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So…when you make a product how do you know when it's good or bad and how do you promo

scadvice

Titanium
Joined
Jan 16, 2009
Location
"Stuck in Lodi", Ca
I'm finishing up the prototypes for a product and getting ready to do a small run. It really doesn't matter what it is …but how much time do you invest in selling this product before you know it's a bust… Success… or still TBD???… I'd like to hear your stories on this subject. I know there are a number of you out there that sell products and I'm getting ready to release/sell the first model and am designing the second series. These are under $200 buck items.

What are your thoughts on advertising and getting the knowledge of your product out there?
 
getting the knowledge of your product out there?




Can start by let me see
done properly you can get a little free exposure here.
I have seen Facebook used very effectively
I have never done one for myself,but make parts for others that do resell
 
If you are making something for the machine shop crowd, you will have a hard time.
Presuming that it is not for us as the consumer, give one or two out as samples to users in the field (Ideally someone that is well known and respected), and would understand the product and do some talking about it on blogs.
I am presuming that you aren't going for a patent.
This is a start.

Lee (the saw guy)
 
A great product X great marketing = success.

Pretty hard to advise on that without knowing the product, price, the intended customers etc.

The better you can identify the ideal prospects, the better you can target an effective means and message to reach them.

Often a first step is to get some highly visible, highly satisfied customers who can then help promote your product through testimonials, word of mouth, case studies, and the like.
 
Function of targeted sales, vs product cost, vs marketing cost.

Selling a 200$ gadget to consumers, in great numbers, usually has a marketing budget in the millions.
An iphone, or a kids toy, come to mind as an example.

Retail/distribute/direct sales all have a different dynamic.
A 200$ hand made fishing reel vs a 200$ kids high tech meccano, for example.

Actual product quality, surprisingly, has little to do with commercial success.
Perceived quality, and marketing & sales quality, are much more important.

(An example that goes against this, is an ipod (or Apple iXXX). It has high quality and high perceived quality. But apple broke the mold, where 95% of all similar products have had success with the other formula).

Thus, a lot of high quality tools are no longer made, while those of much inferior quality but better perceived value have great commercial success.
Manual lathes are a great example.
Schaublin and Monarch come to mind.

Or import tools in the metrology department.
While "quality" tools are still made, the "import" category is probably 100x bigger, by sales volume.
 
The products that are the mainstay of my business I just kinda told people that this is what they need and, well, they bought them. They solve a problem that they didn't know they had and I make money. It works.

I come up with new stuff on a regular basis and find that things fizzle out in popularity and you have to tell the customer that your new thing is what they need.

Initially, internet forums specific to our markets got things off the ground. After a few years the brand was recognized and word of mouth was good. You'll get burned out on forums when you have a product. You have to maintain a careful balance and you'll always get those that want to challenge you and your products. And people that try to copy your shit and fail. And the "Hey I really like your stuff and I'm a machinist....Can I pay you a few bucks for the prints to make it myself?"

I never did facebook and never would.

Youtube is an amazing and free marketing tool.
 
Talk about what "Apple" does is utterly irrelevant. The slowest selling SKU in Apple's lineup moves at the kind of volume that would make a 3-4 person company millionaires a few times over. Their stories and needs and spending are utterly irrelevant for you. They are Federation Battleships, you are Mal in the Firefly. They run businesses - you run the hustle. They have huge scale and inertia and internal politics and rules - you have no rules, no scale and the ability to move instantly. Use it.

It is not hard to, with the right pricing and some decent competency, build a business that provides a solid income for yourself that you can grow organically, depending on a complex interplay of a few factors:

1- It is a product where you can trade COGS for Cap. In other words, you don't have tens of thousands invested in tooling or R&D. You're already in prototyping so I assume you're past this. Having said that, machining the first version of a product works really well because you can pay a premium for low-volume production and start getting onto the market and building your brand/seeing if the concept flies. This also dovetails nicely with...

2- You are going after an enthusiastic, easily accessible market that you can reach cheaply on the internet. Pretty much every product niche/interest has an internet community of people willing to pay obscene gobs of money for the "nicest" version of a thing. Christ, I sell $100 camera straps, and have never spent a penny on advertising. I reach 0.001% of all camera owners, but that's just fine. If you are making a widget, I assume you are a widget user and know the online communities at WidgetLover.Com... There is your initial target audience.

3- Keep your burn rate very very low. You're only initial expenses should be product. If you have a bedroom, you also have a warehouse! Low burn rate == runway of infinite length to get things to take off. That is your friend.

4- The piece of advise I wish I knew/followed; get really good at telling your story. Not in a super douchey-self promotion kind of way, but in an honest way. Tell people why you made this, how you made it and what about it you think rocks. People *LOVE* small, niche, companies crafting neat shit. They will be very forgiving, they will happily tell their friends about you, but you have to get your story out. Get good at shooting pictures and making videos (it isn't hard, just takes practice). Go to those online communities and get to the storytelling.

5- Back end stuff is all easy these days. Shopify for your website and done. If you want, eventually punt you're stop off to Amazon and have them do all the fulfillment. HelpScout for your support email. MailChimp for a mailing list. Slack if you work with someone else. The best marketing, BTW, as you grow... is affiliate marketing (people with blogs sign up and get a special link they can promote/put on their website, you pay them a percentage of every purchase). LeadDyno wins here.
 
"So…when you make a product how do you know when it's good or bad "

Let's concentrate on this aspect, promo, everyone else has already covered:

Marx Toys (inventor of the "big wheel") was based here in Erie, Pa.
They had a "toy room" where parents would bring their kids, and let them try
out all the new stuff. Employees behind one way mirrors would watch, take notes, etc.

Afterwards, kids and parents were interviewed, "what do you like, and not like, etc".
Remeber, they just "tossed em out there", and watched how the product was used.

If your product is low priced enough, try free samples, if not try some kind of survey/test market.

You will see people asking the most strange/oddball questions about your product, ones
you never even gave a thought to.
Suggesting other usage, problems, mis-usage, etc.
 
Even though their fees have become ridiculous EBAY is a good place to test market items before mass production. Disclaimer, if it is something that is easily copied EBAY is not the place to test market it.
 
The piece of advise I wish I knew/followed; get really good at telling your story. Not in a super douchey-self promotion kind of way, but in an honest way. Tell people why you made this, how you made it and what about it you think rocks. People *LOVE* small, niche, companies crafting neat shit. They will be very forgiving, they will happily tell their friends about you, but you have to get your story out. Get good at shooting pictures and making videos (it isn't hard, just takes practice).

This is hugely important. Quality promotion is very expensive if you contract it out. If you can do it in-house you have a tremendous weapon that very possibly your competitors cannot afford. Read the book Olgilvy on Advertising. Although the Internet didn't exist when he wrote it, the principles still apply 100%, including photography, composition and typesetting. I once had a magazine give me the back cover, a space worth about $15K, because the art staff thought my regular fullpage ad would make the magazine look better. It doesn't mean your advertising has to qualify as art to be effective, but effective advertising IS an art. Get it right and the return can exceed that of a faster machine tool. Or several faster machine tools.
 
Even though their fees have become ridiculous EBAY is a good place to test market items before mass production. Disclaimer, if it is something that is easily copied EBAY is not the place to test market it.

Why?

There are significantly better channels for bringing a product to the marketplace. eBay fees are high, their customers are a PITA, their tools for sellers suck and you have zero opportunity to tell your product's story (i.e. why you made this, how you made it, why it's the coolest fucking thing in the category).

Shopify is the class leader here. Get some decent product shots, learn how to write decent copy and make a tight, 30 second video about the product (make it TIGHT - so many product videos blather on about crap). With those assets, you can plug them straight into a Shopify template with zero web experience and have a great looking store in a couple of hours. Bulletproof reliable, very low cost (roughly 3% of the sale, including credit card fees), great checkout experience for your customers.

After dicking around for years, we just threw out hands up and redid our website in a few days: Luma Labs - Quality Camera Straps and that is 100% Shopify (we were doing a wonky thing with the front end before). Conversion rates are running at 3% since we did it (up from about 1.5%).

If you think you're going to move your product on a commodity website like eBay or Amazon, don't go into business. To compete these days, the little guys need to be premium, the quality needs to be there, the design needs to be there or the functionality needs to be killer. That's why startups mesh so well with machining, because machined stuff intrinsically brings a lot of premium qualities customers adore to the table, and you aren't spending $20k on molds.

Also, take your cost to make the widget, multiply it by 4x and that's your price. If your widget isn't sexier, more functional, better feeling or somehow better than anything else on the market, you are toast. People are totally happy to buy the nice thing for 2x-3x what the commodity on the market costs, but it has to be off-the charts better in **some** way (not necessarily every way).

(And if you think a 4x markup is high, my primary competitors are making their stuff in Taiwan for about $7, and charging $70. What they save in COGS, they spend on marketing and margin to stuff their product in as many channels as possible... it is a nice place to be, but since that spot is taken, we focus on different aspects/qualities and deliver a better value ratio, even at a higher price).

Edited to Add: Amazon is a solid sales channel to move to... eventually. Lots of Amazon users discover products there, but you need to have a solid brand built so when they Google before clicking "Buy It Now!" they see good things. You also need to move your inventory to Amazon, which can be tricky if you're hustling product out the door in the beginning - because Amazon's core customers Do Not Buy Without Prime. We are starting to experiment with Amazon now.
 
I'm interested in this as I am in the same boat, and learned a great deal lately about the power of using forfillment houses.
Amazon (and others) assist you in getting your product out there by holding a quantity of your product, in houses seperately for .com / .co.uk / .com.au etc and when your item sells on amazon, they package it, stick your label on it and send it off.
The advantage of this is A: Your main concern is simply maintaining supply to those forfillment houses.
and B:
Should you choose to send the manufacturing product to another company (You can't keep up.) you simply need to order more (For instance 1000pcs) have them divided up to the forfillment houses and you simply then need keep an eye on stock as you develop other products.

Though it may only be new, have a contingency if you out sell them.

As for marketing, make sure you approach respected people who are good and well known at what they do.
Be wary of big names as they attract lawyers and contracts, but think of national/club level people/sports people/business, support them on social media, and go and take as many photos/videos you can for youtube/facebook etc and tag them appropriately. Atleast thats my plan.

People always return to a good brand name that reprisents quality and value for money.

Pick a focus group and own it. (Engineers / cnc operators / shoe salesmen whatever.) in your area first.
Then your state.
Then your country.
Etc.

I had a billionare as a patient recently you will all know the name of.
He said "Getting rich is easy, all you need to do is give people what they want, do not TELL them what they want. And give it to them at a price they can afford, it really is that simple." Seemed like good advice.
 
I'm finishing up the prototypes for a product and getting ready to do a small run. It really doesn't matter what it is

whoa ..... nothing matters to a marketing strategy more than what it is and who you expect to sell it to - the product/market mix. At this point we don't know if its new kind of lipstick, a piece of software for government, a board game or something that makes a GE giant generator more efficient.

You ask "What are your thoughts on advertising and getting the knowledge of your product out there? ".....that entirely depends on the product / market mix.
 
The best products are ones that are found on the needs of the maker or a relation to the maker. Someone needs or wants something. They get it made or make something to fill their needs. Others see it, want it and then that builds an organic market place. That small market place needs to be in place before any thoughts of a greater appeal is available. If you are not in the place where others are asking about your product without marketing you are being premature. Look at the webpage for Luma Labs in the gkoenig post. A need for a better camera strap led to a design and a user of that strap. I am sure the strap user, then got requests from friends before the idea of making the strap in production. I would even bet, some of those early users helped improve the product. That is how Apple started. A small user base needed a better home computing solution.
 
Why E-bay? First fees do eat up 13.5% (10% final value, 3.5% Paypal). True customers can be PITA, the upside you pay nothing if your item doesn't sell, Ebay has millions of customers, page views are counted, there is a feature for best offer so you can gauge if your asking price is too high, you can gauge interest by spending from nothing up to a couple hundred bucks if you sell a dozen $200 items.

Where can you get an instant response for that price? I know next to nothing about them but any internet pay per click ads cost you money even if people don't buy. Newspaper ads reach a small market and are pricey, magazine ads reach more but it will take months to gauge results. Attending trade shows and conventions is expensive and time consuming.

I am just advocating E-bay as a cheap step to gauge interest before spending big bucks on other forms of marketing. If the item flies off the shelf E-bay would be a poor choice for long term sales and marketing.
For the record I once manufactured and marketed my own product, dual alternator kits (Hence the name Dualkit)
It died because I only sold to the limousine manufacturing industry, which was wiped out by the recession and still hasn't rebounded. Selling to individuals was a PITA and you needed to cover too many models, so that was out. We did cold calling (I hired a salesman) and we attended conventions and trade shows. But that cost quite a bit of money.
 
Why E-bay? First fees do eat up 13.5% (10% final value, 3.5% Paypal).

there may be reasons why ebay is a problem or not right for the product/market....but cost shouldn't be one them. Where else do you find a sales/marketing channel that only costs 13.5%? Ebay for all their faults and the miracle of the internet have carved out what might be 50-80% of the selling price for distributors, retailers etc and you still wouldn't get the level of exposure ebay potentially brings.

whether it works for the OP depends on what he's selling, whether the buyers watch ebay, will they find it, understand it etc etc etc....but imo its a bargoon if it works for his/someone's product
 
Where else do you find a sales/marketing channel that only costs 13.5%?

Direct. Shopify is 2.5%, including Stripe credit card processing fees. You can also let people pay with PayPal via Shopify (we're running about 50/50 offering both payment options currently).

I think eBay works really well for it's intended purpose - basically a global garage sale for stuff you own and want to sell. For a new product, looking to build the brand and get awareness out, it has some big drawbacks. First, your product will be presented in a list of junk. Second, you have little/no room to tell your story (good copy, images, video). Finally, you will have a tough time telling customers from outside of eBay to find your products (Go search for MyWidgetName in eBay!). Also, a lot of people simply won't do business on eBay...

Amazon is the superior channel, and you are only giving up 8-15% margin (depending on your product category). Kick in Amazon fulfillment and it is a killer channel to be on.

Having said all that - you *need* to build your own brand. You need to curate your own story and tell people about your product (again, not in an over-the-top douchey way). You will absolutely need to make a website, write the copy, take quality product images and make your Sandwich Video. Drop all that stuff into a Shopify template and get your butt to talking about it - go to the forums, hit the Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and tell people what you've done. Easy.

You can do the eBay/Amazon/Retailer thing, absolutely, but those are channels to explore and test. The primary thing you want people to do is go to your damn website and learn.
 








 
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