My Journey To A $100M eCommerce Empire

[Envision]

Hey guys, here's an update.

General - I've got my first 3 sales. Was pretty cool seeing on my Shopify Orders the locations: Florida, Puerto Rico, and Utah. All from Influencer Instagram Marketing.

Remember, this is a monthly supply product where my plan is to get them to buy a monthly supply pack. And then afterwards, I get them to come back to sign up to a monthly subscription for recurring revenue.

Operations - Everything is set up on the supply chain side. Now, it's just me doing the marketing.

Marketing - I've attempted influencer marketing, but honestly the "individual influencers" on these influencer platforms are very expensive for a start up budget. Someone even charged me $600 for 1 post to his 106K followers (Keep in mind, only 1%-3% of those would engage/see with the post).

Instead, I've been choosing "general page influencers" (eg. a page that isn't an individual person, but a fan page for example like a bodybuilding page dedicated to Arnold S.).

Anyways, they haven't been so great.

I've invested $100 and only for 3 sales.

It's great that I have my first 3 sales, but I don't think a customer-acquistion-cost of $33.33 is good for a product that I net $15 profit on. I still need to count on them coming back to use the product again on a monthly basis, but a $33 customer acquisition cost implies I need them to buy at least 2-3 times again for me to get my marketing dollars back.

So I'll give Instagram influencer marketing one more go.. BUT I'm ALSO going to do Facebook Marketing again.

Also, I'm going to look into PPC marketing as well.

New Potential Biz Partner - I know a guy who runs his own successful social media/digital marketing service and he is also passionate about the same niche of my product. He is interested in hearing more to work with me on something in our niche and I wouldn't mind giving him a share of my business to go in this with him. Given he has the knowledge/passion for the niche and he's a digital marketing guy.

My product is the first of it's kind in the world and requires a savvy marketing execution to really make it go big.

He has made products go viral on Facebook before too.

This guy is based in Europe, while I'm based in Australia currently (Back to North America at the end of this year).

We could work well together, going to hear his feedback on being open to get on board as Im confident he is in.

---

Conclusion

I feel a bit STUCK with Instagram Influencer Marketing due to it being expensive, full of lots of fake bots/followers on the cheaper general pages that I'm forced to work with due to affordability, etc.

Thus, I'll give Google PPC and Facebook Advertising a go.

All about testing right now to see what funnel works best to get my first 1,000 satisfied customers!

Hopefully, this potential new biz partner gets onboard and does his marketing magic as he's quite experienced/passionate about my product + niche.

Well, like I said two posts above, influence marketing a brand that doesn't exist is not going to work on Instagram in 2018. This is coming from someone with a multi million follower network on Instagram.

Sure, other brands may have done it, like you referenced above - but that was when the algorithm was different and influencer marketing was just getting started. And for a benchmark I pay roughly $350/mo for multiple posts from guys with 500k followers.

If you want to be successful with your brand using a reoccurring revenue model you need to build a funnel with 2 upsells and you need to drive POSITIVE ROI traffic from Facebook and Google. That's literally your business model man, don't send them to a store or a 3rd party. send them through a funnel... you can use Clickfunnels to do this. What I just stated isn't hard to do, it's actually been done over and over but you need to figure out how fast you can generate ads that convert before you run out of money - that's the challenge in what you're trying to do.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Hi Fastlane,

I've decided to venture into the world of eCommerce.

I don't want to simply be another drop shipper, rather I want to build an empire with a brand.

There's been tons of success stories in the world of eCommerce and I will be one of them.

In this thread, I will update you on my progress all the way from laying the very first brick.

I also find this very motivating as it helps me track my progress and I can get all of your insights and advice on how I can improve what I'm doing.

---

Over the past 2 weeks, I have done the following:

- Spoken to lots of eCommmerce experienced people

- Consumed tons and tons of online content regarding eCommerce, drop shipping, and online marketing (FB, IG, Content, Affiliate, etc)

- And most IMPORTANTLY, I've executed into creating 2 landing pages for 2 different products + I've just recently done a Facebook ad for 1 of the products to test it's demand

Currently, I'm a stage where I am focusing on finding the next big product. My goal is to rapid-test products via quick landing pages + quick targeted ads ($5/day marketing spend).

Once I find the winning product that generates the most leads (I ask people to provide their email on the landing page and that I'll send them the purchase link), then I will quickly throw up a Shopify store, get a drop shipping supplier deal, and start drop shipping the product. Once the drop shipping gets me enough revenue to prove the concept, I will then buy Wholesale and SCALE. After that, I will begin to add product after product, ultimately building my brand and store.

However, it all starts from the first brick where I will be testing these products.

My CURRENT product test via a FB ad connecting to a product landing page has generated 6 leads within 24 hours ($5 spent, thus $0.83 per lead so far).

This Ad and Landing Page basically tell the potential lead "Sign up with your email and we will send you a 50% off discount voucher and purchase link for the product". So it seems these 6 leads have expressed buyer's intent.

I will continue to test this product over the next 8 days and then assess if I want to create a Shopify store for it.

At the same time, I may test more products.

1) Product Test via Landing Pages + FB Ads (CURRENT)

2) Pick Best Performing Product (In 1-2 weeks)

3) Dropship via Shopify + Supplier (In 1-2 weeks)

4) Scale afterwards into Wholesale (Once $10,000 revenue target is hit)

---

Please let me know your thoughts and any advice as I am open. Most importantly, I'm happy that I'm executing and sharing the progress with you.

 

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[Envision]

Hey @Envision would you mind sharing some lessons learned in finding effective influencers than bring a positive ROI? I do agree with your statement that influencer marketing isn’t the same now as it was several years ago, but still would like to hear about the process you went through in negotiating, firing, and keeping the good influencers with real results vs fakes. Any other benchmarks metrics would be great as well, such as how much you expect to make from those $350 p/month per influencer.




Do you mind sharing what you mean by funnel vs store vs 3rd party? Do you recommend directing people from your FB ads /google ads to landing pages/online store? If not, how is that different than a funnel? What kind of funnel are you building? Is it pure email?

Thanks for sharing with us, I am finding this extremely valuable in helping me plan.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Sure,

For your first point, influencers don't come before the brand. You need to establish something that attracts people to your product, a brand... You build the brand, the influencers resonate with the brand and in turn promote the products. The op is viewing it in a backwards perspective and you'll go broke trying that method.

I spent a couple years building a brand with a paid traffic source, then once I had disposable income to invest into other marketing strategies I reached out to influencers (some being my friends by this point) to rep my products and brand and the gladly do so. I also recommend creating premium products with the influencers as their own signature line to tie them into your brand.

The comment above covers my second point, when you send traffic to an online store, like jcrew or some other apparel store you are going to confuse the customer, lose the customer, kill your conversion. You can't afford to lose the customers attention so in a product market like the op's you build a funnel, reference russell brunson and ezra firestone for more info but basically this looks like:

Cold Traffic > Free Offer (google/fb ad) > Funnel Entry (Landing Page) > Add to cart >Upsell 1 (get 2 for x)> upsell 2 (get x for limited time only right now) >checkout.

With a reoccuring revenue model this scales quickly and the upsells are where you make your money. You'll go broke sending cold traffic to a store. I dont recommend using 3rd parties when you're starting out because you need to be intimately involved with every level of your business so you know it inside and out. Once it scales, outsource/hire.

 

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[Envision]

You need a paid advertising model. influencer marketing and clickbank arent those. You'll run negative with little branding on the influencers especially cause the influencers you're paying are on a platform built for them to whore out products to their following and their followers being used to getting pushed bs.

-Whats your profit margin on your product?
-Why are you paying a fulfillment service when you don't have consistent sales? You should fulfill the products yourself.
-Have you looked into selling on amazon that would be your best bet to getting in front of massive amounts of traffic on a low budget.
- Note, you will have to pay capital gains taxes on the profit from your cryptocurrency.

Is your business wholesale or subscription? It doesn't work both ways when you're starting out, either you're going for mass distribution or you're going for niche consumer who's into your brand and willing to subscribe.

 

[GetShitDone]

Hey guys! Long time since I updated since I've been focused on progress. Here is a BIG update:

I'm at a stage where I've launched my website, social media (and filled with 9 HQ image), got suppliers, got a fulfilment centre ready, and testing my marketing strategies.

Marketing - As mentioned before, I'm going to use Influencer Marketing (Instagram/Blogs/Youtube) to promote my product. Right now, I have 2 influencers with 75K followers combined who will promote my product tomorrow via an IG post I gave them. Additionally, I have a couple other influencers and I'm sourcing new high quality influencers in the Fitness and Men's Grooming niches via Ninja Outreach (an influencer platform).

I'm taking advantage of "free trials" provided by these influencer platforms to find influencers, put them in a list, and blast them my offer.

I am focusing on 2 methods of influencer marketing: commission-only (affiliate style) and flat fee.

Initially for my TESTS that I'm doing to gauge market demand before I buy thousands of dollars of inventory... I will be doing flat-fee model (Traditional) to get influencers to promote me. Just paid $30 and $20 for permanent posts from the IG influencers mentioned above who will post for me tomorrow.

At the SAME time, I'm using Refersion (Affiliate marketing tool) and ClickBank (affiliate-finding platform) to do the COMMISSION-ONLY end of things aka my Affiliate Marketing wing. At the same time, I will MERGE this Affiliate Marketing with Influencer Marketing by blasting an "affiliate offer" with my affiliate landing page sign up to the list of Influencers I find on Influencer Platforms.

I am going to send them my PRODUCT for free ($10 cost to me) and offer a 50% commission (do-able commission for my margins) to review my product and drive sales.

Long story short: Testing with "flat-fee" influencers now to gauge market demand before big investment. Then I'll create an affiliate army of influencers who will be paid 50% commission and sent a free product for review.

Website/Social Media - I've launched a website via Shopify (made it within 2 hours and tweaked it after). Looking good. My Instagram has also been launched with 9 HQ photos and I also used Buzzoid to send me likes and followers to look established initially before I do the marketing. I now have around 1,000 followers and 100+ likes on each of my 9 photos. DISCLAIMER: These are all "real profiles" and not fake accounts, just foreign accounts of people overseas likely making money from doing this. Regardless, this established social proof should help when traffic is driven to my Instagram from influencers and also provide social proof to influencers. Gives me a base to work from for my legitimate traffic.

RE my website, I have a how it works, product page, about us page, contact us page, affiliate/referral page, etc. Shopping cart + shipping aspects all work perfectly. Shopify is a god-send. Going to add Shopify apps in the future to optimise and improve the website. For now, I'm just focused on launching.

Suppliers - I've tested the supply of my 2 suppliers and it's good. I also have a packaging company that has provided awesome pricing compared to others which I'll use too.

Fulfilment Centre (Logistics) - I have a fulfilment centre (ShipBob) who is going to automate my entire fulfilment end of things. They'll receive the supply, provide storage, pick/pack, and ship for me. I also take advantage of their discounted shipping rates (due to their level of volume they provide courier companies).


NEXT STEPS:

MARKETING TESTS - This week, I'm going to execute my first major marketing testing of where everything is set up from a "front-end" point of view (website/social media) and I will get Influencers (Instagram mainly) to post about my product via flat-fee payments. I want to get ACTUAL CONFIRMED BUYERS from these tests before I throw down thousands of dollars on Wholesale (see next)

WHOLESALE PURCHASE - My wholesale purchase price (inc packaging/shipping) $5/unit. I can order a minimum of 250... meaning my minimum wholesale investment is $1,250. I will likely do this. I am considering 500 units ($2,500 which I can sell for $10,000 of revenue at a $20 price point). It will depend on my budget (See next)

FUNDING - I did calculations and if I ordered 250, my total costs (inc marketing, wholesale, etc) would be $2,000 for my FIRST batch of product. I can obtain this $2,000 from selling my existing Cryptocurrencies that are in profit. I already have around $15,000 invested in Cryptocurrencies, therefore I can liquidate from that. Later in the future, (since I have experience with raising angel investment capital for my previous start up) I will raise money from an investor to scale massively.. but that's down the track.

For now, I will source $2,000 via selling my Crypto and invest it into my business. I have already spent $500 in total. Equating to a $2,500 total start up cost.

From there, I'll sell and re-invest all profits back into the business to pump into Marketing and Wholesale.

My business model is a subscription-model where the customer can buy a monthly supply of my product each month.

---

Overall, I'm looking to leverage off existing networks (affiliates and influencers) to drive traffic, fulfilment centres (to automate fulfilment), and buying my first wholesale batch.

First thing's first: This week is all about testing with Influencer Marketing to get CONFIRMED BUYERS before I order en masse.

Once I get a good amount of CONFIRMED BUYERS from this week's tests, I will go all-in with capital investment (wholesale + marketing) next week.

 

[GetShitDone]

Well, like I said two posts above, influence marketing a brand that doesn't exist is not going to work on Instagram in 2018. This is coming from someone with a multi million follower network on Instagram.

Sure, other brands may have done it, like you referenced above - but that was when the algorithm was different and influencer marketing was just getting started. And for a benchmark I pay roughly $350/mo for multiple posts from guys with 500k followers.

If you want to be successful with your brand using a reoccurring revenue model you need to build a funnel with 2 upsells and you need to drive POSITIVE ROI traffic from Facebook and Google. That's literally your business model man, don't send them to a store or a 3rd party. send them through a funnel... you can use Clickfunnels to do this. What I just stated isn't hard to do, it's actually been done over and over but you need to figure out how fast you can generate ads that convert before you run out of money - that's the challenge in what you're trying to do.

I understand exactly what you mean now, thanks Envision for the advice for both before and after I learnt the hard way.

I just researched Dot Com Secrets by Russell Brunson for the past couple hours.

The funnel seems perfect and I believe I now know what you mean about the funnel from paid traffic.

Here's a sales funnel I thought of based on Dot Com Secrets method and what Envision was saying:

1) Paid Traffic - Advertise to my target market on Facebook/Instagram/Youtube/Google

2) Freebie - Advertise to them a "free report" in exchange for their email (And plug my product's benefits at the end and also plug in a "sample product", see next).

3) Sample Product - Send them a free monthly supply product + shipping (Only cost to me would be $4 unit cost). Hell, I can even give a 1-2 week sample which would only cost me $1-$2!

4) Full Product/Subscription - Then follow up to get them to buy my entire product ($20 + shipping) OR an option for a sweeter deal to go into Subscription ($20/mo + free shipping).

*The goal for me is to get them on the Subscription for recurring revenue, so I will continue to follow up with them to join the Subscription if they choose to just do a one-off purchase in step 3.

*Given I only have 1 product currently in my Shopify Store, I can't upsell another product to them just yet.

*This funnel seems great as the only thing that contributes to my CAC is the free sample's unit cost ($1-$4) and the marketing cost of advertising my free report to them.

*The funnel also makes sense, because I climb up the "Value Ladder" each step of the way (AKA adding value every step of the way before the big finale of getting them on a Subscription)

Then, in the future I can repeat a similar funnel for all my future products/services.

Let me know your thoughts please.

 

[Envision]

I understand exactly what you mean now, thanks Envision for the advice for both before and after I learnt the hard way.

I just researched Dot Com Secrets by Russell Brunson for the past couple hours.

The funnel seems perfect and I believe I now know what you mean about the funnel from paid traffic.

Here's a sales funnel I thought of based on Dot Com Secrets method and what Envision was saying:

1) Paid Traffic - Advertise to my target market on Facebook/Instagram/Youtube/Google

2) Freebie - Advertise to them a "free report" in exchange for their email (And plug my product's benefits at the end and also plug in a "sample product", see next).

3) Sample Product - Send them a free monthly supply product + shipping (Only cost to me would be $4 unit cost). Hell, I can even give a 1-2 week sample which would only cost me $1-$2!

4) Full Product/Subscription - Then follow up to get them to buy my entire product ($20 + shipping) OR an option for a sweeter deal to go into Subscription ($20/mo + free shipping).

*The goal for me is to get them on the Subscription for recurring revenue, so I will continue to follow up with them to join the Subscription if they choose to just do a one-off purchase in step 3.

*Given I only have 1 product currently in my Shopify Store, I can't upsell another product to them just yet.

*This funnel seems great as the only thing that contributes to my CAC is the free sample's unit cost ($1-$4) and the marketing cost of advertising my free report to them.

*The funnel also makes sense, because I climb up the "Value Ladder" each step of the way (AKA adding value every step of the way before the big finale of getting them on a Subscription)

Then, in the future I can repeat a similar funnel for all my future products/services.

Let me know your thoughts please.

Exactly, now you're getting it. I was going to do this business with beard products a long time ago and use a funnel. Russell's office is down the street from my house and I have quite a few friends that work at Clickfunnels so I am not going to lie when I say im biased towards using them but their product speaks for itself.

Yes, I would scratch the store if you only have one product and the funnel would be perfect for this. The report could work but instead I'd give them a free month supply as long as they cover shipping and then you bake the cost of the product into the shipping cost. The week sample would also work and then you have them charged after the first 7 days and then the reoccuring every 30 after that.

-You CAN upsell with just one product, you just give them more of that one product at a discount... "GET 2 MORE FOR ONLY X"

-I'd focus on Just Facebook primarily and Google, work on building a Facebook fan page that you can run giveaways, trials, etc on that is good for branding.

Look up Russell Brunson's supplement funnel video, it's exactly what you need to do, he just did it with one supplement. I'll see if I can find it, here's one of the BTS videos, its okay but there is one video that's incredible he tells you everything.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyVrbmLl1ww

 

[GetShitDone]

Update: I've been researching the heck out of ClickFunnels + Dot Com Secrets. Even got the Dot Com Secrets e-book yesterday.

The thesis is to basically offer something free (recoup cost from shipping cost) --> upsell to recoup ad spend cost --> make them pay for continuity program (subscription) related to the freebie --> upsell again for more revenue --> rinse and repeat for new products and services.

This drives more traffic (as you have more revenue to re-invest), recoups your ad cost immediately, skyrockets conversions, increases revenues from UpSells, and allows you to do it over and over again with new products/services.

Here's what I think is my decided funnel plan below, but please read my intentions in the * below:

*My customer is either skeptical or curious about my product (as its a first of it's kind in the fitness industry), so a freebie 7 day sample will relieve all that (My cost is recouped from the shipping cost they pay)

*I want to MAKE BACK my ad-spend ASAP on acquiring the traffic that I send to my landing page for the "Freebie" Offer. I prefer to make it back right away, as every dollar after that which I make from the monthly subscription after is free money.

Here is a funnel I've decided on that fits the above.

0) Landing Page - Customer lands on ClickFunnels landing page from a paid traffic ad offering the freebie below

1) Freebie Offer - 7 day free sample + shipping cost they pay.

2) Immediate UpSell - The next page is an UpSell of a "Info Report" that will pique their interest and I will sell it for $20. I am estimating 20% of the Freebie Buyers will take me up on this offer (Just an estimate for now). This will be responsible for making back my ad spend of driving the traffic to the page in the first place.

3) 7 Day Follow Up - I follow up 7 days later to send them to a Monthly Subscription Landing Page

4) Monthly Subscription Offer - They sign up for the $20/mo subscription and it's all "free money" from there on out (Because my Ad Spend/CAC has already been recovered thanks to the sufficient amount of customers who bought the $20 "Info Report" as seen in Step 2 above.)

5) Immediate UpSell - I can either sell a 2nd new product here OR give them the option to pay an annual payment for the subscription at a discount (e.g. 50% off for 1 year upfront)

6) Age and Ascend the Buyer Relationship - Grow the Customer Lifetime Value further by adding new products/services in more funnels to put these "red-hot customers" in for the future.

*Note: My FB ad's CPC was $0.15 for 70 clicks. My Instagram Influencer Marketing CPC was $0.13 for 1,000 clicks. I am assuming a $0.15 CPC for my next paid traffic ad in this funnel's case and I want to make my money back for every 1,000 visitors, which would cost $150 to bring in (Based on the $0.15 CPC).

That means in order to make back the $150 ad spend in the first funnel, I need just 8 people to buy the Info Report in Step 2. After that for the second funnel, the monthly subscription revenue is free revenue. All future revenue after that is free as well when I do more funnels.

Please let me know your thoughts as I am going to create a ClickFunnels landing page and funnel this weekend with their free trial!

PS: On Shopify, my conversion rate was 0.5% on 1,000 visitors for a basic shopify website and basic shopify ecommerce offer. Hopefully with the above funnel and ClickFunnels, I can 4X that.

 

[GSF]

Hi Fastlane,

I've decided to venture into the world of eCommerce.

I don't want to simply be another drop shipper, rather I want to build an empire with a brand.

There's been tons of success stories in the world of eCommerce and I will be one of them.

In this thread, I will update you on my progress all the way from laying the very first brick.

I also find this very motivating as it helps me track my progress and I can get all of your insights and advice on how I can improve what I'm doing.

---

Over the past 2 weeks, I have done the following:

- Spoken to lots of eCommmerce experienced people

- Consumed tons and tons of online content regarding eCommerce, drop shipping, and online marketing (FB, IG, Content, Affiliate, etc)

- And most IMPORTANTLY, I've executed into creating 2 landing pages for 2 different products + I've just recently done a Facebook ad for 1 of the products to test it's demand

Currently, I'm a stage where I am focusing on finding the next big product. My goal is to rapid-test products via quick landing pages + quick targeted ads ($5/day marketing spend).

Once I find the winning product that generates the most leads (I ask people to provide their email on the landing page and that I'll send them the purchase link), then I will quickly throw up a Shopify store, get a drop shipping supplier deal, and start drop shipping the product. Once the drop shipping gets me enough revenue to prove the concept, I will then buy Wholesale and SCALE. After that, I will begin to add product after product, ultimately building my brand and store.

However, it all starts from the first brick where I will be testing these products.

My CURRENT product test via a FB ad connecting to a product landing page has generated 6 leads within 24 hours ($5 spent, thus $0.83 per lead so far).

This Ad and Landing Page basically tell the potential lead "Sign up with your email and we will send you a 50% off discount voucher and purchase link for the product". So it seems these 6 leads have expressed buyer's intent.

I will continue to test this product over the next 8 days and then assess if I want to create a Shopify store for it.

At the same time, I may test more products.

1) Product Test via Landing Pages + FB Ads (CURRENT)

2) Pick Best Performing Product (In 1-2 weeks)

3) Dropship via Shopify + Supplier (In 1-2 weeks)

4) Scale afterwards into Wholesale (Once $10,000 revenue target is hit)

---

Please let me know your thoughts and any advice as I am open. Most importantly, I'm happy that I'm executing and sharing the progress with you.

Timely thread as im moving away from dropshipping and testing a new product Im manufacturing myself. Can I ask what you're using for the landing pages?

 

[Jbat]

Good job taking action.
Where's the vendor? Are you importing? Why dropship vs taking control and ordering a small sample to test the quality and market for the products?
I got most of these ideas from ecom man's thread which may be of further value to you:
GOLD! - [AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

 

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[GetShitDone]

$5/day ads still work? I remember that being all the rage back in 2015/6 - surprised you can still get valuable data from $5/day.

I gave it a try, I'm just using it to get leads and its working so far. Maybe my product seems to be selling itself since it's quite unique. Perhaps $5/day doesn't work for the standard dropshipping model of every day products? Not sure.

Good job taking action.
Where's the vendor? Are you importing? Why dropship vs taking control and ordering a small sample to test the quality and market for the products?
I got most of these ideas from ecom man's thread which may be of further value to you:
GOLD! - [AMA] Importing & wholesaling for resale on eBay.

Thanks mate! The vendors are in Greece. The actual product is sourced from there too locally. So I'll have to speak to some vendors once I have my Shopify website up (social proof) etc.

I'm going to drop ship first and get sales (prove the concept), then import/wholesale for the bigger margin and scale it.

I'll look into getting a small sample ordered.. Something like 10 units you think?

 

[GetShitDone]

Timely thread as im moving away from dropshipping and testing a new product Im manufacturing myself. Can I ask what you're using for the landing pages?

Nice! My goal is to build an actual brand that wholesales/manufactures and not just drop ship in the typical manner.

The landing page software is LeadPages. I've also used InstaPage before. I suggest LeadPages as its best. Takes me 30-60 min max to create the landing pages.

 

[GetShitDone]

Latest Update! (Segmented below)

MARKETING

Facebook - After the Facebook unpublishing my page issue, I spoke to support and researched. Long story short, my ads didn't follow their ad policy. In the future, I will make compliant ads. I am now making a new Facebook page and will make compliant ads in the future for both Facebook and Instagram.

Twitter - I created a test business account with a generic name and responded to tweets/DM'd people who tweeted about the PROBLEM that my Product SOLVES. (You can do this by searching for tweets globally in the search bar). I contacted 50+ people. One of them was a famous guy with 300K+ followers. Needless to say, he messaged me and said he just "trademarked and registered the domain" of my new business Twitter Account's name. I wasn't going to use this name, but I still found it interesting.

Instagram - I'm learning the powerful strategy of Influencer Marketing. I am going to target micro influencers in 1 specific city that I believe is the most targeted for me. Saturate it with the influencer marketing campaign, get PR, and spread like wildfire. I am targeting California to be exact.

TEST Phase - However, I will test sell 150 boxes in my current city of Sydney, Australia initially.

Website - I am making a Shopify store shortly to have social proof for suppliers, influencers, etc.


SUPPLIERS

I am currently talking to around 5 suppliers who supply this product. One has replied with a good wholesale pricing program.

I may negotiate to lower it more.

The issue? I want them to private label my products, BUT they say they want a "large order" to do this extra bit. I understand, but I don't know what they mean by large order so I asked them. In the meantime, I will order their minimum amount (150 boxes) and manually package my label on the boxes myself... and sell them in my "Test campaign" in my city of Sydney, Australia. If they sell, perfect. I will then enter the L.A market as I want to sell to the U.S as its a much larger market.

My product is the first of it's kind and solves a problem that lots of people want. In fact, a lot of you would probably want this problem solved. Whether you'd buy the product or not depends on you. But I know my product is the first of it's kind and solves a general want of the population.

Simply put: I will test campaign 160 boxes (That I package myself manually) to my home city (Sydney, Australia)... and then after that I will sell to the California market (to enter the massive US market) once I've proven the concept and processes.


QUESTIONS

1) TRADEMARK/PATENT - What is your opinion on me getting a Trademark or Patent at this early stage? (I know this may sound optimistic, but I am confident that my product will be copied if it is successful and gains exposure/traction)

2) SUPPLIER NEGOTIATION - Any advice on negotiating with Suppliers to lower wholesale cost is appreciated. Thoughts?

3) PACKAGING - Brand is everything to me. If anyone has any advice on private labeling/branding your products, let me know

4) TESTING - Let me know if there's any other testing channels or methods you guys use please. I don't want to be stuck on testing too long, but I am confident this product will sell with Influencer Marketing. It is also very "news-worthy" which will gain PR.

5) COSTS - This is more just an overview of my expected expenses for my beta launch. If you have any advice/opinion, let me know.

My first batch of Wholesale Orders will be $1,200 USD + shipping to Sydney.

Also, I will pay for a Fiverr design, packaging labels for the initial boxes, Shopify, domain/hosting costs, and initial influencer + social media marketing.

All up, I estimate around $2,000 will be spent for this test campaign of my beta launch in Sydney. If it works, I'm going to raise money from my investor network and head for the California market.

---

I'm progressing with getting supplier quotes, learning influencer marketing, crafting my launch strategy, making a website, testing if there's demand, and more!

I need to begin setting goals for each day/week/month.

Looking forward to your thoughts!

 

[PRO2018]

Hey, re supplier negotiation, I wouldn't push pricing too hard with your sample test runs. Generally more volume enables them to offer more discount down the track when you are able to order more. You want them to make a reasonable profit as well, otherwise this will reflect in the level of service they offer you. So I would reserve the harder negotiations for later once you can order more product. Of course, do your due diligence and make sure you are not getting ripped off, but reserve the ace negotiation tactics for later.

Also, always have a back up supplier or a plan B, just in case things go pear shaped. Don't have all your eggs in one basket as the saying goes. But this can sometimes be difficult, as from my experience, I previously wanted to order only from one supplier to get the maximum volume discount, however ordering from two suppliers and splitting the order would have reduced risk, as I'm building a trading relation with 2 suppliers at the same time. I wanted to be meaningful to my supplier by placing a larger order, but also wanted to minimise risk by having another regular supplier. This can be challenging in the initial stages as order volumes are lower. It is just one of those things that has to be managed until you grow where you can place a large order with 2 suppliers at the same time, or stagger them or have a second supplier ready to go in case sh*t hits the fan.

Good to see your progress!

 

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[c4n]

Should I name my website the name of my Product or the name of a Shop that provides the product?

If it's a small niche site I would name it as the product name.

However, if it's part of the

rather I want to build an empire with a brand

vision, I would go for brandname.com/category/product.

 

[GetShitDone]

You need a paid advertising model. influencer marketing and clickbank arent those. You'll run negative with little branding on the influencers especially cause the influencers you're paying are on a platform built for them to whore out products to their following and their followers being used to getting pushed bs.

-Whats your profit margin on your product?
-Why are you paying a fulfillment service when you don't have consistent sales? You should fulfill the products yourself.
-Have you looked into selling on amazon that would be your best bet to getting in front of massive amounts of traffic on a low budget.
- Note, you will have to pay capital gains taxes on the profit from your cryptocurrency.

Is your business wholesale or subscription? It doesn't work both ways when you're starting out, either you're going for mass distribution or you're going for niche consumer who's into your brand and willing to subscribe.

Hey Envision, thanks for the response!

Answers below in bold:

-Whats your profit margin on your product? - 75% (After paying shipping, packaging, and unit cost) aka $15 gross profit per unit (Keep in mind I want them to order it each month).
-Why are you paying a fulfillment service when you don't have consistent sales? You should fulfill the products yourself. - I am using ShipBob which is a "pay-per-play" fulfilment centre that only costs me money every time I make a sale. Therefore, I'm fortunately not paying anything upfront.
-Have you looked into selling on amazon that would be your best bet to getting in front of massive amounts of traffic on a low budget. - Not yet, but in the future I will. I wanted to have my own website/social media/fulfilment centre first and see the sales I generate. From there, I'll get into Amazon as another channel for selling.
- Note, you will have to pay capital gains taxes on the profit from your cryptocurrency. - Noted.

Is your business wholesale or subscription? It doesn't work both ways when you're starting out, either you're going for mass distribution or you're going for niche consumer who's into your brand and willing to subscribe.

I should of explained this better. My business is purely an online retailer that sells a product that I am buying wholesale from my producer. I am not a wholesaler. Currently, I am simply an online retailer that sells 1 product that is a monthly supply product going for a niche (Males aged 18-35 into Fitness/Men's Style).

--

You need a paid advertising model. influencer marketing and clickbank arent those. You'll run negative with little branding on the influencers especially cause the influencers you're paying are on a platform built for them to whore out products to their following and their followers being used to getting pushed bs.

Thanks so much for that insight.

ClickBank does seem pretty crappy from what I've seen.

Influencer Marketing wise, I think it depends on the product and the influencer. I have seen brands go from $0 to $100M/year through purely Instagram Influencer Marketing. I also know brands that have gone from $0 to 7 Figure Revenue from it alone too. It's a big thing for certain products and I think it suits my model well.

There are 3 forms of payment you can do with an Influencer: 1) Free Product 2) Affiliate Commission 3) Flat-Fee (Upfront Payment)

With that said, the most successful at this I've seen have done the above in the following chronological order, starting off with sending a free product as the influencer posts a shout out.

I will get on Ninja Outreach and Scrunch (Influencer Platforms), source micro-influencers (under 50K followers), compile them into a list, blast them the same template message of a "free product offering", and see who comes back to me.

That way, my only cost is $10 of acquiring each influencer (product + shipping) to post free for me. Say I get 10 influencers, my only advertising cost is $100 for large exposure and likely high engagement from micro-influencers.

Nonetheless, (to your point) I am looking for multiple advertising models such as paid-advertising models. I imagine you mean Facebook/Instagram paid ads, PPC, etc?

Once I gain enough revenue, I'll do these too. I'm also going to be getting journalists to write about my product to gain PR

But I feel I need to master and nail the Influencer Marketing aspect down-pat early on of getting Influencers en masse to be my brand ambassadors from a free product and even affiliate commission.

As I've seen so many companies similar to mine do so in the past.

Let me know your suggestions.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Hey guys, here's an update.

General - I've got my first 3 sales. Was pretty cool seeing on my Shopify Orders the locations: Florida, Puerto Rico, and Utah. All from Influencer Instagram Marketing.

Remember, this is a monthly supply product where my plan is to get them to buy a monthly supply pack. And then afterwards, I get them to come back to sign up to a monthly subscription for recurring revenue.

Operations - Everything is set up on the supply chain side. Now, it's just me doing the marketing.

Marketing - I've attempted influencer marketing, but honestly the "individual influencers" on these influencer platforms are very expensive for a start up budget. Someone even charged me $600 for 1 post to his 106K followers (Keep in mind, only 1%-3% of those would engage/see with the post).

Instead, I've been choosing "general page influencers" (eg. a page that isn't an individual person, but a fan page for example like a bodybuilding page dedicated to Arnold S.).

Anyways, they haven't been so great.

I've invested $100 and only for 3 sales.

It's great that I have my first 3 sales, but I don't think a customer-acquistion-cost of $33.33 is good for a product that I net $15 profit on. I still need to count on them coming back to use the product again on a monthly basis, but a $33 customer acquisition cost implies I need them to buy at least 2-3 times again for me to get my marketing dollars back.

So I'll give Instagram influencer marketing one more go.. BUT I'm ALSO going to do Facebook Marketing again.

Also, I'm going to look into PPC marketing as well.

New Potential Biz Partner - I know a guy who runs his own successful social media/digital marketing service and he is also passionate about the same niche of my product. He is interested in hearing more to work with me on something in our niche and I wouldn't mind giving him a share of my business to go in this with him. Given he has the knowledge/passion for the niche and he's a digital marketing guy.

My product is the first of it's kind in the world and requires a savvy marketing execution to really make it go big.

He has made products go viral on Facebook before too.

This guy is based in Europe, while I'm based in Australia currently (Back to North America at the end of this year).

We could work well together, going to hear his feedback on being open to get on board as Im confident he is in.

---

Conclusion

I feel a bit STUCK with Instagram Influencer Marketing due to it being expensive, full of lots of fake bots/followers on the cheaper general pages that I'm forced to work with due to affordability, etc.

Thus, I'll give Google PPC and Facebook Advertising a go.

All about testing right now to see what funnel works best to get my first 1,000 satisfied customers!

Hopefully, this potential new biz partner gets onboard and does his marketing magic as he's quite experienced/passionate about my product + niche.

 

[cjac9chris]

Hey @Envision would you mind sharing some lessons learned in finding effective influencers than bring a positive ROI? I do agree with your statement that influencer marketing isn’t the same now as it was several years ago, but still would like to hear about the process you went through in negotiating, firing, and keeping the good influencers with real results vs fakes. Any other benchmarks metrics would be great as well, such as how much you expect to make from those $350 p/month per influencer.




Do you mind sharing what you mean by funnel vs store vs 3rd party? Do you recommend directing people from your FB ads /google ads to landing pages/online store? If not, how is that different than a funnel? What kind of funnel are you building? Is it pure email?

Thanks for sharing with us, I am finding this extremely valuable in helping me plan.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He’s talking about a sales funnel.

For example, optin -> one time offer -> downsell or upsell depending.

The structure can be whatever works.

If you’re using a paid structure, you need a funnel that recoups your ad cost.

This essentially eliminates your marketing budget when you can spend $1 and make $2. Makes acquiring customers “free.”

I would suggest getting Russell Brunson’s (CEO of ClickFunnels) Dot Com Secrets. He has a Free + shopping for the book. Take notes. It’s a brilliant sales funnel.

For each book they give away, they avg. $238 (I think that’s the number) in revenue.

Unlimited customers.

The only limiting metric is how many books they can convince people to take.

This has allowed CF to scale from $0 to $100M in revenue in a few years.

Does that make sense?


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[CareCPA]

does MJ up sell & downsell random crap ? or give away stuff?

This entire forum.
The forum is free (give away). INSIDERS subscription is an upsell. It's literally the business model for this forum.

 

[jcvlds]

Conclusion - It looks like I have a conversion problem when people get to checkout.. they don't want to pay for the extra cost shipping for the free sample. It should be noted that my product is very small and a similar size to chewing gum/pills.

3) Freebie Advertising - Continue to advertise the freebie after tweaking the landing page (but I'm certain the cost of shipping is a concern to my shopping cart exits)

Let me know your thoughts on my recent ad woes. Win for PPC, loss for Conversion.

Nice job on progress so far and on getting good results so far for your top of the funnel (ie traffic and add to carts)

I think you have a good plan on testing out the full price ads and subscription ads to FB & IG, wait and see how the results fare for that.

As for the freebie advertising, you may want to give this a try and test if it works:
Make it FREE shipping, but instead of advertising it as free, make it a huge discount from your full $20 down to $5.95 that’s a 70% discount. I think the free shipping is a mentality/psychology thing with consumers that they don’t want to pay ‘extra for shipping’.. so if you phrase your offer as it being free shipping but the offer is at 70% discount it may still look like a great deal to them and get them to purchase.

Same pricing, just phrasing it differently to them. Let me know what you think.




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[poseidn]

$5/day ads still work? I remember that being all the rage back in 2015/6 - surprised you can still get valuable data from $5/day.

 

[Jbat]

I gave it a try, I'm just using it to get leads and its working so far. Maybe my product seems to be selling itself since it's quite unique. Perhaps $5/day doesn't work for the standard dropshipping model of every day products? Not sure.



Thanks mate! The vendors are in Greece. The actual product is sourced from there too locally. So I'll have to speak to some vendors once I have my Shopify website up (social proof) etc.

I'm going to drop ship first and get sales (prove the concept), then import/wholesale for the bigger margin and scale it.

I'll look into getting a small sample ordered.. Something like 10 units you think?

It depends on the price and size per item and what is cost effective I'd say a sample of 5 -20 depending on these factors.

 

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[GetShitDone]

There's obviously people way more experienced with fb ads here, but after lurking on a fb ads group for awhile I saw many people with fitness related ads have problems, sometimes it's just one word causing the issue.

Any reason you are using shopify over woocommerce? Shopify is less customisable and gets expensive when u need to add features. I've heard of people that validate an idea with shopify then jump over to woocommerce.

Thanks so much for your post Matt.

It makes a lot of sense that fitness products have issues, as they make claims or focus on personal attributes. Something I've noticed Facebook Ad Policy isn't too fond of.

I am choosing Shopify as it seems to be the flagship platform for eCommerce. But, I will look into WooCommerce based on what you said.

I just want to make my website ASAP to be taken at a serious level with all stakeholders (suppliers, influencers, customers, potential partners, etc).

 

[GetShitDone]

Hey, re supplier negotiation, I wouldn't push pricing too hard with your sample test runs. Generally more volume enables them to offer more discount down the track when you are able to order more. You want them to make a reasonable profit as well, otherwise this will reflect in the level of service they offer you. So I would reserve the harder negotiations for later once you can order more product. Of course, do your due diligence and make sure you are not getting ripped off, but reserve the ace negotiation tactics for later.

Also, always have a back up supplier or a plan B, just in case things go pear shaped. Don't have all your eggs in one basket as the saying goes. But this can sometimes be difficult, as from my experience, I previously wanted to order only from one supplier to get the maximum volume discount, however ordering from two suppliers and splitting the order would have reduced risk, as I'm building a trading relation with 2 suppliers at the same time. I wanted to be meaningful to my supplier by placing a larger order, but also wanted to minimise risk by having another regular supplier. This can be challenging in the initial stages as order volumes are lower. It is just one of those things that has to be managed until you grow where you can place a large order with 2 suppliers at the same time, or stagger them or have a second supplier ready to go in case sh*t hits the fan.

Good to see your progress!

Thanks a lot for your extensive feedback.

I think you're definitely right about diversifying the risk with suppliers. Even if it comes at the cost of a volume discount not being there.

Nothing seems worse then having 10,000 orders scheduled for the next month and your supplier's factory shuts down!

I've contacted 11 suppliers now. A few have replied and are talking to me about prices. I wish I could get more suppliers, but as I said this natural product only grows in one little part of the world.

I'm starting to speak to suppliers in a way that I seem like a big enough company that means business and wants to buy.

Based on my research, suppliers are inundated with tons of requests everyday (mostly tire-kickers), so they filter out/don't even reply to people who they think come across as tire kickers.

This means I've had to refine my approach as saying things like I'm apart of a global team, I'm the product manager, going to be doing a BIG marketing campaign for your product, need a trusted supplier for consistent long term, etc.

All things to make them believe "This guy is serious and will be a money maker for us long-term." AKA Putting myself in their shoes and acting accordingly.

--

A couple asked about my website or online profile, so I'm getting on that ASAP. A store + my LinkedIn linked + email signature + company email = Ultimate social proof I believe for these suppliers!

I'm also going to be contacting Instagram Influencers to test if they would promote my product after I get the website up.

After I get the suppliers onboard, if I can get the Influencers onboard.. I am very sure I can make this product explode. All it needs is awareness as it has virality built into it due to what it does.

 

[Kid]

Please let me know your thoughts

I admire your progress.

The thing that bugs me is the paid report. As a buyer of "very unique" product you offer i don't think i want to read any reports, yet pay for them.

As for me i would reduce your funnel by "report" step.

Unless there's something more to it then just making back your ads spend.

 

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[GetShitDone]

I admire your progress.

The thing that bugs me is the paid report. As a buyer of "very unique" product you offer i don't think i want to read any reports, yet pay for them.

As for me i would reduce your funnel by "report" step.

Unless there's something more to it then just making back your ads spend.

Hey, thanks for your opinion.

The paid report presents itself to be very valuable info (actionable and step by step advice) on solving the problem my buyer has. Kind of like "Here is 1 very important secret that goes in-depth on how to solve your problem".

The important thing to note is that this Paid Report is optional to buy like any upsell.

Some customers may like it, some won't. Regardless, they have the option to pass on it and just get the free sample.

PS: Just got another customer on my Shopify site. Conversion rate is 0.5% which has improved. But aiming for 2% with the new ClickFunnels site I'm building out right now.

 

[sparechange]

ive never been spammed or asked to sign up for INSIDERS. which is a key point.

the most important thing is having a producatory around the supplement similar to the book where other people are talking about it.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Hey guys, an update:

I've built my landing page, gone through a nightmare with Facebook Support, and finally driven traffic from Facebook ads.

After building my entire new website on ClickFunnels, I decided to launch ads. However, Facebook's ad bot consecutively 2-3 weeks in a row had disabled my Payment Method due to it being "Suspicious" (Due to my card being registered in a different country to the country I'm currently living in). This caused massive delays for me.

Anyways, recently I finally managed to launch a FB ad for a "Free sample" of my product. Important to note that I'm the first person in the world to launch my product (its not a supplement or any shake or anything at all related). It's a very unique product that no one else is selling right now.

It is however gimmicky in nature.

Here's my Ad Findings (As I'm now at the stage where Marketing/Conversions matter):

PPC via FB = $0.10 (Very good as my past 2 ad campaigns via FB and/or Influencers was $0.13-$0.15). This proves a lot of people get interested by my product and get curious enough to click it.

Conversion Rate = 7.05% of all traffic clicked to get to CHECKOUT.. but when they saw the shipping cost (of the free sample).. only 0.29% of all traffic buy. 48 people got to checkout and only 2 bought. Ouch.

*Note: My Ad is advertising the product along with a free sample (but they pay for $5.95 shipping of the 2 week pack).

Conclusion - It looks like I have a conversion problem when people get to checkout.. they don't want to pay for the extra cost shipping for the free sample. It should be noted that my product is very small and a similar size to chewing gum/pills.

I am considering either using this exact landing page for my FULL PRICED PRODUCT (with some other freebie as the "bait" like an Info Report).. OR just advertising 100% as my FULL PRICED PRODUCT on FB as I seem to get really good PPC there (as proven from this campaign and the last FB campaign).

@sparechange, perhaps you're right about not offering something for free. With that said, influencer marketing is what got me my (only) 5 Full Priced Product's sales.. I now may try FB Advertising my Full Priced Product for the first time (As opposed to just a sample).

One thing I know for sure, I get good PPC and people's "eyebrows get raised" at the thought of my product to get interested enough to click the ads. Therefore, perhaps I can get away with directly advertising my full-priced product with Influencers/FB Ads.

My full priced product costs $20 + $5.95 shipping. When on subscription, it's $20/mo + Free Shipping.

After this current ad campaign, I need to decide between what to do next:

1) Product Advertising - Just advertise my full priced product on FB/Influencers

2) Subscription Advertising - Advertise my subscription on FB/Influencers

3) Freebie Advertising - Continue to advertise the freebie after tweaking the landing page (but I'm certain the cost of shipping is a concern to my shopping cart exits)

Let me know your thoughts on my recent ad woes. Win for PPC, loss for Conversion.

 

[GetShitDone]

Nice job on progress so far and on getting good results so far for your top of the funnel (ie traffic and add to carts)

I think you have a good plan on testing out the full price ads and subscription ads to FB & IG, wait and see how the results fare for that.

As for the freebie advertising, you may want to give this a try and test if it works:
Make it FREE shipping, but instead of advertising it as free, make it a huge discount from your full $20 down to $5.95 that’s a 70% discount. I think the free shipping is a mentality/psychology thing with consumers that they don’t want to pay ‘extra for shipping’.. so if you phrase your offer as it being free shipping but the offer is at 70% discount it may still look like a great deal to them and get them to purchase.

Same pricing, just phrasing it differently to them. Let me know what you think.




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Hey mate, thanks so much on your ideas. I'm going to take it into account by either doing split testing for your idea + my idea. Or just going about it in one go.

The concept of FREE Shipping + 70% Discount for a "first time customer" seems awesome. Definitely seems like a better conversion rating then just a free sample where they get surprised with a fat shipping cost at the end. Again, 48 people reached checkout and 2 bought. Meaning 46 (95%) got turned off from the shipping cost. I would rather have 20 people reaching checkout with 10 buying (And I think this new offer you proposed should make that happen).

I'll give it a try and let you guys know how it concludes.

 

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[GetShitDone]

Update:

Facebook has unpublished my Facebook page and taken down my Facebook ads after they took a "closer look".

They didn't even give me any reason other then "It is against Facebook's ad policy".

My ads were doing great too with a unique product that no one else is using.

I have contacted Facebook to ask why it's been taken down, I'll keep you guys updated.

It is a men's fitness (and sort of cosmetic) product that is focused on making the customer look more attractive/handsome. I looked into FB's ad policies and a section involves ads about the customer's personal attributes (looks). Perhaps my ad was too in-your-face about the customer's look and FB didn't like it?

Needless to say, I'm now awaiting FB's response to why it all got taken down.

Bit annoying as the ads were doing well after 1 day of marketing alone and just $5 spent.

Goes to show that I can't just rely on Facebook for marketing in the future, but I will adapt to the situation at hand after they respond.