Questions

I'm not trained to do this myself, and I don't have the time. I want to pay a commission to someone to do it for me. Let's assume I'm right that this is a great product that will sell. How do I find, and vet, a legitimate marketing company or expert who will pursue this?

One approach would be to

(1) Create a website from which your product can be purchased and downloaded;

(2) Enable easy social sharing from the website so that happy customers multiply at no cost to you;

(3) Market that site through PPC campaigns, targeting relevant search verticals.

Basically, you'd be paying a commission to Google and Bing in exchange fore eyeballs on your site. Whether those impressions convert to sales depends on your presentation and (of course) the product itself.

Conceivably, you might do all this yourself. But you might prefer to pay

(1) A branding consultant / namer / domain broker to select and obtain the ideal domain name to use,

(2) A web designer to build the site,

(3) An SEM specialist to manage your AdWords and Bing campaigns,

(4) A copy writer to craft your landing page sales pitch, improving your sales funnel and boosting conversion rates,

(5) A content writer to produce additional articles,

(6) An SEO to work on whatever it is they do this month.

It isn't strictly necessary to pay for these services, if you're willing to teach yourself. You might accelerate that process and avoid expensive mistakes if you schedule a few short Clarity.fm calls with relevant experts.

That's the approach I would use – building a site that functions like a store and advertising online through SEM. This way you can test the viability of your product without having to hire sales staff.

Yes, you could try marketing through other channels such as local gatherings of college-bound students or via phone, email, radio, TV, mail, etc. But online you can access a broad range of potential customers with less initial investment in planning, staffing, and infrastructure.

So it's a test case. If your product can't sell online in this way, then it may not be worth expanding with those other strategies. Furthermore, this online approach scales very well. If you're profitable while spending X on PPC, then you might grow those profits simply by reinvesting and raising that advertising budget.

I offer professional services for #1 (names / domains) and #4 (sales pitch) above, if you're interested. To some extent, I know my way around #3 (SEM); but I don't manage campaigns for clients - only suggest tactics for those who run their own campaigns. Plenty of Clarity.fm experts could run an SEM campaign for you quite well if you'd like to outsource that marketing.


Answered 9 years ago

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