Marketing ideas for a Tea Store?

Hi Everyone,
I am trying to think of some marketing ideas for the tea store that I just relaunched. Shortly after I started receiving consistent traffic and sales to my original store I ended up losing the domain due to a trademark dispute with one of my competitors.

Reranking is a long (and expensive) journey so I am trying to figure out some marketing ideas to bring in some sales in the meantime.

I've tried adwords and after spending a couple hundred dollars and not making any sales I decided it's not worth it. I also did not have any luck with FB ads.

So any other ideas would be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Do you still have your old customers emails? How about newsletters? facebook, youtube, forum marketing.. try and build up some hype around your store and diversify your traffic sources, not onlyrelying on google.

Also "I've tried adwords and after spending a couple hundred dollars and not making any sales I decided it's not worth it."

You might want to review your adwords strategy..

You only spent $100's trying to optimize for a Adwords campaign before giving up? LOL, that made my day. Do you even know why people would buy tea from you and not your competitors? Do you know your prospects well? Psychological profile of your ideal prospect in place? You do know the Adwords Campaign failure tells me you just slapped up a site in a niche you thought you could dominate and then paid your seo way to profits. So now you suffer because you don't know how to direct sales copy to get rid of the buyers doubts and fears AND you don' know how to optimize for your best ppc results. SHAME, maybe people should be forced to take lessons before even thinking about operating in real life. The really sad part is, your sales could boost if you started to look at things sharply.

Freebie Five!
1. Did you try TV Advertising directly either with cable suppliers or channels for your product?
2. Newspaper sales?
3. You try going to a local store and shelving it?
4. How about trying YouTube + Tea Time Series or sponsoring some paid advertisements through My Likes or A Network?
5. Did you try just reworking your strategy and actually incorporating psychological factors and triggers that boost sales for your ideal prospect?

You do know I wouldn't buy any tea online, but convince me (someone who drinks tea) as to WHY I would even glance at your pathetic products? I stated it this way to remove the bloated confidence you had from the SEO success. Anyway, come up with some good answers to as WHY I would buy tea from you, then branch out once you get me convinced (depends really on your smart strategic thinking).

therage said:

You only spent $100's trying to optimize for a Adwords campaign before giving up? LOL, that made my day. Do you even know why people would buy tea from you and not your competitors? Do you know your prospects well? Psychological profile of your ideal prospect in place? You do know the Adwords Campaign failure tells me you just slapped up a site in a niche you thought you could dominate and then paid your seo way to profits. So now you suffer because you don't know how to direct sales copy to get rid of the buyers doubts and fears AND you don' know how to optimize for your best ppc results. SHAME, maybe people should be forced to take lessons before even thinking about operating in real life. The really sad part is, your sales could boost if you started to look at things sharply.

Freebie Five!
1. Did you try TV Advertising directly either with cable suppliers or channels for your product?
2. Newspaper sales?
3. You try going to a local store and shelving it?
4. How about trying YouTube + Tea Time Series or sponsoring some paid advertisements through My Likes or A Network?
5. Did you try just reworking your strategy and actually incorporating psychological factors and triggers that boost sales for your ideal prospect?

You do know I wouldn't buy any tea online, but convince me (someone who drinks tea) as to WHY I would even glance at your pathetic products? I stated it this way to remove the bloated confidence you had from the SEO success. Anyway, come up with some good answers to as WHY I would buy tea from you, then branch out once you get me convinced (depends really on your smart strategic thinking).

Click to expand...

Wow, .. why so much hostility? Learning the hard way like this is part of the game.. If the guy gave up after $100 of adwords, he probably doesn't have the budget for TV / newspaper / sponsoring advertising, all which are more about boosting exposure rather than direct sales.

However at OP: Agree on the need to determine and highlight a USP in your business model in your marketing

If you managed to spend a bunch on adwords and didn't manage to make a single sale, that would suggest that you're doing something wrong there. Perhaps you are targeting the wrong keywords, rather than getting people that are actually interested in purchasing tea.

On another side note, Bing Ads are usually a slight bit cheaper than Adwords and they seem to convert just as well (not that that's reassuring to you since adwords didn't convert at all)

GiorgioB said:

Do you still have your old customers emails? How about newsletters? facebook, youtube, forum marketing.. try and build up some hype around your store and diversify your traffic sources, not onlyrelying on google.

Also "I've tried adwords and after spending a couple hundred dollars and not making any sales I decided it's not worth it."

You might want to review your adwords strategy..

Click to expand...

The first thing I did when I relaunched was send out a newsletter letting all of our customers know about our new name. I was able to recover some of our usual customers that way.

therage said:

You only spent $100's trying to optimize for a Adwords campaign before giving up? LOL, that made my day. Do you even know why people would buy tea from you and not your competitors? Do you know your prospects well? Psychological profile of your ideal prospect in place? You do know the Adwords Campaign failure tells me you just slapped up a site in a niche you thought you could dominate and then paid your seo way to profits. So now you suffer because you don't know how to direct sales copy to get rid of the buyers doubts and fears AND you don' know how to optimize for your best ppc results. SHAME, maybe people should be forced to take lessons before even thinking about operating in real life. The really sad part is, your sales could boost if you started to look at things sharply.

Freebie Five!
1. Did you try TV Advertising directly either with cable suppliers or channels for your product?
2. Newspaper sales?
3. You try going to a local store and shelving it?
4. How about trying YouTube + Tea Time Series or sponsoring some paid advertisements through My Likes or A Network?
5. Did you try just reworking your strategy and actually incorporating psychological factors and triggers that boost sales for your ideal prospect?

You do know I wouldn't buy any tea online, but convince me (someone who drinks tea) as to WHY I would even glance at your pathetic products? I stated it this way to remove the bloated confidence you had from the SEO success. Anyway, come up with some good answers to as WHY I would buy tea from you, then branch out once you get me convinced (depends really on your smart strategic thinking).

Click to expand...

A little critical but I appreciate the advice. I do have to admit that SEO has made me a bit lazy when it comes to marketing. I have 2 other ecommerce sites and a combination of SEO and word-of-mouth referrals have always been the most effective means of marketing for us.

The main reason I gave up so fast with the adwords was the last guide I read (Perry Marshall) said it was not good for ecommerce because of the cost per customer in competitive niches. And after seeing pitiful results I decided to look for other marketing ideas.

I will go through my keyword lists and tweak my campaign with a larger budget and try it again. As long as I can break even per customer I would be happy.

I do like your youtube idea, instead of making my own series I was planning to send free tea to all the reviewers on there, and also to tea blogs.

Cheers!

Sorry, do you sell tea cups or tea bags?

Get your existing list to spread the word about your new site. Run a contest / give away tea or a cool tea set or something for people who share on Facebook, tweet it, etc. I drink tea as well. What makes your site different from Teavana or just Amazon?

therage said:

You only spent $100's trying to optimize for a Adwords campaign before giving up? LOL, that made my day. Do you even know why people would buy tea from you and not your competitors? Do you know your prospects well? Psychological profile of your ideal prospect in place? You do know the Adwords Campaign failure tells me you just slapped up a site in a niche you thought you could dominate and then paid your seo way to profits. So now you suffer because you don't know how to direct sales copy to get rid of the buyers doubts and fears AND you don' know how to optimize for your best ppc results. SHAME, maybe people should be forced to take lessons before even thinking about operating in real life. The really sad part is, your sales could boost if you started to look at things sharply.

Freebie Five!
1. Did you try TV Advertising directly either with cable suppliers or channels for your product?
2. Newspaper sales?
3. You try going to a local store and shelving it?
4. How about trying YouTube + Tea Time Series or sponsoring some paid advertisements through My Likes or A Network?
5. Did you try just reworking your strategy and actually incorporating psychological factors and triggers that boost sales for your ideal prospect?

You do know I wouldn't buy any tea online, but convince me (someone who drinks tea) as to WHY I would even glance at your pathetic products? I stated it this way to remove the bloated confidence you had from the SEO success. Anyway, come up with some good answers to as WHY I would buy tea from you, then branch out once you get me convinced (depends really on your smart strategic thinking).

Click to expand...

I really wish people would give me advice like this. OP, read the above words and really think about it. I think it is the best advice you will get. You should thank him for taking the time to spell it out.

Adwords should work for your niche. My guess is that you should work on your Adwords campaign. Tighten it up and find your buying words. Maybe your design is part of the issue. Is it professional? Are you losing conversions because of it? How does it compare to your completion?

I was not hostile at all, please re-read my post carefully as I get rid of any pride or BLOAT from a seo success. The strategy to win conversions is the SAME on all fronts. Yes, I do agree that perry marshall said to give up if your conversions suck, but your core problem is your sales copy. A quick subscription to tools like seomoz and semrush would reveal if and when your competitors get sales, their ad copy, etc.

Then you need to look at packaging and presentation of your page to the prospect. Finally, you need to come from a authority type, this can be done via google news (a bhw bst) and many reviews and ravings about your site and product. Your goal is to get rid of their doubts and fears, list the benefits only you can give them, and come from a place of authority to create the herd effect. You can strength sales copy with zeigarnik effects and referencing to the failures they might have had with picking the right tea for them, or finding the right tea.

It is all a game of psychological war strategies. The better your strategy to hook the person on heavy ground, the better the sales will be. Don't pull a Walmart, your specific ideal customer comes from only X keywords on X searches, not abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwyz, notice that you need to KNOW your perfect prospect, and then make the sales copy for them. If I sell hamburgers, I do not market under green hamburgers unless I am selling that type for Halloween. My perfect prospect is the family who wants a quick meal on the way to or from something. They want a good tasting quick meal, cheap, and easily cooked fast and served timely. The benefits are happy kids, no cooking, and it tastes good. You can also carry the food where you go, and the benefit for eating with my hamburgers is my customer experiences and food qualities.