Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Let's start by understanding exactly who is in your primary target audience and how they make a purchase decision. What do you know about these folks? Not just where they live and other demographics, but how they think, what's important to them, their emotional needs and their psychographics.

Developing a marketing strategy without that kind of information is really an impossible task -- throwing darts at a strategy map, if you will.

We can definitely help you with this, but we need to understand more about the target audience -- demographics, psychographics, needs, values, attitudes, awareness, habits and practices, etc. It's not as much about your product as it is about your customers.

Thank you mgoodman.

Our cabinet line family launched approx., 7 months ago.

Our age demographic since our launch seems to be married couples, ages 40 and up.
They seem to have extra disposable income.

Mainly it is the woman who have seen the ad in the Our Home Magazine. Geared in our area to decorating and home decor advice. Only in our city.

They like the fact both the cabinet and the lift are manufactured locally.

They all seemed to be empty nesters.

Middle to upper class.

All their responses was that they did not know it existed until they saw the ad.

No hits from google ad words.

I hope this helps as a start.

Your site seems logic based, it appears to have been designed by an Engineer.
There are no happy, smiling people enjoying your products. Cold pictures and descriptions.
I found myself analyzing rather than appreciating.

As you know, this is high-end equipment...local likely doesn't have the numbers you need to reach.
Interior designers may, as a group, be good to get involved with. Probably best to reach people as they are planning rooms.

I like your point about our website , I knew it needed some work however I never thought of painting a picture of it in a home, with a couple or family.

Reaching out to a new area is what I was thinking must be done.

I have been working with designers, as a group and still building those relationships.

Our competitor has high volume sales and their website is cold. I think they must be advertising more spread out rather than concentrating on local.

If you've gotten good results from ads in "Our Home Magazine", then why not branch out into similar magazines in surrounding areas (with similar demographics)?

Are there decorator showcase homes in your region? If so, having your product placed in such a venue would be another way to reach your target audience.

Have you reached out to home decorators and/or home organizers? Both could be rich sources of referrals for your business.

You market this kind of product to people's compulsions. Partnering with professional organizers, stagers, interior design consultants, and architects ought to help. You'd do well to create a short video showing your product in action, and another video showing custom design and install.

Could this become a kit that people can assemble on their own with a training video and a manual that shows EVERY step of the process?

What about regional and national interior design magazines and varying styles of the product to suit mid century modern and prefab fans? The other thing is getting your product onto national television shows such as This Old house. To pull that off you'll need press releases and PR and you'll need to contact magazines and television companies to ask who needs to receive your material and exactly how that person prefers to receive material. All you need is one small story or feature and you're off to the races.

Does this help?

You'd also do well on your Facebook page to lose the photo of the man and use some kind of premium gift (a free DVD of the product in operation?) in exchange for people's names, e-mail addresses and their mailing addresses.

You could then arrange free demonstrations IN HOME ... and, set the things up with people's TVs and offer them a risk free trial over a 7 day period. This then PRE SELLS the piece in people's lives and gets them wondering how they ever lived without it.

Good morning. My point of view is that you need a USP. A unique selling proposition (there's a dozen different names for this, but this is my favorite). It speaks not just of what you do but how you do it. Digging deep into your business (be warned, this can be painful - I have hurt people when doing this) means finding out your genuine strengths in an otherwise bland marketplace. Knowing what you do that's special (unique) will form a sentence that describes what you do to your best kind of customer that they only need look once.

Plus the concept you have in mind will make copywriting (for your website for example) very easy indeed. Because you know what you're writing, why you're writing it and who you're speaking to. And so on ...

Now our business in Cirencester fitted one of these around ten years ago, so I have a pretty good idea of what it does. In fact the device we set up lowered the flat-screen from the ceiling (in those days a 48" screen cost thousands). It was a real challenge, but furniture makers are notoriously accurate and things get done despite the tips and turns of 16th century woodwork.

Now your customers like that "both the cabinet and the lift are manufactured locally." - that is HUGE.

I would focus on that as the fulcrum of your USP. It'll chime with your local sales, as importantly since these are largely bespoke - it means you can sort out any niggles very quickly. I could write a book about customer niggles and how to deal with them, but this is about your website and marketing.

When you've formed your USP (you may want to contact one of the experts here to arrange to speak to them to hammer it out) - it will make your Adwords campaigns sing. Where everyone else is bleating "umm, like wot we's got these units for sale" you have "Locally made and cared for". I guarantee that'll get you a decent CTR (click through rate) - since your customers already like this aspect of your business, it's fair to say others will too. Make sure your landing page speaks directly to those people who are most likely to buy and make sure that you have a newsletter for them before they go. The things in your newsletter can also be used on Facebook to interact.

Advertising in magazines - you can use the information you've learned from Adwords to feed back into printed media for improvements in performance that are otherwise impossible to track. Bear in mind you've had success with magazines first - so use that to fuel your Adwords campaign!! It's a little backward to the way I do things, but you've got results, so use them!

You can also target those magazines online using the Google Display network. I've got a PDF coming out soon, it should have been finished but I was buying houses in Germany and it's a lot harder than I anticipated.

Sorry I have not posted been in meetings all day.

I brought up all the responses to the group and we appreciate everyone's feedback, I found everyone had valid points and recommendations.

Thank you all very much.