how to advertise a product online?

January 16, 2006 3:03 PM

How would you go about advertising a product online?

Out of decency and respect for this community, I will not say what the product is or where to find info about it (unless personally messaged).

Basically, I have a new, very innovative and versatile product that I want to have as much play via the internet as possible. It's an actual physical product and is not virtual in any way. It received tons of attention at a recent trade show and in demo use garnered questions about where to buy it and how much it cost.

We're attempting to avoid middlemen as much as possible and would prefer to bring it to market primarily via the internet, but beyond google adwords and getting mentioned on sites ala boingboing, I don't know what sort of strategies to pursue. Has anyone had any luck with this? Thanks!

posted by quadrinary to work & money (9 comments total)

Just throwing out an idea here, but maybe if the product is something that the average person would find useful you could send one free to some major bloggers. If they really thought it was a great product it might generate some buzz.
posted by saraswati at 3:11 PM on January 16, 2006

Guerrilla Marketing...
posted by Marky at 3:11 PM on January 16, 2006

Also how can I contact you if curiousity is getting the better of me about the product?
posted by saraswati at 3:21 PM on January 16, 2006

email address is on profile page now.
posted by quadrinary at 3:26 PM on January 16, 2006

You can always buy ad space on sites that you think might fit your product's target. Look for the telltale "Advertise on this site" note.

Also (someone correct me if I'm wrong), it would probably be okay if you posted this to MeFi Projects, assuming this product is your project. Playing off saraswati, maybe you could do that and hold a little contest to send out x free products to the first y people who do z, or something along those lines.
posted by Gator at 3:29 PM on January 16, 2006

Hm. Project... maybe. Will have to think about that. Thanks for the insight so far!
posted by quadrinary at 4:18 PM on January 16, 2006

I second Guerrilla Marketing
posted by lobstah at 5:22 PM on January 16, 2006

It depends what sort of product you have. One idea might be through (as much as I hate the p-word) an ad on someone's podcast.

If, for example, you have some amazing new pizza sauce made from crickets, mango, and "special ingredients", then advertising on some sort of food podcast (not that I would be caught dead listening to one) might be a good idea.

Actually, what I just said sort of illustrates the point. You'd be getting very, very targeted listeners - nobody who would be absolutely uninterested in a new pizza sauce would be listening - only people who would probably at least be intrigued and want to call you/visit your site for more information about your concoction. Also anyone who is proactive enough to actually bother downloading a podcast is more likely to be the type to take the initiative to check your stuff out.

You could try a paid advertisement on someone's podcast, or if you have juice in the blogger community, just ask someone to interview you.

I also hear fruitcast is doing something similar, if you want to spend money to have the process automated a bit more. I'm not sure what percentage they take from the deal, though, so I don't know how much of a deal it is for the podcasters themselves.
posted by dihutenosa at 7:08 PM on January 16, 2006

If it's something that can be reviewed, I would send it out for as many reasonable reviews as you can get, especially to high-trafficked sites (duh). While you'll see immediate sales when you widget appears on widgetreview.com, you'll also move up in the natural search listings, which are at least as good if not better than AdWords.
posted by b_thinky at 11:43 PM on January 16, 2006