Product advertising

[ians]

It is happening as I expected, 1 freebie to the right person and a pic on their facebook page and boom off they go. So now the first question when a person calls me " where can I see pics of what you make and the prices"

2014 is going to be a big step forward with my custom made products, I need to figue out a way to promote my products with some sort of pricing structure.

This is my plan (thinking out loud)

My plan is to ask Neville to take pics of my product already built so that I have some good pics, offer him a product he might enjoy in return for his services
The next step is to create facebook pages as I have done with one of products.
I will setup an album which has a picture with the price attached.
An email address for each facebook page (3 for now)

You may be asking why different pages, because they are all totally different products and services.

Why I haven't gone with a website, because firstly you have to pay a yearly fee, then you have to get someone to set it up, design it and then maintain it at another fee. Right now I am still in the experimenting to see if it is going to work stage. It takes off and I grow then I will look at better advertising media. More important, I custom build and not mass producing at this point in time.

I have already got enough work to keep me busy from the day I close down and for the 2 weeks I am off.

Any suggestions or comments you would like to add?

[Dave A]

Certainly won't hurt to start out that way to "test the waters" as it were.

[vieome]

You can set up a wordpress site, and have it as a dot com for R180 per year. Can you give more information.
What products do you sell? Are you selling online or from a workshop , shop etc. Who is your target market?

[ians]

Stuff built in a workshop...market, everyone
other stuff built in a workshop...target market, specific to the product, ie...motor cycle accessory.
other a service offered...everyone needs the service.

I have a website via hetzner, very basic 3 page, never had a sale from it to date, been running for around 3 years. I have the same service offered on facebook, which is working because I keep adding new stuff and past projects etc.

For specific items I find I get more enquiries via social media like forums related to the product, I am very active on those forums and make sure everyone knows what I am doing what improvements to expect etc. For one of the products that is where 100 % of the sales are generated.

The only reason I am even considering a website is so that people can identify that the product in that specific picture is what you get for that amount of money. Orders come via the PMs on the forums.

So back to the question, do I really need a website or is there another media for identifying products.

Like the saying you cant teach an old dog new tricks, I am prepared to learn.

[ians]

One of other issue I have found recently is some of the big companies restrict access to social media, so if you are at work and want some thing or to look for some thing, facebook or other social media is not the place to find it due to company restrictions, however smart phones are used, so we back to a website again.