Cully Cavness ⋅ Denver, CO ⋅ 8 years experience

Hi Tyler,

I am the CFO of Sword & Plough, which is another veteran-focused retail brand. www.swordandplough.com. I would be happy to give you some advice. My wife is our CEO and also active duty in the Army.

We had success with Kickstarter initially, and have since been on Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox and Friends and about 100 magazine and newspaper publications. Proactive PR efforts are the key to gaining this level of exposure, and a lot of that is just hard work to reach out to press contacts and push your story.

Speaking of story, make sure you refine your origin story to be a compelling and attractive narrative for the audience you choose to approach. Brands today are highly connected to the origin story and surrounding ethos of the founders - you might find success in emphasizing your military background and how it helped you launch your brand/product. Feel free to reach out with any questions.

Sword & Plough is always looking to collaborate with veteran entrepreneurs - please reach out if you have any ideas.

Best wishes,
Cully

Naomi Finkel ⋅ Westlake Village, CA Say It With Words Marketing & Corporate Communications ⋅ 30 years experience

Tyler, I own a marketing and copywriting agency. Lots of suggestions and practical strategies on my website at www.siww.net. Good luck! Naomi Finkel, Say It With Words

Kenn Rivers ⋅ Spanaway, WA U.S. Army, Master Sergeant ⋅ 24 years served

Tyler,
I agree with many of the responses you have received and I would like to help, but knowing what your product or service is would provide me with some direction to assist you... I specialize in mobile marketing which supports many products and services, but may not be conducive to your product or service. Hopefully you can repost soon and I can see what help I can provide.

All the Best Kenn

Ming Lai ⋅ Alhambra, CA Humanist Films, LLC ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Tyler!

Congratulations on launching your own brand, which is a difficult thing to do!

To build on the other great replies: in addition to identifying your target market, you can also research other competitive brands and their marketing strategies (How do they position themselves in the marketplace, How do they brand themselves, How do they advertise, What media do they use?, How do they incorporate PR?, etc.). That way, you can start to create your own unique marketing strategy.

It’s great that you already built an e-commerce site. But people need to be able to find it first so you should check its SEO (search engine optimization), if you haven’t done so already. That is, how easy is it to find it on the internet? You can improve your website’s searchability via its webpage titles, descriptions, and keywords, etc. The internet has many great articles on improving SEO.

I hope this helps, and I wish you much success with your new business.

Best wishes,
Ming Lai

David Eastman ⋅ Gresham, OR Gamma Therapeutics, Inc. ⋅ 35 years experience

Tyler,

You did not mention the product or service that you branded. That information would be helpful to an advisor because how a product versus how a service is marketed really is completely different and there are unique marketing and selling channels for both. Most of the advice you have received--all good!--advised you to learn as much about your target audience and their demographics as you can and that is good advice. For example, if the target audience is in the 18-35 year old range, social media, a website, e-marketing, blogging, google ads, linking, etcs., is a wonderful and effective way to reach this target audience with media communications. An older audience, 45-65, uses new media as well, but probably is more used to traditional marketing methods such as magazine, television and newspaper ads and telemarketing. Again, what is your product or service and who is it for.
The wonderful thing about websites, and you can get an URL from godaddy.com for as little as 15.95 a year, and tab into websites such as wix.com to design your own website, is that people now look for services on line and a great deal of buying online is now occurring. I would get a website, and market your product or service and then link into other sites that will promote your product.

Good luck and thank you for your service.

David Eastman, CEO, former US Navy, ASW

Joe Floyd ⋅ Norfolk, VA U.S. Air Force, Senior Airman ⋅ 4 years served

Good Morning Tyler and thank for your service. Having been in business over thirty years , (many of them in branding and marketing) there is one sure way to promote your product. YOU HAVE TO GET OUT AND SEE THE PEOPLE (CUSTOMERS). No one can market and sell your product the way you can. ENTHUSIASM makes the difference. How can your customer get excited about the product if you are not excited that it can fill a need in the marketplace. Always remember after all your customer wants to be a success also. You and you alone are responsible for the decisions you make whether good or bad. No in-between. You have to find that need and fill it. If it is to be it's up to me. (Courtesy of Zig Ziglar). SO GET GOING.

Best regards and if I can help you more please email me.

Joe Floyd

Harry Rakfeldt ⋅ Belfair, WA AMSOIL Synthetic Lubricants and related products ⋅ 38 years experience

Hello Tyler,

As you've seen, there are a number of very good posts. You asked, "...any other ways to get a new product on the market? " Yes there is. Not knowing what your 'product' / 'service' may be, take a look at www.quirky.com. Helps you focus on what you have and how you feel it can be presented.
Now this may sound 'quirky,' but it is another way to think about getting your idea up and running. There have been some very creative, and often simple, ideas submitted that were accepted. Take a look!

Best wishes,

Harry Rakfeldt

Carl Legge ⋅ West Chester, PA Johnson & Johnson ⋅ 17 years experience

I would buy a really good book and training program, called "The Big Picture" by Christie Nordhielm. It gives a good framework to establish foundational principles about who you are, what you are good at, what you are trying to do, what your business goals are, who your audience is, and how you are going to reach them with the precise messaging you need. It's like a field expedient marketing MBA and it's really not that complicated. This might help if you feel like you're not connecting with the audience you are going for.

I think another option for you to do is to "cheat"--what are your competitors doing? Where are they advertising and selling their products?
Good Luck!

E Y ⋅ Cerritos, CA ⋅ 8 years experience

Hi Tyler,
It is possible that you may find resources at your local university to help you market your brand. For example, I'm located in Pittsburgh and I did a quick search for "small business development" in two local universities' main web pages and found: http://www.sbdc.duq.edu/ContactUs and http://entrepreneur.pitt.edu/institute-centers/small-business-development-center/. Perhaps you could do the same in your area. Good luck!

Brian McDuffie ⋅ Bellaire, MI U.S. Army, Sergeant ⋅ 3 years served

Tyler:

I'll make this short and sweet. Have you contacted your Veterans Service Officer in the area for advise. My counsel is to make it no more than one page, use web.com to begin your site if possible and use metatags or descriptions of the product, what it can do, and the location you want to cover. Also, call and interview fellow ecommerce people about what you can do to enhance your site to make it more profitable. That takes a little courage, but you do learn a lot from the interviews.

Brian McDuffie

James Walker ⋅ Franconia, NH Innovative Structural Building Products ⋅ 38 years experience

All of the advice previously posted is excellent - know your market, then tailor your strategy to that market.

Social media CAN play a valuable role, but first you need to know who is buying and making the buying decision. If you're selling to the public, these outlets may be useful, if you are b2b, perhaps only LinkedIn.

Many of these outlets can be enticing, but can also be very expensive.

I would suggest getting a domain name - something memorable and related to your product and/or target market.

Domain names can also be expensive if you want something short or simple. For my business, Innovative Structural Building Products, it was easy to get www.innovativestructuralbuildingproducts.com however, getting www.isbp.com cost me $2,400 because its a short name.

Web sites can be easily constructed on-line with the domain providers - I use www.godaddy.com and hosting can be affordable too. Beware - if you're selling lots of products, using credit cards, etc. you'll probably need a professional. That cost can range from $1,000 to $50,000. So try to just start with a domain name and simple presence. My site is simple because its intended to be introductory and its for b2b purposes of patented technologies.

I guess in closing - follow the very good advice already posted and know your customer. Don't spend time or money until you know your customer and you can establish demand for your brand. Get a domain name (with.com) and perhaps a simple web site. Then, put a strategy together for marketing, (business plan) of which, social media can possibly be useful.

Gerald Mannikarote ⋅ Houston, TX dMann Training Technologies ⋅ 20 years experience

Tyler,
The folks above have provided great advice.
You have to first understand who your target audience is.
Once you understand specifically, you can begin promoting the product. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of money on marketing and promotions without any returns.
Warm regards,
Jerry

Roberta Fleischman ⋅ Ridgewood, NJ Roche ⋅ 25 years experience

Your local SCORE office can help you by providing free business counseling services. Go to score.org and fill out the form to request these services or contact your local SCORE office directly. Hint: when you fill out the form requesting counseling, be as specific as possible so you can be matched with a counselor who can best help you.

William (Liam) Hickey ⋅ Chicago, IL Willpower Careers ⋅ 14 years experience

One of my favorite exercises in reaching a target market comes from the book "Reallionaire." Write a 500 word essay on your target market. Ask yourself questions like:
- Who are they demographically?
- What do they do?
- Where do they go?
- What time do they do things / go places?
- What do they buy or use?
- What groups do they belong to?
- Who (else) do they associate with?

If you have more than one target customer, do this exercise for each one. It will help you figure out how to get your brand in front of the right people.

Bret Dennis ⋅ Ashburn, VA Infinitive ⋅ 20 years experience

Tyler have you mapped our your key target audience and determined the best channel to deliver your product? I see you've trademarked a brand but my question is what consideration have you given to the actual product? If you have not done this already try and create an inventory of your key customer segments (who is the buyer), how your customers will likely find you (online, in a store, on a shopping channel on TV, etc.), value proposition (what problem does your product solve and what will customers pay to solve that problem), competitive landscape (who else is solving the same problem you intend to). You may have read about the "4 P Model" of products and marketing which is product, price, place, promotion. There are many takes on this but clearly outlining these for your offering is critical to then creating a go-to-market plan. I hope this helps.

Regards,
Bret