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How to promote companies product with zero dollars online?
February 22, 2009 11:14 AM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

Having trouble getting promotional traction for new webservice, despite being an avid blog reader, possibly because of split audiences. Any suggestions?

So we have a new site that combines AI with actual advice from experts to help people make decisions, especially on product purchases. I am having a very difficult problem driving much traffic as we have almost no promotional budget. I think this may be related to having to promote two websites.

1) Our corporate website is for business clients and partners. We would love for them to use our tech on their website to promote their product or create a new advertising platform for themselves.

2) Our actual guides such as our HDTV Buying Guide for actual end users.

The problem is it seems if we promote one it is at the expense of the other especially with our no budget advertising. You can get to the guides via the home page, but it is not as easy as posting just the guide link. My guess is this could also hurt our SEO.

Problem number 2 is that I can't seem to get any traction. Our product is truly far better than a normal filter as it helps people find what they actually need, not just what they think they want. As someone told me," Most other websites would be as if you went to the doctor as told him what medication you want whereas your guides are like going to the doctor telling him your symptoms and he, as a professional, telling you what to take". So we offer people a good thing. We also offer businesses a good thing as a new advertising platform for a portal or increased sales and brand interaction for manufacturers or online retailers. Yet I can't get any traction.

Most people I email simply ignore me. I am trying not to be that annoying Press Release PR guy and actually contact these people as a human but they ignore me. Even blogs I read religiously like Gizmodo, don't seem to be doing much. Sometimes they email me back but when I send more info I tend to not hear back. I would love to contact TechCrunch and the like but now worry I may waste my one shot.

We do have a sales guy, but he is only dealing with larger companies while I am trying to drive traffic to the website and guides themselves.

So questions:

1) What else should I try? We have a twitter feed and a facebook page.

2) Can anyone suggest any other blogs I should target? Less obvious ones than TechCrunch, Gizmodo, Engadget, etc?

3) What are your thoughts on the balance of human conversation versus a press release or story pitch?

4) Any other recommended resources?

Thanks!
posted by UMDirector to work & money (19 comments total)
[URLs removed - put them in your profile if you want people to look at them.]
posted by jessamyn at 12:28 PM on February 22


URLs moved to profile if you guys would like to take a look. I included them as I wonder if it might have something to do with the issue. Such as "Going to those URLs wouldn't tell me much as a client" or "Checking out the guide might make me go to the main page". Or based on what I saw you should check out "AIBlog.com", etc. I actually have great concern that the two pieces do not interact as well together as they should...
posted by UMDirector at 12:53 PM on February 22


I clicked off your page immediately when it began "scanning" my computer. Whether it's malicious or not, I am not taking that chance.
posted by Maisie Jay at 12:54 PM on February 22 [1 favorite has favorites]


i would suggest adding a volume control. few things make me close a page faster than audio that is uncomfortably loud.
posted by phil at 1:01 PM on February 22 [1 favorite has favorites]


Phil : Was the "Quiet Please" not enough of a volume control?

Maisie Jay: I completely agree. I am actually very concerned about the impression that gives and am glad to know I am not nuts for worrying about that!
posted by UMDirector at 1:11 PM on February 22


i guess i was unclear. i was suggesting the addition of finer grain control than on/off.
posted by phil at 1:14 PM on February 22


Phil: Yeah thats what I was asking...if you were looking for a finer grained control. I wasn't sure if you missed the quiet please or if it simply wasn't enough control. Thanks for the clarification! :)
posted by UMDirector at 1:42 PM on February 22


The site is: too loud, too slow, too clicky, and too gimmicky in general. Just put a list of stuff to be filtered in the middle with a Thinking Sphinx style filter in the sidebar. Not sure what paging through sets of questions and having a little guy in the corner is supposed to add. Design it like you're selling HDTVs or recipes or whatever, except instead of actual products you have affiliate links. Maybe then you can find a budget to widgetize it and write an iPhone app (just 'cuz).
posted by rhizome at 2:06 PM on February 22


There are a bunch of punctuation errors and something's off with the size of the text-- I can't see anything that bleeds out of the boxes. It just seems kind of amateurish. Also, if I want a wedding dress, I'll go someplace like The Knot. If I want an HDTV I'll read reviews on Amazon. I don't know who you guys are, and I don't think there's enough of a product here to suck me in.
posted by Maisie Jay at 2:43 PM on February 22


UMDirector, I just read through your comment history. It seems like you're trying to build an entire company on the backs of Ask Metafilter users. If we're your company's best go-to source for information on everything from whether your product is viable to market research to site usability... yeah, you have a problem.
posted by Maisie Jay at 3:43 PM on February 22


Don't mean to be rude, but I'm going to be blunt.

I went through your HDTV Buying guide and it was just absolutely terrible. I've been on spam-blogs that were more useful. I don't know who it's aimed for, but it's clearly not me.

You won't get any traffic from blogs because tech blogs tend to have readers who are a little bit more sophisticated about how to use the web in the most efficient way possible. I do not want to spend 15 minutes filling out a survey to find out what kind of TV I should buy, all the while having my hand held by some avatar who cannot remember from page to page that I don't want him to talk. I want the information in as few clicks as possible.
posted by MegoSteve at 7:26 PM on February 22


Thanks for all the comments. I do not take personal offense to anyone as I was neither the designer or the coder.

As far as "trying to build an entire company on the backs of Ask Metafilter users". I am saddened by that comment. I have trusted MeFi with a number of important questions over the year (including some anonymous ones) and find that typically everyone here has great and honest contributions to make. Just because I may present the question as you being the only source understand I may have my reasons for that, perhaps I do not want to bias anyone in their answers, perhaps I am trying to frame things in a certain way. I apologize if I put Mefi on a pedestal enough that I thought there frequent input would be useful. I do not see the difference between me using my alloted questions to ask business related questions versus someone who uses it to ask about life dramas, cooking and tv shows.
posted by UMDirector at 8:40 PM on February 22


I went all the way through the hdtv buying guide. It felt a bit beneath me and I wanted to give up several times (and why is the xbox 360 not under hdmi devices? why no mention of connecting a pc?). I guess the biggest reason I wouldn't use it is that for me it has no authority or reason to trust it. Although you say it "combines AI with actual advice from experts to help people make decisions", I didn't see any evidence of that - only Brad telling me to buy a hdmi cable. I also have a pretty small attention span to be clicking through all those pages - perhaps it could be more of a 20 questions thing, so it displays the current results constantly at the bottom, then reduces them as you answer more and more questions. That way I could give up at any time and click through the results. Or I could get to the end not having to have answered any unnecessary questions.

I think if it were part of a bigger e-commerce site then it would be useful, especially for people who don't know much about hdtvs. But mainly because then the recommendations would be done in the site's name so would have more authority. Therefore you'll perhaps have more success concentrating on marketing the corporate side. I don't think you'll have much luck interesting tech news sites in it as they probably consider their readers quite knowledgeable already and/or have their own buyers guides and affiliate links to promote.
posted by JonB at 11:39 PM on February 22


I already have an HDTV and I like it. I'll try your guide and see if it recommends my current TV, or something similar. Here we go. Compare this to the Crutchfield method:

posted by odinsdream at 9:36 AM on February 23


Correction: The Crutchfield site requires five clicks total not five clicks once you choose Televisions.

That's a total of 16 key-presses and five clicks of the mouse before Crutchfield has selected the TV I already own based on my preferences, and I didn't even buy the TV I own through them.
posted by odinsdream at 9:39 AM on February 23


I do not see the difference between me using my alloted questions to ask business related questions versus someone who uses it to ask about life dramas, cooking and tv shows.

Well, there is no real difference if you just go by number of questions. My point is that your company doesn't seem to be able to nail down the questions you are here, and the questions go right to the very heart of why y'all are in business at all. I think in the long run these questions are not good publicity for your business, and you might want to refrain from airing the holes in your business model on such a popular site. But if you want to keep asking them, we'll probably keep answering. Your call.
posted by Maisie Jay at 9:59 AM on February 23


(Substitute "ask" for "are" in the second sentence: "the questions you ASK here...")
posted by Maisie Jay at 10:01 AM on February 23


Odinsdream: While I agree with you about the speaking I should tell you that it is an issue we are aware of and addressing. As far as your click rate the key thing is that Crutchfield expects you to KNOW what refresh rate you want, etc. You being on a site like metafilter probably DO know those things. We are more concerned with people that don't even know what a refresh rate is...

Maisie Jay: They are not really holes in the business plan but rather the fact that we are a small start-up company...that brings certain issues. I would be a fool to not have a resource that might help me think of something I had and not use it. Sure I may have thought of the most common thing but who knows what some person on MeFi might come up with? We are not Twitter without a business model...we know a number of ways we can make money. In some ways we are the opposite...they have a huge audience, no business model, we have a business model, not much of an audience yet.
posted by UMDirector at 3:56 PM on February 24


UMDirector: Regarding the refresh rate, I'm assuming that the part of your quiz with the sliders is supposed to determine what refresh rate I want. This is completely misguided. I could have honestly set all of the sliders to "Never" and that would accurately reflect my viewing habits. However, this does not mean I'd accept ghosting of the image. If I didn't know anything about refresh rate I would be led astray by properly answering your quiz.

I strongly encourage you to re-evaluate why your site is a failure by comparing it to what Crutchfield does. Go to their site, click Televisions, then click LCD & Plasma.

Most everyone is going to know what size television they want because they have to fit it into a particular space or piece of furniture. So that's the first thing they'll use to filter results.

Second thing everyone knows is what price range they want to stay within. Everyone is going to have a budget. That's the second thing they're going to click.

What's left in the filter now? There are additional dimensions, so if you have a specific target height you could specify that. There are filters by Brand, Features, and Screen Type.

Looking through the filter list you see 120Hz Refresh Rate. Don't know what that is? There's a very obvious question-mark next to the filter that instantly pops up this explanation:
Typical HDTVs display video at 60 frames per second, also referred to as "60Hz." TVs with 120Hz refresh rate double that rate to 120 frames per second. Because each video frame appears for only half the normal amount of time, on-screen motion looks smoother and more solid, with less smearing. It's especially noticeable viewing fast-action sports and video games. (emphasis mine)
Well, that about explains it. I'd probably click on that filter next, since it sounds like a feature I want. Your method hides this information behind an obtuse series of sliders that will incorrectly guess that a user doesn't want 120Hz, when almost anyone who reads that explanation would say they do want it.

The main complaint I have with your site is that it's not at all clear what dataset you're using. With Crutchfield, or any other vendor, I can always get a full list of what they're offering. I know that whatever filtering I perform will narrow from that list. If, for example, Crutchfield didn't sell Sony televisions I'd know I should at least get some information elsewhere about them. Does your list include X-Brand televisions? How would I know? What guarantee do I have that your data is not being driven by a particular industry vendor? With most any other site the filtering process is completely transparent. I don't have to worry that Sony paid Crutchfield money to be in the results because I can see all the other brands that match the same criteria I specified.
posted by odinsdream at 7:45 AM on February 25


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