Need advice on Offline Marketing techniques for my product

by gemstar81

Posted: 12 years ago 13 replies

OFFLINE MARKETING

Hey Guys,

I have posted these questions on the internet marketing section. I am trying my best to put together a well thought out and complete marketing plan.

I will give a little background:

The product is a green device that cuts one's electric bill by up to 57%. for about 6 years the manufacturer retailed the device at a very high price point that moved some units, but didn't explode. On April 1st of this year they are moving to a model in which they lease the device to customers to make it more affordable.

They will pay a referral fee + monthly residual to any customer that refers someone and the residual goes down 10 levels. So to sum up the background:

a customer would lease the device
save on their electric bill
Tell people about it

What are the best ways to Market something like this?

Would buying leads and calling people who expressed an interest in income opportunities be a smart way to go?

If so, can anyone recommend a good lead source?

Has anyone had success advertising in the paper?

I feel like the concept is a winner, and I would like to hit the ground running April 1st. Any ideas or insight would be greatly appreciated

#advice #marketing #offline #product #techniques

Jason Kanigan 12 years ago

Advertising would probably be best...you have to get your message in front of the target audience and speak to one or more problems they commonly have, which your solution fixes. I'm not going to write this for you, because that's what competent copywriters get highly paid to do.

Another idea could be to hold seminars. You find a relevant income area of homeowners or property managers perhaps, who are mad about how high their power bills are. And you invite them in for an hour presentation...which your product is the hero of.
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- gemstar81 12 years ago
  
  Kaniganj Thanks for the insight. I am definitely going to target home owners and property owners adn will be holding seminars.
  
  Do you find one type of advertising more effective than another?
  
  Thanks
  
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Jason Kanigan 12 years ago

Nope, it's up to you to find the local platform that works best for you.

You could also follow Glenn Osborn's (rentamentor) advice, and go hang out in the aisles of build-it stores. Strike up conversations with people...after building rapport--which he teaches you how to do very quickly--ask them if they are upset about too-high power bills.

After you get comfortable with this, you should be able to make a sale or more every hour. Recommend four hour "shifts" max.
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- ewenmack 12 years ago
  
  Another part of the equation is the maths.
  
  For any type of advertising you need to know the likely response you will get,
  how many of them are likely to convert to buyers and how much it's costing you to buy that customer.
  
  Sometimes the price points of the sale make certain types of advertising not viable.
  
  Best,
  Ewen
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  gemstar81 12 years ago
  
  Thanks Ewan!
  
  In your opinion? what is the best method to calculate the expected conversions?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  ewenmack 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by gemstar81
  
  Thanks Ewan!
  
  In your opinion? what is the best method to calculate the expected conversions?
  
  You start with the amount of dollars you get for the sale.
  
  Then you work out the cost of the ad and then see what numbers of buyers are needed to pay for that ad.
  
  So say for as an example your cost of the ad is $200 and the
  money in for 1 product sale is $20.
  
  To break even you would need to make 10 sales.
  
  And say that your campaign was to 400 homes.
  
  And say you get 5% interested.
  That's 20 people.
  
  And of those 20, 25% convert to sales.
  
  That leaves you with 5 sales.
  5x20 = $100 in and $200 out=$100 loss.
  
  Now from that ballpark figure, you work out in you mind if it's realistic in doubling the response and doubling the conversion parts of the equation to just break even.
  
  What we've done here is start out with a baseline to work from
  and work on the response and conversion rates.
  
  There are a number of ways to optimize those areas.
  
  Once you've done it a few times, then you get to know how far from the possible you are.
  This allows you to decide to move forward or abandon campaigns.
  
  Best,
  Ewen
  
  Thanks
  
  2 replies
  
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  jimbo13 12 years ago
  
  What country are you in?
  
  And what is the actual product?
  
  Seems odd what you are writing.
  
  Dan
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  gemstar81 12 years ago
  
  Dan I am in the US. So as Not to get too technical the product captures the reactive energy created by appliances, AC, pool motors etc in your house recycles it and re-distributes it as usable energy. Since your house is providing some of it's own power you need less power from the electric company.
  
  The manufacturer has been selling this item for a really high retail price, they have decided to move to a lease model to make it more affordable and gain more market share. the lease model allows them to pay a referral fee + monthly residual, which is where I come in. I am building a team, but want to have a marketing plan in place before April 1 which is when the new compensation model launches
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  jimbo13 12 years ago
  
  Ok. Like a 'Have your own in-home power station' type of thing.
  
  I'm not sure my may of doing it would help you as I would be setting up channel distribution first and then using PR to drive customers to those distributors in the first instance.
  
  But when I say channel distribution I mean people on the scale of Home Depot and those sort of places plus your large Plumbing and Heating companies in the States.
  
  Think of the Solar Market in that respect.
  
  Companies like Hitachi make Solar Panels.
  
  But they don't sell them to the end user because they need volume above and beyond what can be done that route.
  
  So they do as I have written.
  
  They will even fund a % of those channel partners Marketing budgets to ensure volume sales.
  
  Pretty much all manufacturers do this.
  
  Or are you one of the channel partners?
  
  Dan
  
  Thanks
  
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  gemstar81 12 years ago
  
  Very Nice! thank you
  
  Thanks
  
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RentItNow 12 years ago

I think I would go the "test the headline, offer, call to action on adwords and then test a postcard with the results" route. You can print like 200 and test something then 200 more etc....The reason I use 200 is because a good response rate is 1% (1 in 100) but you need that 200 to factor in deviations (or I cant remember the word right now).
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I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.
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- gemstar81 12 years ago
  
  So Rent it now you are talking about a direct mail campaign, trying about 200 per. If I get 2 conversions I have something worth going with?
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  RentItNow 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by gemstar81
  
  So Rent it now you are talking about a direct mail campaign, trying about 200 per. If I get 2 conversions I have something worth going with?
  
  Ewen sort of has the same idea by backwards calculating.
  
  In direct, a conversion of 1% is good. 2% is doubling your customers so even way better. I know others have gotten as high as 40% with REALLY targetted pieces. Adwords can bring you much higher returns and you can test REALLY fast (sometimes in minutes) what it would take a week or few to test with print media.
  
  As an example, I have a place that we were at 35% CTR for adwords and when we used that ad as a flyer, the return was 3% on direct.
  
  Then use Ewen's math to figure if it's enough. Usually with adwords you get a zero sum return (unless you are lucky! actually I think ewen was testing a way to make a good return) but in print I know some places are killing it.
  
  [ 1 ] Thanks
  
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  I have no agenda but to help those in the same situation. This I feel will pay the bills.
  
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Need advice on Offline Marketing techniques for my product

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