What is a cost-effective way to advertise this business?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi - This post is long, but I want to provide enough details to help solicit good opinions…

I own a nationally available, (US & Canada) online business that lets people create a keepsake CD of phoned-in stories and memories.

It’s typically given as a birthday or anniversary gift. You sign up online and get a toll-free number that you communicate to the recipient’s family and friends. People call-in with well-wishes and favorite stories of the recipient. The person that bought the service can either download all the recordings and make a CD, or we can send them a CD set. They then give the recipient the CD, which has all these voices telling them how great they are.

Here’s my dilemma… Although people really like the product, and it’s growing via word-of-mouth, I’ve had limited success in advertising or marketing.

I’ve been searching for a cost-effective way to advertise, that actually has a positive return on investment. Here’s some information of what I’ve tried or considered:

[ul]Marketing to Brides.
I joined the Association of Bridal Consultants as a Corporate member and sent direct mail to bridal consultants, and advertised in some wedding blogs. I found that this was about the 100th thing a bridal consultant had to speak to a bride about, and it was hard getting my message across through an intermediary. Plus, the wedding market is very crowded, it’s hard to cut through the noise.[/ul]

[ul]Online Pay-Per-Click
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Google Adwords and Yahoo Sponsored Search. The basic problem is that nobody is searching for my product, because unless they heard about it from someone else, they don’t know it exists. So, I end up buying keywords like, “Unique 80th Birthday Gift” and “25th Anniversary present” - keywords which are very competitive. Same thing with, “Unique Father’s Day Gift” or “Mother’s Day Present”. Although I’ve tried to make my landing pages relevant, the keywords are so competitive, that I end up paying $1.50 or more a click. The product itself is either $50 (you make your own CD) or $75 (we send you a personalized one), so it’s very hard to make money because the keyword bids are so high.
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Organic Seach Optimization
I’ve spent some time and money helping my site rank for terms like the ones listed above, and that has paid off, but I don’t want my whole business dependent on Google.
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Something I’ve considered and discarded…
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Marketing to the Funeral Industry
I think my product is more successful with birthdays and anniversaries (people are more likely to call in when it’s a happy occasion). Plus there are some big mega corporations that are behind most of the funeral parlors in the country. It would be hard to get traction, and I don’t think it’s worth the effort to try.
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Advertising on sites like eVite
There is a good tie-in there, but advertising on eVite is way out of my price range.
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Something I’m considering…

[ul]Being an NPR sponsor
The prospect of advertising on NPR has some attraction. It’s a very soft sell and has some altruism built-in, which fits with my and the company’s philosophy, and NPR has various programs focused on audio story-telling (e.g. This American Life). However, I’m a very small business, and the most I could see experimenting with is $5,000. For that I would have to get a regional sponsorship, and even at that my money didn’t seem to go far. On WBEZ for example, $5,000 would get me 18 mentions. My target customer is middle-aged women, and my cost per thousand impressions for women 35-54 is a little over $60. I don’t know if I’d make enough sales to justify that (although I want to be altruistic, I really have to look at the ROI).

My product seems more popular on the coasts, but the CPM is even more expensive for a coastal market.[/ul]
Things that seem like good ideas, but I don’t know where to start…

[ul]Marketing to the children of parents in nursing or retirement homes
This seems like a good idea. Many people buy the product for their parents, but I don’t know how to reach children of elderly parents in a cost-effective way. [/ul]

[ul]Marketing to people that are putting together parties for milestone events
Same thing as the above - I don’t how to reach these people. I could reach out to the managers of local venues, but I’m a staff of one trying to juggle lots of things.
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Some other things to know…

[ul]
As I mentioned, I’m a small business owner. I can’t afford (and can’t risk) spending more than $5,000 at a time, and even at that, I need to have some degree of confidence that I’ll make more in the long run than I’ll spend. I’ve purchased regional Bar Mitzvah magazines and wedding guides and called some of the people that advertise in them. I’m amazed at the number of people that have seen zilch from their advertising dollars after spending thousands. I myself have wasted thousands in advertising dollars, so I’d like to be able to dip my toe in before diving into anything.[/ul]

[ul]I’d like the marketing to be as hands-off as possible. I’ve done the thing where I go to wedding expos and reach out to managers of venues (e.g. hotel banquet rooms). If you’re a videographer selling a $4,000 service that might make sense. Not so much when you’re a national business selling a $50 product. I’m juggling lots of stuff, so I it’s hard for me to spend time with a lot of “high touch” marketing visits.
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OK, so where do you think I should market? I’m searching for a marketing channel that makes sense, and that would have a good ROI. I’m not looking for “market to xyz demographic”, I mean specifically, what cost-effective advertisement or marketing vehicles are there that make sense for my product and audience, that would cost less than $5,000 (and preferably less)?

Thanks in advance, and if you have questions, ask away.

2

This is where I stopped reading.

I think you should try to get someone to tattoo your business’s name on their forehead.

3

Is there anyone else that does this? Do you have any competition? If you do, how did you find out about them? That’s where I’d start, see what the others are doing to promote their business. No reason to reinvent the wheel.
Also, if you have the money (because it’s typically very expensive) you might want to get a booth at some trade shows. You’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of $1000 for three days. But you’ll get to meet hundreds of vendors during that time. Hand out samples, business cards, magnets discuss pricing. It could work in your favor if you can get funeral directors/party store managers/bridal shop owners to be your sales people. Then you give them a percentage of the money you make on their referrals. How this all works out would depend on exactly how you are running your business, but you can worry about that later.

4

Cost effective? Make an online video and hope it goes viral.

5

What about church bulletins?

6

Thanks for the comments…

There is one other company, and I found out about them after doing zillions of internet searches trying to find a company like mine. But they put the recordings into something like a music box, so I think they get many of their customers by having their product as an item for sale at web sites that sell jewelry boxes.

Actually a lot of my customers are congregations doing it for an outgoing Priest or for someone who is ill in the congregation. The problem with church bulletins is that I don’t have the manpower to reach out to every church. I imagine the rate for an entry in a church bulletin might be $25 - $50 minimum, and I might just sell 1 or 2 as a result, so it’s not that efficient…

7

Can I ask how much these items typically sell for…or if it makes more sense, how much the net profit is on a given sale? Not looking for exact numbers, but are you making $10 per sale or $150 per sale?
I’m thinking that other the free advertising (bulletin boards at the supermarket, word of mouth, craigslist), the church bulletin might be your best bet. Something else similar is to buy ad space on place mats. We do a little of that at our store and it’s worked out okay. These are just the cheap paper place mats you get if you’re at a bar and order some food. I think we pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 and it runs for a few months.

8

There are two packages. One is $50, and is an unlimited package (no limit on the number of people that call in, or the length of the recordings) and people are given the tools to download the recordings and make their own CDs. The second package is $75 and includes everything the first package does, including a keepsake CD set in a metal, windowed case.

So, if I advertise in a church bulletin, I’d really need to generate more than a couple of sales to make it worthwhile. The good part though, is that everyone invited to call into the toll-free number to leave a recording hears the name of the company, and that in itself is advertising.

9

Do you do any editing? What if somebody calls in and insults the recipient?

10

Okay, so not a ton or profit in these. That would mean trade shows are out, at least until you start generating some real revenue.

My only thought would be to start talking to the local business owners or party stores and wedding invitation/planning places (or any other market you are trying to get in to). They sell a package, they get $5 or $10 and/or you add their name to the CD. Whether it’s on the packaging or you record something at the beginning of it.

11

The coordinator (the person who purchased the product for the recipient) is able to log in to our website and view all the recordings (they see the Caller ID name, number, date, duration of call, etc.) as well as play the recordings. They can exclude recordings from appearing on the CD, as well as determine the sequence of recordings. In practice, it’s very, very rare for someone to insult the recipient.

12

First of all, does the product or service have a trademarked name? Perhaps it needs one if it doesn’t.

If it was up to me, I would call it Memoridisk or Yourlifedisk or something like that. This would give people an idea of what it is you do and what the product is.

Once there is an easy to remember association for people, then advertising and word of mouth get easier.

13

Hmmm. Wonder what it would cost to get an ad in a local high school football program/newspaper/yearbook? Might pick up some sales around graduation time, as a memento for the graduate. Maybe a college paper as well.

Might also see if you could work a deal with a local bridal shop or wedding planner. Funeral home, too. Maybe some sort of referral fee, payable only for customers that actually buy your product…

14

How about making it an alternative to birth cards? Instead of sending a Hallmark “Hooray its’ a girl” cards, people phone in and you put the new parent’s musing and the baby’s giggling and the old grandmothers familiestories on the CD.

Or make a disk of mom and dad and grandparents reading stories to kids.

15

Hair salon bulletin boards.

Go to the local assisted living centers (not the nursing homes with the ill elderly, but the “retirement communities”) and put fliers in the hair salons. When the old ladies are under the dryers, they’ll notice and hint to their kids “Did you hear about MemoriDisk? Sounds like a great idea…” and the kids will Google you, etc. Also, if there are any retirement centers in your area that have “restaurants” as opposed to just a big cafeteria, they might have placemats with ad space.

Granted, that requires some pretty direct old people, but it’s an idea.

16

It sounds to me like the sort of thing you’d give a person who’s retiring after a long career. People are always being asked to give testimonials of what a great guy Fred in Accounting was, and big splashy retirement parties are getting cut because of the economy; maybe you could target that market.

Fax press releases to the business editors of local weeklies.

17

aaelghat, if you have around $5k to spend, use half of that to target Defense Force families with a free CD to send to their loved ones in active service.

This is a huge community with great need to be in contact.

Maybe you could create a “repeat” package, or some kind of up-front payment membership that allows x number of CDs over x amount of time.

Members can either use all of these themselves, or basically have a pre-paid recipient reply (like a gift). I would guess that a useful stipulation is that it is limited to actual CDs, rather than being able to download, purely for the advertising and promotional opportunities for your service afforded by the disc, and cover. Maybe a “code” (relating to the membership) is inserted in the cover, allowing the pre-paid reply.

Have bumper stickers made along the lines of “Name, rank & serial number now has voice. (Your web address)” (Crappy I know, but something like that…) Give 5 stickers for each membership (you know, for them, their parents and the in-laws). Cheap advertising, and slick stickers find their way driving around who-knows-where…just make sure you can read it from 1 car length away lol!

Anyway, I figure you only have to make 50 sales to a pretty receptive demographic to get your marketing spend back. And if you do the packages, it could be half that in unit terms. Only you can work out the ROI, but it’s a thought. (I think.)

18

Yes, it does have a trademarked name which infers what the product does without being descriptive (trademarks aren’t supposed to be descriptive). That’s a great question!

Good idea…

The challenge is breaking into that market. It’s hard to get your product in a store (especially when one of the options is a downloadable product).

I like that - I’m not risking a lot of money, and can guage how well it works.

I like the press release idea as an alternative/addition to retirement parties. It’s another idea that doesn’t cost a lot of money.

6ImpossibleThingsB4Breakfast - I like that idea!

Once, I spent a little bit of money and advertised in a military paper for the local Great Lakes Naval Base. I didn’t get any reponse, but on the other hand, it’s hard to write a newspaper ad which gets across how the service works.

A question for you (if you know the answer)… I actually prefer to sell the packages where people have to make their own CD. It’s totally hands-off for me and the margins are better. The way it works is that people download the recordings as podcasts into iTunes, and then use iTunes to make the CD.

Do you know if people deployed overseas in the military would have access to a computer where they could install iTunes and download their recordings? The alternative, is they could just sign into our web site and listen to the recordings online the same way the coordinator can. Is there usually a common computer area where soldiers can go and use a computer? Do they have easy internet access?

Thanks

19

What about eBay? It’s relatively cheap, and I’ve seen a lot of small business type listings there.

20

I haven’t read it myself, but I’ve heard good things about the book Guerrilla Marketingby Jay Levinson. It’s all about advertising a small business on the cheap.