A Quick Glance at My Marketing Strategy

I am so close to launching I can taste it. I’m feeling a flurry of emotions but that’s beside the point. My focus is opening for business. The final 2 steps are the uniforms I ordered and the debit card for my checking account. I’m doing a soft launch instead of some huge grand opening. The reason is to be able to test different marketing strategies and then invest in the ones that deliver the most ROI. I’m not going to dump money taking shots in the dark.

This aspect of the business is my favorite and where I think I will shine. I’m beginning with a marketing budget of $300 per week for the first few weeks. This does not count any printed material like laundry bags, business cards, stickers, flyers, etc. This is only online. In fact, it is only Facebook and Instagram. My reasons are:

• My research says these 2 networks offer the highest ROI online.
• They actually share the same advertising pipeline so there’s only 1 interface to use both.
• There is plenty of reach.
• I’m already familiar with the Facebook interface from previous startups.

My ads will be aimed at anyone between 18–65 that lives within my delivery area that is on Facebook or Instagram in the next couple of months. According to Facebook, this is about 190,000 people. Like I said, plenty of reach.

Those 190,000 people are the top of my funnel. The next level in my funnel is the subscription to my newsletter. Originally I wanted to offer a chance to win a month of free laundry service in exchange for your email and zip code. But I just learned Facebook doesn’t allow sweepstakes or anything that resembles gambling. Instead I’ve decided to postpone the newsletter aspect. I need more time to think of the gift I give in return for the sign up.

The next part of the funnel is my website which offers all the information you would need to use my company. And finally, the call to action is the order form that places an order for me to come get your laundry.

Notice how each level in the illustration is open? That is because people can enter the funnel at any point. This means my ads can link to my newsletter sign up page or my website or the actual order form itself. Not only that, I can advertise my Facebook and Instagram profiles as well, which give my business more awareness and validity.

But the funnel is there for a reason: higher conversion of potential customers. I have to decide how much of the ad spend to put where to try to optimize my conversions. The thing is I don’t have a whole lot of time. My expenses are off the charts and I need revenue or I will run out of money really quick. People going through the top of the funnel will take longer than the people who order directly from the ad.

Since I’m not sure about the newsletter, I’m going to start with only 4 ad sets:

1. From Facebook to the website.
2. From Facebook to the order form.
3. From Instagram to the website.
4. From Instagram to the order form.

Before I can optimize my conversion rates I have to track them. I am going to use Google analytics. But I’ve never used that product so just to be safe I’m going to include promo codes for each ad set which hopefully will tell me exactly where that customer came from.

I’ve created 6 different ads, one of which is a little racy so I may not use it yet. These are the Instagram versions, the Facebook versions are the same pictures but different dimensions similar to the title of this post. I found the stock images at freeimages.com and I used canva.com to put my branding on them.

I’m planning on a print campaign as well. More on that once I start it.

As always, if you want a closer look, add me on Snapchat!

This story is part of a series documenting the journey of a 2016 Dallas startup called Feather. If you would like to read more, here is the Table of Contents for the series.

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