

Show HN: Unlimited marketing advice and consulting from $89 - marketingadvice
http://marketersondemand.co/?=hn

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gk1
The reason I make a living from marketing consulting is _not_ because
marketing advice is hard to come by, but because it's difficult to separate
the good advice (0.01%) from the crap advice (99.99%).

If you actually do deliver "some of the best marketing consulting in the
world," then where are the examples, case studies, influential articles, and
testimonials?

Forgive me for being skeptical but a lowball price with vague promises doesn't
instill confidence.

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IgorPartola
Is $89 for 30 minutes of work really lowball in marketing? If so, I'm in the
wrong business...

~~~
gk1
There are two prices offered:

\- $89 for one 30-min question

\- $175/m for unlimited questions

The first one might pass for a normal rate, but if you expect 30 minutes to
result in actionable advice that's applicable to your business, you're in for
a disappointment.

There's no question about the second one.

~~~
IgorPartola
Yes, 30 minutes of work is probably just enough to figure out what the
business does, not how to market it. I wonder if this all is just an intro
offer, trying to sell you real consulting services. I remember reading
somewhere about a consultant (not in marketing IIRC), who would give the first
hour for free, the next hour at $1, then $2, and so on. The idea was that the
work early on is not as valuable to the client, and bigger projects should pay
a higher rate. Never tried this myself, but I think that's a neat idea.

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ssharp
There are six listed examples of tasks you could do. None of those could be
effectively done in the 30 minutes you wish for a task to take. Marketing
evaluations even on small companies with a low number of pages, landing pages,
emails, and conversion funnels should take several hours. In 30 minutes you
could provide heuristics/best-practices which could be effective, but could be
a waste of everyone's time. I doubt you're going to be able to implement
anything in 30 minutes, so you're just giving advice on what to do, which will
then take someone else many hours to implement, which is very wasteful if
they're implementing the wrong thing. Planning is extremely important.

~~~
marketingadvice
On the unlimited plan I can execute on the initial advice in bursts.

For example, if you have a spa in Toronto, Canada. I can make a channel or
campaign suggestion and then spend your sessions in the month setting up and
optimizing that campaign.

~~~
hluska
I would leave this thread, but comments like this make me think that you're
actually dangerous so I'm going to follow this up. In thirty minutes, you
CANNOT learn enough about a single spa, its services, or its competition in
its particular area of Toronto to gain any sense on whether or not Adwords is
a good channel. I think that you simply have bought so many Facebook/Google
ads that it is the only game you know, so it is the only channel you will ever
recommend.

I wish you the best and I hope that your advice does not outright kill any
companies.

~~~
marketingadvice
Learning and executing are 2 very separate things.

In 30 minutes you definitely can execute a campaign. Then come back a few days
later and spend another 30 minutes reviewing and optimizing.

Learning is something that is very separate from the request process. The 30
minutes is execution time post-learning.

That being said, for quick results Google AdWords is a very reliable channel
for hyper local businesses. There definitely are other passive lead generation
channels like Instagram, but as an example Google AdWords is an easy go to.

~~~
hluska
This still doesn't add up. You offer a 24 hour turnaround, yet you hope to
learn about a company, plan a campaign around that situation, figure out
appropriate metrics to evaluate whether it is effective, and then execute on
that in 30 minute bursts.

Even if you can do that, you will have an incredible amount of trouble making
a consistent profit unless you can keep your acquisition costs very low. And,
frankly, based on what I've seen it's very hard to trust you so I'm not sure
how low your acquisition costs could get.

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qeorge
I'm having trouble getting my head around the pricing. 1x for one task, 2x for
unlimited. Can you expound a bit?

Specifically, what do you mean by unlimited? Could I schedule you every day
for a 30 minute consultation?

Also, I'm one shop but we have several properties. Correct to assume I need an
account for each one? (roughly 4 accounts)

Very interested!

Edit: I see now that you have one business day turnaround, and allow one order
in the queue. Each task is about ~30 minutes, so effectively up to 10 hours of
marketing consultation a month for $175. That's _very_ compelling! Cool!

~~~
marketingadvice
Ideally I want to avoid one offs, hence the small jump.

Everything goes into an email based queue system. So you could schedule 30
minutes of consulting daily but the timing will not be as consistent.

If you have something you need help with, I will be able to jump in to help
daily if that is your request.

It would be one account for one brand, business or individual. In your case,
each property would be 1 account.

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mcdoug
So, first off, unlimited advice starts at $175. At $89 you get one task, not
unlimited. That's like saying "the brand new 2015 Toyota Camry starting at
$300". Yes, you can buy a Camry for $300 from a junk yard, and you can buy a
brand new 2015 Camry, but you can't buy a brand new 2015 Camry for $300.

What types of tasks are you talking about and can you actually acomplish
anything useful in 30 minutes. Examples please. Are you talking about setting
up AdWords campaigns? Reviewing the <meta> tags on my website? Helping me
refine my headline? Or will you help me set up a marketing strategy and
research my customers? The latter can take days or weeks. Can I have you do
that under the unlimited plan, 30 minutes at a time?

Also, "Ideally a request is about 30 minutes of work" is a pretty terrible way
to phrase what you are saying. As a customer, I probably have no idea how long
something takes you. I know what I need to acomplish, and will dump a crapton
of work on you for the low price. Without examples, I will simply ask you "I
need 10x the traffic I have now to site X" and expect that you will deliver.

I think this is a really aluring idea, but I need more details!

~~~
marketingadvice
In 30 mins I can do a basic AdWords campaign setup, review and probably adjust
meta tags on your website, write you new copy, setup a marketing strategy
(this would be multiple sessions), etc.

You would be amazed with what can be done in 30 mins. If you are on the
monthly plan I go above and beyond. If I need to spend an hour learning your
brand and company, I'll do it and then spend the 30 minutes executing. But as
I said, 30 minutes is ideal, but not 100% set in stone. If it takes an hour,
it takes an hour.

My goal is high quality output. But on the monthly plan you can get small
bursts of that output.

For example, if you want a 1 year marketing strategy, that would take multiple
sessions. But I can break it up over a month and put in the time required.

~~~
mcdoug
So what is your strategy in terms of making money here then. At $175/mo for 30
minutes a day, you are working for $17.50/hour. Is the idea that most people
won't use up the entire 10 hours/month?

I am going to wait and see if reviews/testemonials show up that talk about
results this actually delivered in terms of increased traffic, conversions,
etc.

~~~
marketingadvice
I'm running this as part of a test of the 7 Day Startup method. Just
generating revenue to start is the goal, but the pricing and everything will
be iterated on over time.

From past experience there is usually a divide of those who will make full use
of the service and those who will use it as a net to help when it's needed.
But that has yet to be seen and iterated on.

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hluska
Interesting idea, but there are a few flaws in the execution.

1\. I use an iPhone 5c and at that resolution, I only see 90% of your logo -
it cuts off after "Marketers on Dema". If you front page Hacker News in the
morning, you will see mobile traffic from people during their commutes. Not
catching that during QA and recognizing it as a marketing problem is a
concern.

2\. You write "Marketers on Demand empowers business owners to build their
business without worrying if their marketing is on track." In my opinion,
that's pretty bad marketing advice - the kinds of business owners and
entrepreneurs who use HN need to have a handle on whether their marketing is
working or not.

3\. You say "Ideally a request is about 30 minutes of work." How is anyone who
is unsophisticated enough to use your service supposed to gauge that? How will
that uncertainty tank your conversions? And, not to be rude, but in light of
my first and second points, do you think charging $178 an hour provides good
value?

~~~
unreal37
The poster has claimed to make $150/hour on a freelance basis. [1] So this
pricing is not out of line with that as a reference.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8460101](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8460101)

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edw519
I wish you well, Jamil. Here's a freebie:

Put on a jacket & tie and get a professional headshot. That image negates
everything else you're trying to communicate on your page.

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happywolf
Do you do job-based consultation? Say one has a project/website, and that
person has some marketing goals in mind, can you quote a price instead? Also,
any guarantee on effectiveness?

~~~
marketingadvice
Projects I take on aside from this I usually tie goals and performance metrics
to. It very much depends on the goals and objectives to be achieved for the
project.

For example if your project is to take an iOS app from 100 users to 1,000,000.
That I wouldn't take on as a project, that's what someone should take on as a
career/job more than a contract. 100 users to 10,000 is something I would
consider freelance/contract size.

Marketers on Demand was setup as a test of the 7 Day Startup framework and to
run an idea validation thought. Not really for full on projects.

~~~
happywolf
I see. Make sense. Thanks

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wodenokoto
How can you have a solution ready in 24 hours? Or even a thought through
solution proposal?

Some questions takes time.

~~~
unreal37
It's marketing advice, not solutions. It's not "increase my business 10X",
it's "I'm trying a bunch of Facebook ads, why is it not working?"

~~~
marketingadvice
It can be. I have spent beyond $300,000 on Facebook ads and I'm learning more
as I keep spending. If you have a Facebook campaign that's not converting, I
can jump in and use the request to optimize.

