We are a group of students following the election and as the heat of primaries goes up, we decided to have some fun with it and encourage others to actively participate in the election process by getting to know the candidates and their platforms. We made a poll with breakfast cereals in custom artwork boxes with US presidential election themes and positive jokes about each candidate. (a project similar to what Airbnb did in 2008 )
We don't know much about marketing and although willing to share the profit (or even give away all of it) to just spread our message and get more people engaged in the election through us, we don't have a big budget to put upfront.
What is your suggestions for us? What kind of marketing strategy, partnership or advertisement can work the best in our case?
I specialize in handling digital marketing with small businesses in Toronto. Most of the small business owners have a limited budget and they are overwhelmed by the fact as to how they can compete with the bigger players out there.
The solution is to use a combination of inbound & paid marketing strategy to amplify your efforts. You can start by contacting bloggers to write about the cereals.
You need to create some sort of an offer to promote the product and generate new customers. When choosing online advertising you need to target long tail keywords and avoid spending your money on broad search terms.
If you want to discuss further please send me a message or call me here and I will be happy to help you.
I love your product, I actually think I have seen it before. But not sure. These kind of spoof meme type products come and go.
There are a few mistakes with what’s your website.
First off, I would avoided giving away the link here – some people might consider that spammy/seeking free advertising.
But when it comes to your website, there is nothing that leads me to assume this is a cool gag gift to buy, or a collectible item that I can’t afford to not buy. You need to convey that message.
Social relevance is hugely important here and I failed to see that in your website.
A product or item goes viral when is current on popular trends, highly shareable, highly encouraged, funny or engaging. You have a funny product but is still not shareable, not engaging and has a definite time constraint – not to mention the fact that you are right a lot of young people won’t care much about it enough to possibly even buy it. So what you need to do is build a community both through facebook, your page, Instagram (possibly maybe even twitter) – all showing and touting the cereal boxes.
Add a collect all 4 feature, get one free w/1 share feature, etc.
people don’t want to be the first nor the last, leverage this by having your team and whoever else has bought already share their pictures.
You have a cereal afterall, promote the flavors in a stupid funny way… Try Hilary’s cynic cinnamon! Even if you do have flavors right now, try running small campaigns just on the flavor. Have a Youtube channel with a few gags… Go replace an entire row of cereal at the grocery store with your boxes and record people’s confusion/amusement.
You don’t need a lot of money for virality, just be clever and improve your platform’s ability to share. How do you expect your visitors to share when all you have is 3 icons at the bottom of you page with no instructions, no incentives and no direct sharing form for the images themselves.
Also, try having the setting of the cereals changed. For example instead of having black backgrounds find a person who has a ton of random pop culture collectibles, posters, etc. and ask to have a photoshoot of your boxes in that setting as décor. Target those collector type individuals, I can help you find them and braingstorm more if you give me a call. Google me to find more about me if you wish, or give me a call.
