Forum Moderators: skibum
I am a small merchant that designs, prototypes and manufacturers our own product lines as well as custom products. In order to attempt to follow the forum rules, I will try to be as non specific as I can but in general, we sell high end "stuff" that we make. (for 30+ years without a single dissatisfied customer)
The "custom side of our business is running smoothly and we have orders that extend well into 09. our main source of these orders comes from a web site I put together, as clumsy and non professional as it might be, it does indeed work. We haven't advertised with the exception of one product line and we just started that. other than that, no real advertising since it's conception in 2000. (the web sites conception).
For our limited edition pieces and general merchandising of our pieces, I'm afraid I have reached either my level of incompetency or their are not enough hours in the day (or the number of days it will take to learn what I need to know are more than my life expectancy.) to give our product the representation and proper marketing it deserves.
I have a part time programmer who is trying to develop an affiliate platform for us but his progress is slow and I haven't really seen results. And, should this "platform" ever come to be, their are so many aspects of "what comes next" that I am really afraid it is going to require me to spend less time with what I am good at and devote it to things i am lousy at.
this at my age doesn't seem like the most productive or useful use of my time, energy etc. Surely, their is someone more qualified than myself to market my product...
So, if you were me, sitting on great designs, pieces that have never really been properly marketed (although the market is identified and exists and with sales) no real time to learn the in's and out's of affiliating and what goes where, who's who, and no idea what an seo and an opm is? barely basic html skills but a killer product line that is niche specific... where would you start?
design your own private affiliate program, only offering the program to super affiliates and granting exclusive marketing rights to individual product lines? try to find someone already selling something in your league and ask them to take on our product? hire a project manager or an affiliate manager?
My hope was to set up the affiliate platform and find one affiliate, give him an exclusive contract to market say "a" specific product or product line. But that's like putting your eggs in one basket..
So, where would you start, what would you do?
Thanks
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[edited by: Old_School at 9:51 pm (utc) on Aug. 18, 2008]
One thing that needs to be evaluated is how much of a demand is there for your "stuff" If there is huge demand, you can meet the quota for the demand, then by all means a general affiliate program would be in order. However if you are only selling a few products per month, then your approach would most likely be different.
It's not unheard of to enter into a marketing agreement with someone, but the renumeration has to be worth it for the marketing partner.
Another question to ask yourself is are there other websites that sell goods related to yours, but not in direct competition? If so these would make a good first point of contact in finding affiliates to sell your stuff.
I have the manufacturing aspect of this pretty well under control as well as our source of supply for raw materials. as for the demand? I don't know. I'd imagine if it were an oil well that showed some sign of results, it would probably be worth digging a little deeper.
I don't know what the "right" compensation is but it's all a part of the cost... So i guess it would depend on who is paying the cost. if all a guy is going to do is add our link to their blog and be an ocasional affiliate, i'd think that compensation would be different than a guy who is upfronting ad costs, making a new web site, copywriting and managing affiliates, that compensation would be quite different. but whatever it cost, that's the cost. when we design a product, we don't do it with cost in mind but, how nice can we make it.
I don't really know about other web sites or competition... i've never really delved into what other people are doing but chose to run with my own program, go our own direction and not get caught up in competitions...
and, another reason is, i don't want my artists to be swayed by other peoples work... I am wanting to producee original works and not works that resemble someone elses work. direct from the artists head through the hands and into the product. (as much as possible)
and, I have a slow connection to the web so causal browsing is more like pulling teeth or a scratch on the chalk board.
I need to maybe look into a researcher or some one who can understand what i am looking for and do the proper search...?
