Unique Idea, Website Release - Need Help with Marketing Stratergy

[Lone Wolf]

Hi everyone,

So I've been working on a website for a while now (decided to teach myself, instead of hiring a web designer). It's a unique concept, but has similar counterparts - so I know with certainty that if marketed correctly it will take off.

The problem is, this will be my first website release. The others that I mentioned have similar aspects (but all have an entirely unique aspect to it), seem to have marketed it fantastically, which led to them getting huge social media coverage, along with articles written on major new sites.

The release & marketing needs to be 'exciting and hyped up' (I don't know how else to explain it), you can clearly see I am pretty clueless when it comes to the marketing aspect. So how do I go about gaining a sudden surge of coverage for my site? I know there's no guaranteed strategy, but like I said, if done correctly it will take off.

It's a concept that would certainly start trending on Social media, I just don't know how to get it started!

My ideas so far have been:

- Write a PR & try and get in contact with Journalists who have written about the 'similar' websites before.
- Gain a following on Twitter / pay those who already have a big following to tweet about the product & website.
- Use an email list.

I have no idea how to move on from this point, so if you have any suggestions or advice that would be much appreciated.

 

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[theag]

Buy FB ads.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Buy FB ads.

Good idea, I'll definitely do that.

I really need to go all out on the marketing though, not concerned about the cost. Any other recommendations?

 

[theag]

Any other recommendations?

http://www.jonloomer.com/2015/07/31/brands-facebook-opportunity/

 

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[Imgal]

Not knowing what your niche is, it's hard to give specifics, but Facebook ads is definitely a good place to start. I'd recommend getting super targeted using tools like Facebook's own Audience Insights and if you want to get really niche something like Social Interest Freak (this allows you to go beyond telling Facebook to target ads to someone who like A or B or C to targeting only those who like A, B and C). The latter isn't going to get you millions of followers, but it will get you those really passionate about your niche and likely to be very strong believers in what you do... and as we all know world of mouth is one of the best marketing tools out there at the end of the day.

My biggest piece of advice with FB ads is really digging down a couple of levels with your targeting. If you're advertising to dog owners then don't just stick in dogs, stick in a particular breed into Audience Insights as the interest and then look at the Page Likes and find the ones that with the strongest affinity. Keep adding those into the interest box and you'll come up with some very niche pages with high audiences you never know existed

Another one to look at if it's relevant is Youtube ads. The amount of times you'll find that smaller brands haven't paid close enough attention to their settings and allow you the competitor to advertise in front of their videos still amuses me. I know you said money wasn't an option, which is great and with Youtube ads being dirt cheap at the moment you could get some real leverage on it.

Same with Twitter. Sponsored tweets are great and well worth looking into. You should also take a look at Twitter advertising. It works in pretty much the same way as the other two. You can target accounts or keywords... or even IDs and emails if you've got those to hand.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Not knowing what your niche is, it's hard to give specifics, but Facebook ads is definitely a good place to start. I'd recommend getting super targeted using tools like Facebook's own Audience Insights and if you want to get really niche something like Social Interest Freak (this allows you to go beyond telling Facebook to target ads to someone who like A or B or C to targeting only those who like A, B and C). The latter isn't going to get you millions of followers, but it will get you those really passionate about your niche and likely to be very strong believers in what you do... and as we all know world of mouth is one of the best marketing tools out there at the end of the day.

My biggest piece of advice with FB ads is really digging down a couple of levels with your targeting. If you're advertising to dog owners then don't just stick in dogs, stick in a particular breed into Audience Insights as the interest and then look at the Page Likes and find the ones that with the strongest affinity. Keep adding those into the interest box and you'll come up with some very niche pages with high audiences you never know existed

Another one to look at if it's relevant is Youtube ads. The amount of times you'll find that smaller brands haven't paid close enough attention to their settings and allow you the competitor to advertise in front of their videos still amuses me. I know you said money wasn't an option, which is great and with Youtube ads being dirt cheap at the moment you could get some real leverage on it.

Same with Twitter. Sponsored tweets are great and well worth looking into. You should also take a look at Twitter advertising. It works in pretty much the same way as the other two. You can target accounts or keywords... or even IDs and emails if you've got those to hand.

Great pieces of advice, much appreciated.

The main issue is my 'product' nor website are really something that can be targeted at a specific group, it's more of a novelty that some consumers will appreciate and some just won't, with no real interests that I can target.

I'll definitely look into YouTube ads now, but it's not a product that was add significant value into someones life (entertainment value I guess), so for a YouTube ad would it still be worth using a simple, yet funny, explainer video?

 

[Imgal]

Great pieces of advice, much appreciated.

The main issue is my 'product' nor website are really something that can be targeted at a specific group, it's more of a novelty that some consumers will appreciate and some just won't, with no real interests that I can target.

Totally get you. If that's the case are their stores selling similar products or at least complimentary products? Those could definitely be worth targeting. You could also take it a step further if you discover some of those and look at the common interests using the Facebook Graph Search. Sticking in some searches like Movies liked by people who like Brand A and Brand B could help find you some target audiences you wouldn't have thought of. Obviously it's not going to have the conversion rates of being able to be very niche, but break them down and test interests and you could find a goldmine. Other options apart from Movies are Books, Music, Authors and Brands. I've got a list somewhere I'll dig it out..

I'll definitely look into YouTube ads now, but it's not a product that was add significant value into someones life (entertainment value I guess), so for a YouTube ad would it still be worth using a simple, yet funny, explainer video?

That could definitely work. There are loads of videos on Youtube all about the entertainment value and I'm sure there must be some that again have some kind of affinity to what you're offering. It's the same with product review videos. It's nice when you have a product that you can quickly find exact interests for and be off and flying, but seriously the bit I love most is the testing part. Start small, test a lot of different videos that have some relevance then look to expand on the ones that return some strong ROI.

 

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