

Ask HN: How would you market this information business? - volandovengo

http://www.deedeemicrowaves.com/<p>I met this woman randomly the other day. I found out she specializes in giving seminars on how to effectively microwave food and has been doing so for 28 years.  She's one of the best in this really niche market.  I think she's really got something but her website is horrible and clearly she isn't that tech savvy, she tends to make all her sales of her dvd in person by giving seminars and asking people to buy her dvd.<p>I would like to help her out to bring the business online.  If you were to advise her on how to promote her business online, what would be the right angle? Revamp the site, write guest blog posts and attempt to sell her dvd series online?<p>I would appreciate any of your thoughts. Thanks in advance.
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braindead_in
Just Google information marketing how to and you'll get tons of resources on
how to go about doing this. There are lots of information marketers out there
who make a good, if not great, living by selling e-books, DVD's and whatnot
via their website. Their MO is simple. Build a landing page, offer something
for free (eg. a free report) to your visitors and get them to opt into your
mailing list. Then upsell, upsell and upsell. It's harder than it seems and is
a full time job. A simple website with a nice landing page and an opt-in form
will do just fine, but getting traffic to it is another matter altogether. You
would need to do SEO, Affiliate Marketing (eg. through ClickBank), AdWords,
Article Marketing, Press Releases, Guest blogging, YouTube videos etc. to get
decent traffic and build up the mailing list. The list then becomes your
potential customer database and then you have follow the usual sales process
to get them to buy your product.

There are some very good training courses out there on information marketing
too. Of course they follow the same MO and you'll have to become a paying
customer to learn how to do it. :)

~~~
volandovengo
Thanks for the pointers. You're right that it seems like it is a full time
job. Probably if I really wanted to help her the best thing to do would be to
hook her up with a information marker agent who would handle a lot of the
strategizing for her while she provides the expertise.

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Sodaware
There are hundreds of ways you could do this, but here are my initial
thoughts.

First, look at how other information products like this are marketed and sold.
A lot of use the traditional "long form" sales letter. Looking over her
website, it's basically what she has now just laid out slightly differently.
I'm not a fan of long sales pages, but they get results.

Second, help identify the online market she's selling to. My first thoughts
are moms and parents of kids that are about to go to college. I can't see a
college kid buying it, but I can definitely see it being given as a gift. Look
for blogs in these topics and email them to gauge interest. Perhaps give
copies as prizes for their readers.

Other ways to promote the site would be to take the recipes and convert them
to articles and publish them on sites like ezinearticles.com (with titles like
"how to cook healthy microwave pizza"). Then in the author bio add a link to
her site.

It may be worth considering converting the video / book to digital products
and offering the DVD & hard copy as an upsell.

~~~
volandovengo
Thanks for the suggestions and your thoughts Sodaware :).

------
eps
Have you considered that putting her DVD-oriented business online could be a
bad idea? It is one thing to demo the technique in person and then follow up
with a "hot sale" of the DVD. This is easy-peasy and works well. And it is a
completely different thing to get random people look at the website and get
them excited enough to order a DVD. This is an impulsive buy product if sold
online. You see it, you get excited (IF that happens), you want it now. DVD in
the mail translates not "no, thanks" at best and a visit to the torrents site
at worst.

I just do not see this working at all. It would seem more logical to focus on
promoting her seminars instead.

~~~
volandovengo
Good point. Trying food in person is a very different experience to seeing it
online. Only problem is that it doesn't scale so well..

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percept
I'd guess that the owner's 28 years in business has given her an offline
customer base that she should try to connect with online. Bring those people
to her website to write testimonials, generate conversation and buzz via
Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Most startups would love to have a fan club on Day 1, instead of shouting
desperately into the void. Start there.

Also, consider seeding some video content on YouTube, eHow or the like.

~~~
volandovengo
I love the idea of starting from her fan base. Thanks percept! I like the idea
of seeding some content on eHow and YouTube.

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actionbrandon
I'd cut the DVD into a bunch of youtube videos and give it away. Make the
website really flashy and pump traffic like the previous posters suggestion:
how to make healthy pizza. Use the traffic to sell the book and build a name
for herself and her seminars. I'd bet some of her older clients could stumble
onto a youtube video, say "thats cool" and _still_ buy the dvd.

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petervandijck
1\. You can probably make that sales page _much_ better, and install some a/b
testing software and then increase conversions over the course of a year or
so.

2\. You can probably help her with tips around driving traffic (starting with
her existing fans).

3\. Set her up with a mailing list and a newsletter.

That's plenty to start with.

