How Can I Market A New Organic Skin Care Line?

Products, Starting Out

I have recently been hired as a sales rep for a newly developed organic skin care line, which was developed by a friend of mine. The ingredients are all natural, without toxins, harmful preservatives, etc., and it is a very professional upscale looking product line. She wants me to market the product starting with doctor’s offices, pediatricians, dermatologists, etc. She thinks it is an untapped market and is where she wants to start with the line. I thought that we should try health food markets like Whole Foods, or other places that share the whole organic philosophy, maybe full service salons or boutiques, etc. I recently took some samples to the Center for Holistic Medicine, and asked to be contacted with their opinions about the line and whether they are interested in carrying some products. Any advice on where to go and how to start?

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Jay’s Answer: It’s a big market, with lots of competition already. If you do get on the shelf at Whole Foods, yours will simply be another product on their shelves, and unlikely to generate many purchases.

Start by targeting under-served markets. Is there a skin problem that your products heal better than any other product out there? Maybe a location in the country where organic skin care hasn’t penetrated (and is the right demographic for you)?

Consider private labeling the product to high-end spas and private gyms. Also, cross-marketing with related products – high-end hair care, nail care, and even outdoors-related businesses.

You might want to sell B2C to get the word out directly. To get more consumer awareness, try doing something win-win: provide foot rubs for your local Avon Walk For Breast Cancer with your products (or provide the product for others to use).

What’s A Good Tagline For My Translation Company?

Names + Taglines

I need to write a motto to accompany the company logo. It’s a translation company which offers its services online and is called Acorn (due to the saying mighty oaks from little acorns grow). I don’t like this phrase as a motto, but I would like something with the idea of developing / growing global, across cultures, facilitating communication…

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Foreign Markets Can Be A Hard Nut To Crack
  • We Also Speak Squirrel
  • Helping You Build Foreign Roots

(Note: The squirrel idea is a little off-the-wall: Since you translate into foreign languages, squirrels eat/bury acorns, speaking squirrel would indicate that you’re experts in translation in all forms.)

The problem with “growth” is that it’s not aligned with a benefit to your services. Clients don’t want growth – they want prospects, they want income, they want name recognition, etc. Refocus your tagline’s goal – something cute is nice, but it needs to be on-target with your benefit.

How Can I Market My Heart-Healthy and Diabetic Meals?

Services, Starting Out

Adding a new service to existing successful business. Looking for ideas on how to best introduce the service of prepared heart healthy & diabetic meals – we worked with local hospital to develop idea/menu. I want to target working adults who are caring for their parent(s) and those who are looking for healthy food option. Meals are gourmet but low fat, sodium, calories. I’m going to plan an open house to introduce new line of food. Who do invite and how can I advertise inexpensively? I need help to develop a marketing plan to make this aware to home health aides, doctor’s offices, and busy caregivers.

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Jay’s Answer: Sponsor lunch/dinner talks and serve your food to them.

Don’t forget dietitians, small grocery stores, local gyms, and even PTA.

If it tastes good, and people believe that eating it will help their health, it has the right price point (“what is your health worth?”), great testimonials (like Jared, the Subway guy – “eating this food has lowered my BP and made me enjoy life again”), and you’ve done your positioning homework (knowing about your competition), then you have a good start.

What ROI Could I Expect From My Local Business Seminar?

Starting Out

I was wondering if anyone knows about the ROI that can be expected from performing a seminar to local businesses about a topic that relates to our business.

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Jay’s Answer: If people attend, then they’re interested in the topic, and potentially your business. Unless you’re planning on renting out a hotel and providing a full meal, it’s a low-risk investment. The key is to provide information to position yourself as experts. Even if you don’t get a big turnout the first time, by advertising the seminars you’ve started the positioning in the eyes of the general public. Therefore, there’s a direct ROI for those that attend and indirect, for those that hear about you but don’t want to attend, but may be influenced by your seminars’ positioning.

What’s A Good Tagline For An Office Supply Business?

Names + Taglines

I need some help coming up with a clever tagline for an upcoming tradeshow. My company is in the office supply and furniture business, and for this tradeshow we want to highlight our recycled and “green” products, as well as introduce our “all green” catalog. I know of the standbys “Go Green” and “Be Green”, etc., but I would really like to come up with something clever and unique that would get people’s attention. Any ideas?

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Jay’s Answer: Green/Recycled goods by themselves won’t grab people’s attention – it’s not a primary buying motivator (compared to price, quality, service, etc.). Also, “green” is an over-hyped term, with few vendors actually providing products that are good for the environment (as opposed to less-bad).

You might focus on “Everything Old is New Again”, and show how your old-time service values are a natural match for old-time care for the environment.

How Can I Market My Spare Parts Business?

eMarketing

As a small (<$ 1M) crawler, loader, truck’s diesel engine spare parts company now we want to sell our stocks to international market. Our parts are genuine but they are for out of date models (about 20 or 30 years old) and company newer made an international sales. We have basic website and very small budget to marketing. My questions are:

1. Do I need an open eBay website or may i continue to classic sales with phone, fax, mail or email?
2. How can i reach my potential customers? Who they could be? In which countries I must target my marketing energy?
3. Which marketing tool that I could use within (monthly <$500 with 2 workers) budget?

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Jay’s Answer: Given your budget, a website would be a good investment. But first, are people looking (i.e., doing searches) for spare parts online? You can do this research yourself or hire an SEO person to find out. Your website should target these keywords.

Are there website directories for spare parts distributors? If so, get listed there.

You don’t need an eBay store if you have a website, nor do you (yet) need to target a country.

What you do want to do is determine the cost and rules for shipping your parts internationally. How long will it take? What are customs regulations? How will you handle returns?

How Can I Make My Website Popular?

eMarketing

I am developing a web portal. It’s name is www.amikhabo.com. It is a restaurant and food related portal. This site name “amikhabo”, it is a Bengali word. It means is “I will eat”. Still the site is under construction.

My vision is – my site amikhabo.com is a fully restaurant and food related portal in Bangladesh. If anybody visits this site then he will get complete restaurant and food related any information of Bangladesh.
So I need some new idea so that I can popular my site.

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Jay’s Answer: What is your business goal for the site – to get traffic and sell advertising? Or to sell for placement of the food-related information on your site?

Consider uploading the information about the restaurants (etc.) you’re doing for free (initially) – contact restaurants to get copies of their menus, and upload them to your site. Make sure you add necessary keywords and address information, tie-ing in to an online map (Yahoo or Google, for example). Also – allow people to comment on the restaurants, rate them, take pictures of them, etc. Make it a social site (like http://www.yelp.com/)

Once you get sufficient traffic, you’ll be eligible to add for-pay ads.

How Can I Promote My Local Rock Band?

Publicity

I have been following on a local Alt/rock band here in Vancouver and I am thinking of taking them on as a pet project. Of course the band doesn’t have much money to spend on promotions and such, so I need to come up with a thrifty way or promoting them. I believe their songs have very good potential and their past credentials of having worked with some very reputed folks from the music industry has convinced me to take this dive.

Now, I need to come up with a strategy to promote these guys and help get some money in so we can execute grander schemes. With the music industry being the way it is these days, DIY looks like a good way to go.

I also hear Japan is a very lucrative market for western music and would appreciate any pointers on how to get in on that.

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Jay’s Answer: MySpace, YouTube, and iTunes. Put band’s info on MySpace (and other social networking sites that your band’s demographic might use). Create videos of band performances for YouTube. Record Band songs for iTunes downloads (for sale).

What Are Some Marketing Ideas For A Travel Agent’s Events?

Publicity, Services

I am a travel agent working for a large company and I am one of five agents working in our travel department . I am required to put on a travel event in our office every month. I presented a Sandals Perfect Pairing Evening theme night in our office last month to promote the Sandals resorts and the Caribbean. Our Sandals rep came in and did a wonderful presentation and i had a local florist provide a few flower arrangements for decor . I am wanting to put on another theme night and was thinking of using one of our vendors who promotes European tours. I don’t know if I should specialize in one area, like Italy, or keep it general. Can you help me with creative ideas for the event? How to publicize it? Last time the company placed an ad for the event in the local paper. Local contacts? Any suggestions outside the usual box?

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Jay’s Answer: Keep the interest narrow – it’ll be easier to market “Italy” than “Europe”.

Create an Italian environment – serve food & drink from Italy (co-marketing with local restaurants). Local paper is fine, but also consider: Italian-American clubs in your area, Italian Classes (or even, foreign language schools), photography clubs (for photo-tours), cooking schools (food-tours), etc.

How To Get Advertisers And Sponsors For Website?

eMarketing

My site is now #2 and sometimes #1 in Google. (www.toddlertoddler.com) So things are good. Right now I have been mainly using Google ads for income on the site. I just recently added a directory and hope to make money with that. But I want to take it to the next level and get big company paid advertisers/sponsors on the site.

My current newsletter list has 1100 subscribers and I get about 300 new subscribers each month. I’ll probably bring in over 20,000 visitors to the site this month. So I believe that visitors like the site.

So what steps do I need to take to get “big business” ads and sponsors? Does it just involve emailing a bunch of contacts at these places? Do I need an ad management program? What do these big companies want to see in order for them to want to advertise on my site? Any help? or direction?

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Jay’s Answer: I’d first suggest creating placeholders for the ads. That will inform everyone that you’re be accepting ads, and getting people used to the placement of them on your site.

Sponsors care about your verified unique traffic, time on site, bounce rate, average sale, demographics, etc. But you’re not selling anything, nor (according to your privacy notice) will you share their email or other signup info, all you can provide are traffic stats.

The easiest way is to sign up with a banner advertising network. Here’s a list of some networks.
http://www.webreference.com/promotion/banners/networks.html