Ask HN: How would you market this information business? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How would you market this information business?

5 pointsvolandovengo10 comments

http://www.deedeemicrowaves.com/

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.

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?

I would appreciate any of your thoughts. Thanks in advance.

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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. :)

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.

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.

Thanks for the suggestions and your thoughts Sodaware :).

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.

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..

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.

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

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.

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.

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