Q. Hi Judie,

I hope that this e-mail will reach you personally. Since you left the Gadgeteer end of September I didn’t have a valid e-mail address anymore. Fortunately you sent me the LinkedIn invitation and then a follow-up with your amended profile. So I found your website and contact address.

The reason I am contacting you is that I am at a cross road  and I would need some advise and/or help. A year ago I was in a similar situation. Business just started about 12 months earlier and the result was discouraging, while I was trying different avenues, such as the Internet, Watch Retail Trade, specific and special approaches like Hospitals, Retirement Centers, etc. I also did some consumer advertising in Life Style magazines and in AARP. Nothing worked, except there was some potential hope for the Internet.

So I decided to ditch practically everything and to concentrate only on the Internet. I redesigned my website and hired a company to do some SEO. That helped for a while but when I requested to put the bars higher I had the feeling that was it for this company. So I found another one who helped and I started to do some advertising and the result improved quite a lot. Then I had the lucky strike with you guys at the Gadgeteer. In fact I still get a lot of leads and sales from this review.

Now I feel again that I need additional help if I want to reach my goal for the year.

I think I need a lot more exposure, I need links to other websites, maybe some feeder combinations, affiliate marketing etc. I also need more resellers (currently I have two, one is an important medical supply company, the other one is quite small, plus I am in discussion with another potential reseller here in the US and one in Switzerland).

The conversion rate on my website should be improved. The website should be analyzed for better usability.

I feel that currently I am at a 10 – 20% of my potential for this product.

I also just got the opportunity to sell another medical reminder product and so to add potential sales increases. The only thing which bothers me is the fact that this product is very average in visual appeal and relatively cheap, like most of the other medical reminder products in the market. However the features are of some interest.

After this quite long introduction I wonder if you could help me and/or direct me to some people/companies you know, who would be able to help me improve my exposure and especially my sales. Also I have to be a bit careful how much I spend on this project. As I don’t know too much about internet marketing I need the professional help. Everything I know is through reading and learning as I go.

So please let me know what you think.

Wishing you a healthy, happy and successful New Year.

With friendly regards,

Hans Scholl

A. Hi Hans,

I should start this letter by informing Gear Diary readers about the Almeda Time Multiple Vibrating Alarm Watch, which I reviewed in May 2006. The overall premise of the watch is that it “will either sound an alarm or vibrate on the wearer’s wrist when any of the six preset alarms go off.” It did exactly as advertised, and I was very pleased with it.

photo courtesy of The Gadgeteer

As I summed up in the review:

There are various scenarios presented on the website of people who would benefit from a multi-alarm watch, and the one that surprised me the most was the management of ADD/ADHD. I didn’t realize it, but evidently an “ADD watch or ADD/ADHD watch provides reminders for positive reinforcement and medications. The ADD/ADHD watch works through a series of alarms set to remind the user at specific times each day to either take medication or give the patient positive reinforcement. The ADD/ADHD watch has been proven to work wonders for children and teenagers suffering this disorder.”

Who can benefit from an Almeda Multi Alarm Wrist Watch? Anyone, really. If there are certain times during your daily routine that certain things need to be done, then the Almeda watch can remind you. These reminders are not restricted to times for taking medications – they can be for classes or meetings that must be attended, or an alarm that signifies when a meeting must end. The vibrating alarm option will help those that are hard of hearing, who might otherwise miss an audible alarm.

If you have been looking for a watch that will help you manage up to six alarms in a 24 hour period, then the Almeda Time Multiple Vibrating Alarm Watch may be your perfect solution. If you have a parent or grandparent that wants to be independent, but sometimes needs a little reminder that it is time to take their meds, then this would be the perfect gift for them.

There was no doubt in my mind at the time I wrote its review that the Almeda watch was a worthy product, and my opinion has not changed. So with that said, what can a non-marketing major tell someone that needs to more effectively market their product?

Well, I have a few ideas, and after I list them I’ll be counting on Gear Diary readers to pitch-in with theirs.

I’ll go first…

-I wrote a very detailed review loaded with photos and impressions of the product that was quite complimentary because your product deserved it. The review itself could be used as a very effective marketing tool on the product’s website.

But when I go to Almeda Time, I don’t see any hint of my review.

If it were my product and my site, I would have a page devoted to “Press Reviews”. On this page, I would pick a relevant paragraph or two from any reviews done on my product, and post them for all to see with links back to the original reviews. Since all of your traffic is obviously not coming from my prior review at The Gadgeteer, visitors may not even be aware that the watch was ever reviewed by an independent site. Makes sense, right?

So by posting a link to an external review, people who stumble upon the Almeda site will then have an unrelated source to read more about the watch. And if the reviewer did a good job, then they can get a feel for whether or not it would be the type product they or a loved one could benefit from.

-I would also post a shorter quote from the review on the product pages, with a link to the full version on the original review site.

Something that looks like this:

Who can benefit from an Almeda Multi Alarm Wrist Watch? Anyone, really. If there are certain times during your daily routine that certain things need to be done, then the Almeda watch can remind you. These reminders are not restricted to times for taking medications – they can be for classes or meetings that must be attended, or an alarm that signifies when a meeting must end. The vibrating alarm option will help those that are hard of hearing, who might otherwise miss an audible alarm. – Judie Hughes, The Gadgeteer

Whatever you do, don’t lift the full review and post it on your site – that is the quickest way to upset the reviewer, as they are generally relying on clicks back to their site to help fund their business.

photo of my freckly wrist courtesy of The Gadgeteer

- Another thing you might do is post testimonials from customers. If people see that there is a place which will allow them to do so, many times they will write in and give their impressions of the product after using it. This is another valuable source for potential customers.

- Get the watch in the hands of other reviewers. I can’t stress this strongly enough. Obviously the Almeda watch is a specialized product, so it may not fit in the scope of every site, but it should fit with sites that review and post about gadgets. Let’s face it, ours is an aging society that requires medication. A product like this has an immediately evident appeal – and the people that care about the people who need this product will want to read about it on the internet.

Some of the other more gadget-inclined sites which come to mind are: Shiny Shiny, Coolest Gadgets, Gearlog, Geek.com, Gizmodo, Engadget, Gizmowatch, Neatorama, OhGizmo!, Popgadget, Techie Diva, SlashGear, CrunchGear, and Ubergizmo. The coolest thing is that each one of these sites will have a Links section – usually on a sidebar but sometimes on a separate page, where they will post names and links to other sites with possibly similar audiences.

Once you’ve decided upon some sites to target, send an easy to read press release talking about your product with a few very good photos that they can use, should they decide to post about the watch. At the bottom of the release, mention that limited review samples are available. Not every site will do reviews, but the ones that do will appreciate knowing up front that you are open to sending a product sample for them to write about.

Understand in advance that not every site will do as thorough a review as you might like, but bear in mind that if they write about your product at all – they will be helping to spread the word.

** The best way to make people aware of a product is to get it in the hands of people that will talk about it. **

- If you have an especially good response from a particular site’s review, then consider advertising with them. As time passes, your review will roll off the front page of the site, but if the hits are still coming in long after the review appeared, then perhaps there is a marketing opportunity there. I can’t speak for all sites, but most have pretty reasonable rates. With that said – stay very clear of any site that expects you to advertise with them in order to get a review published. That type practice is shady, to say the least.

Okay, I think that’s about all I can offer; perhaps you all have some suggestions or ideas…