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Starting a blog related to my target market ?

Marketing, social media, advertising

Fpm9

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Hey everyone,

My product is a health supplement, and while I think it could be used by a wider population, I am targeting mostly :
- College students
- Young professionals ( under 30 )

I started a blog on my business website and I am writing articles about health supplements, why some ingredients are good for you, why some alternative products to my supplements might be inefficient...

A couple years ago I had a blog I made for fun, where I wrote articles about college life, including things like how to get cheaper textbooks, study tips but also some comedy articles. I stopped writing on this blog because I got busy with school.

I had the idea of recreating this blog and use it to promote and redirect traffic to my website. I was thinking of having those two different blogs :
- The one on my business website with serious articles about nutrition
- A more "casual" and entertaining with a different name, so it doesn't affect my business image.

I enjoy writing this kind of articles, so I don't mind spending time doing it, but I wonder if this is a good idea. Thoughts ?
 
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lowtek

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I argue it's not a great idea.

1) Market is swamped with similar content from other sites with way more juice
2) It will take quite some time for your blog to climb in the rankings, even if you're doing a proper SEO campaign
3) Double the effort with two separate blogs, for only 1x the payout
4) Every n00b is doing this, hence you're going to be lost in the noise.

the much better option, by far, is to run some Facebook ads and see what sort of demand there is for your supplement.

How many sales do you have so far?

If you don't have any sales yet, why not try to sell it in person? If you can't convince someone face to face to buy it, what makes you think you can sell it online?

Finally, what makes your product special? Why is it different than the other 10,000 seemingly identical products? Why would a consumer buy your brand, rather than the same supplement from an established brand?

** edited for typos **
 

Joe Cassandra

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If you really want to stick out, pick one supplement and build a blog around that.

Make sure if you're doing a blog that it leads to something...i.e... a sale. I spent years building content and had nothing to sell. Terrible idea.

Find the product you want to sell now...then focus content around that supplement. Not meaning every post is pitching the supplement

For example:
- Pick a weightlifting supplement
- Write about weight lifters health / diet / sleep schedule etc.
- All focused on weightlifting so your product is an obvious choice

That's how you stand out in a crowded marketplace.
 

lowtek

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If you really want to stick out, pick one supplement and build a blog around that.

Make sure if you're doing a blog that it leads to something...i.e... a sale. I spent years building content and had nothing to sell. Terrible idea.

Find the product you want to sell now...then focus content around that supplement. Not meaning every post is pitching the supplement

For example:
- Pick a weightlifting supplement
- Write about weight lifters health / diet / sleep schedule etc.
- All focused on weightlifting so your product is an obvious choice

That's how you stand out in a crowded marketplace.


How is that supposed to compete with Omar Isuf, or Chris Jones, or Tiger Fitness, or 5% nutrition? Or any of the dozen YouTubers who LIVE the lifestyle and have created their own supplement lines?

Going to have to respectfully disagree here. Writing a blog about fitness isn't going to cut it in the era of YouTube. It may have worked 15 years ago, but now the market is super saturated and there are far too many good business people with the physiques to back up the claims of their supplements working.

Just buy the traffic and gauge demand. It would take months to get any traction with blogs, and you don't want to spend that long to find out there's no demand for the 10,000th copy of some type of supplement.
 
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Fpm9

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Thank you for your help!

I argue it's not a great idea.

1) Market is swamped with similar content from other sites with way more juice
2) It will take quite some time for your blog to climb in the rankings, even if you're doing a proper SEO campaign
3) Double the effort with two separate blogs, for only 1x the payout
4) Every n00b is doing this, hence you're going to be lost in the noise.

the much better option, by far, is to run some Facebook ads and see what sort of demand there is for your supplement.

How many sales do you have so far?

If you don't have any sales yet, why not try to sell it in person? If you can't convince someone face to face to buy it, what makes you think you can sell it online?

Finally, what makes your product special? Why is it different than the other 10,000 seemingly identical products? Why would a consumer buy your brand, rather than the same supplement from an established brand?

** edited for typos **

I have 0 sales and no product to sell. I had this idea for a long time, since I realized I could solve a problem. I was once talking to a friend who said something like "Oh that sucks that I have to... ", and I had a solution I used to solve this exact problem that I could develop into a product. But I was too busy focusing on my slowlane career to work on this project.

I recently started working on it, and I am currently trying to find the right formula for my supplement. Because I have a lot of free time until the end of the month I started a website and a blog.

I believe my product idea is different from other supplements because :
  1. Some of them are extremely under-dosed and ineffective
  2. Some of them works, but are not convenient to use and contains some useless ingredients and sugar
  3. I know some good alternatives but they don't exist in my country


If you really want to stick out, pick one supplement and build a blog around that.

Make sure if you're doing a blog that it leads to something...i.e... a sale. I spent years building content and had nothing to sell. Terrible idea.

Find the product you want to sell now...then focus content around that supplement. Not meaning every post is pitching the supplement

For example:
- Pick a weightlifting supplement
- Write about weight lifters health / diet / sleep schedule etc.
- All focused on weightlifting so your product is an obvious choice

That's how you stand out in a crowded marketplace.

I picked one supplement, but my problem is that my target market is too wide and diverse. Do you suggest I focus on only one part of this target market ( college students ) ?
My blog posts and future ideas are about the ingredients I plan on using in my product, or about discussing alternatives to this product. I had this idea of a second blog so I could focus only on students. I already have articles and content stored on my laptop so I wouldn't invest much time into this blog.

How is that supposed to compete with Omar Isuf, or Chris Jones, or Tiger Fitness, or 5% nutrition? Or any of the dozen YouTubers who LIVE the lifestyle and have created their own supplement lines?

Going to have to respectfully disagree here. Writing a blog about fitness isn't going to cut it in the era of YouTube. It may have worked 15 years ago, but now the market is super saturated and there are far too many good business people with the physiques to back up the claims of their supplements working.

Just buy the traffic and gauge demand. It would take months to get any traction with blogs, and you don't want to spend that long to find out there's no demand for the 10,000th copy of some type of supplement.

So you think it is not worth it spending time into writing blog posts ? Even one hour a week ?
 

lowtek

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Thank you for your help!



I have 0 sales and no product to sell. I had this idea for a long time, since I realized I could solve a problem. I was once talking to a friend who said something like "Oh that sucks that I have to... ", and I had a solution I used to solve this exact problem that I could develop into a product. But I was too busy focusing on my slowlane career to work on this project.

I recently started working on it, and I am currently trying to find the right formula for my supplement. Because I have a lot of free time until the end of the month I started a website and a blog.

I believe my product idea is different from other supplements because :
  1. Some of them are extremely under-dosed and ineffective
  2. Some of them works, but are not convenient to use and contains some useless ingredients and sugar
  3. I know some good alternatives but they don't exist in my country

I picked one supplement, but my problem is that my target market is too wide and diverse. Do you suggest I focus on only one part of this target market ( college students ) ?
My blog posts and future ideas are about the ingredients I plan on using in my product, or about discussing alternatives to this product. I had this idea of a second blog so I could focus only on students. I already have articles and content stored on my laptop so I wouldn't invest much time into this blog.

So you think it is not worth it spending time into writing blog posts ? Even one hour a week ?

No, I think it's a huge mistake and will just waste your life.

Pay a little coin for some ads, throw up a good landing page and see what's up. Let people know the product is coming soon, and collect their email address. If you can't get an email address, then you certainly can't get a credit card number.

You'll thank me later.

Also, your point about "useless ingredients" doesn't make much sense. Useless ingredients aren't free, and therefore reduce profit margin. If they serve no function, why would the business owner sacrifice margin for something that provides no benefit to him or the customer? Makes no sense.

You may not understand their function, and they may very well not be active ingredients, but they certainly serve some purpose.
 

Fpm9

Bronze Contributor
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Jul 27, 2017
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Paris
No, I think it's a huge mistake and will just waste your life.

Pay a little coin for some ads, throw up a good landing page and see what's up. Let people know the product is coming soon, and collect their email address. If you can't get an email address, then you certainly can't get a credit card number.

You'll thank me later.

Also, your point about "useless ingredients" doesn't make much sense. Useless ingredients aren't free, and therefore reduce profit margin. If they serve no function, why would the business owner sacrifice margin for something that provides no benefit to him or the customer? Makes no sense.

You may not understand their function, and they may very well not be active ingredients, but they certainly serve some purpose.

Thank you, that makes sense. I'm gonna work in this page, getting email addresses would be a good start.

I wasn't clear when I said "useless". They provide no benefits to the customer, but they are used as a marketing ingredient.

For example, in the fitness industry many preworkout contains high doses of creatine monohydrate. It is better to take a few smaller doses of creatine during the day, and taking some before a workout can cause hypoglycemia.

Some lifters are aware of this and avoid preworkout containing creatine monohydrate, but many others think that creatine is a powerful muscle building ingredient, and taking some right before a workout will improve their gains.
 
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