to do:

1) create a small "promo" for your product that gives a lot of value...for free.

2) create a squeeze page with a single optin that gives away that free small product

3) start driving traffic to the squeeze page. Ideally through solo ads & FB traffic.

4) Build a solid relationship with your list.

5) create other products around that one you want to promote such as up-sells and OTO's etc.

6) Profit from a long lasting relationship with list subscribers.

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spend most of the money on adwords.

Having a solid Customer Avatar can really help your brand recognition ... not many people think of it, but it did help Apple, and Flo from Progressive Insurance sure is popular.

My top marketing ideas, what you are asking for, would be to develop a product that gives great value to others and test it out via PPC/FB ads and see which one works best, and tweak it as much as possible. It's no use spending money everywhere if you don't have a finished product yet, which from your words you are still developing. Focus on development first, testing, and then develop a marketing plan. All the best.

You want to be careful with the budget expenditure as you can burn lot of money very fast. You want to focus on both inbound marketing (content, SEO, landing pages, email marketing etc) as well as use PPC too. I am not very sure about Press Releases as you looks to have a very niche vertical and the PR won't take you anywhere.

I had made a list 51 Inbound Marketing Ways to Market your Startup and Business - inBoundio, this should give you some idea about what you can do and where you can put the budget.

What ever you do, make sure you are measuring the ROI of marketing and keeps on optimizing it.

Spend wisely. Learn how to build up your social media assets.

hands down the best way to spend it it my opinion is creating and marketing your own affiliate program. This would give you the opportunity to setup affiliates/jv deals with sites that would be good cross sell products for both you and them.

many here are talking about various forms of advertising that are "one shot" deals. No offense, but paid advertising takes time and money to master. It is very likely you will burn through your cash and have very little to show for it if you just start buying ads.

However, if you setup a system (affiliate program) you will have a lasting asset that will help you make direct sales, build a brand, leverage other assets,.... the list goes on and on.

I wouldn't even consider any other advertising methods until i had a solid affiliate program up and running. And for a midsized business like yourself, you may want to consider an affiliate network to add credibility to your program.

The truth is that the vast majority of the guys around here have never spent anywhere close to 30k on advertising, so much of the advice you get from forum members is going to be theory...not tried and true expert advice from people with experience.

You need to have a plan and carefully manage your marketing budget. Otherwise, you could end up blowing through your $30K faster than you expected.

Here's what I would do:

1) Make sure you have a great logo. It's your BRAND. It's important. If necessary, go to 99designs.com and run a contest.

2) Make sure your web site's sales copy is clear, concise, easy-to-read, and benefit-oriented. There's no point in driving traffic to a page that's ineffective.

3) TEST various forms of advertising and TRACK the results. When you find what works for your offer, scale it up.

Which forms of advertising should you use?

There are many options. However, begin with this question...

Where does your target market hang out (online or offline) and how you can reach them?

John

If you would, can yo give us your website? I would like to see that 1st. It seems you only have a little bit of info given and it is hard to give good advice or offer services with such a small amount of info. But, I can take a look at your site and know right off the bat what you need to do.

But I got an appointment right now but will check back here later.

Robert Cottom
Website Expert
SEO and Google Crusher
Niche Dominator and all around great guy!

Pocket your money for a bit before going on a spending spree and do your research, you may not even have to spend 30k to get your results but you want value, watch out for the gimmicks and floods of offers, there are lots of good people and lots of valuable information here but you may have to pick through a few weeds

The first thing you should do is hire or speak to someone with experience in online sales and product creation in various niches and see if your expectations for this venture match the reality of what is taking place in the market.

You are likely doing this because you are passionate about the subject matter and see a genuine need for this information BUT that does not mean there is a business there.

Over the years I have watched MANY people invest their life savings into similar education products for kids and not make a nickel. The products were fantastic. One fellow I know well and refused to listen to me spent about 400k, 6 years of his time and when I last spoke with him had lost his house and was on the verge of divorce because he refused to realize that a good idea and good cause is NOT the same as a good business.

The most difficult niches are the ones where your customer is not the one buying the product but they are buying it for someone else. You tend to get more one off sales from that because you are not building a relationship with the end user that holds the credit card.

I have not seen your product as there seems to be no link to it in this post so I have to go off of what has been written so far.

Your product is for kids 6 to 18. They cannot buy it since they are kids.
You are assuming that their parents will buy it.
My experience is that go getter type kids are often in a situation where their parents are not particularly supportive or are not well off or well educated thus the reason why the kids are go getters. If the parents are well off, educated and supportive of their kids starting a business they likely do NOT need to buy templates/products. They can advise their kids and find the bits of info for free and help their kids put it together.

Further of all the niches you could find you picked one that if possible always gets helped for free. If a business man comes to me for advice I charge him money. If a kid asks I and the rest of the adults on this planet help them for free. Trying to build a business from sales of helping kids build a business does not seem to me to be a high converting niche. Of course again I have limited info about your offer but in the big picture it is not what I would consider an ideal niche to pic.

In regards to your budget keep it in the bank. If you tell people about it, Facebook it, have been on the morning show, newspaper and have 2 sales then there is simply no interest in paying money for the information.

If you are determined to test further it is easy. Never mind exact match domains, seo etc.. you are putting the cart in front of the horse. You do that AFTER you have proven people actually want to buy the product. Create one great Facebook page, create Facebook ads that exactly target your audience and see if there are sales or a collective yawn. You will know after spending $500, not 30k.

Good luck.

For this kind of business and your budget I would recommend Chris Cardell. Google him.

For effective marketing, I would go with pay per click ads.

Add videos to your marketing strategy. Build a following on YouTube and Twitter.

If you want the biggest bang for your buck, set up an affiliate program and let other people sell the product/service for you. They spend the money on advertising, and you get to focus on whats important... The customers.

Cost? Depends on where you go. You could set up a multi-tier funnel through JVzoo for free with a small % taken from sales, or you could go through a site like Clickbank or Shareasale, where they charge you a fee up front for listings, as well as a % per sale.

A Product or Service that teaches kids something... Have a flyer/information packet created to explain the product/service, and use this as a template. Add region specific information, and bring them to schools and daycare centers in your area. If they convert well, hire a few Fiverrs/Craiglisters to spread them around new areas.

Find social groups of parents looking for advice, and start sharing your ideas and information there. Be helpful before you start dropping your links.

And of course, you could also check the http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ffic-tips.html and fit it to your niche.

Had a look at the site since you shared the link.
I LOVE business, I have raised 6 kids. I love teaching my kids about business.

When I look at the main page I feel uneasy that the kids are so young and then we have text underneath "start learning proper financial management, business management skills" and references to Franchises. They just don't fit together and will make many people feel uneasy. I can picture this pitch on Dragons Den or Shark Tank, it would not go well :-)

If I had sent my wife to that site when our daughter was 6 and said "Honey its time that our little 6 year old daughter learned business management skills!" I would get a response that would not be nice.

I would go with video/voice. I would push the REAL benefits of teaching the kids about business. Self confidence, sense of accomplishment, teamwork etc... and even though you are selling to the credit card holder I would keep away from any business terms as it sets an uneasy tone. I would have a mix of ages of kids.

Buy me a Porsche