Game Plan

[sonnybyrd]

For where we are today:

• Add prominent email address collection
  • Incentivize with discount, free add-on, etc.
• Gift options
• Multiple product variants
• Integrate / emphasize social sharing
  • Incentivize with discount or free add-on, some kind of tool or program to track it
• Improve all site copy
  • Listen to customer feedback
  • Look at successful examples
  • Grand St. / Kickstarter / Skillshare have videos as the main focus
  • Skillshare shows a preview of all the upcoming videos
  • FAQ sections
  • Bespoke post highlights gift options
  • Quarterly highlights the instructor/creator
  • Explain value proposition
  • Pour over coffee tastes delicious
  • This box is cheaper than the alternative
  • It's a personal growth experience
  • Your friends/gf/bf/parents will be impressed by you
  • Social affirmation
  • Tweets about Bonsai
  • "Testimonials" we have so far
• Improve links and additional site pages throughout that allow people to drill down on things that interest them but keep them one click away from conversion at the same time
  • "Read more about coffee science"
  • "See sample videos of your barista"
  • "Browse photos of the coffee box"
  • "Read more about Irving Farm and our partnership"
  • "Learn more about why pour over is cost effective"
  • "Read about the origins of the pour over method"
• Do a proper photo shoot for everything we need (Josh, products, different settings, founders, action shots, in a coffee shop, etc.)
• Add conversion tracking in Google Analytics
• Knock out the checklist of basic SEO needs for web / front-end
• Tighten up design for consistency, match fonts, flow, issues in conversion funnel
  • Improve superfluous pages like team and mission, add FAQs, etc.
• Add a decent enough blog that matches nicely with everything else
• Get a better logo or maybe just not use the bonsai tree icon, too cartoonish

For where we need to be to cover the bases and start really moving toward growth/mktg:

• Build/design our conversion funnel as one seamless experience, one flow, from landing page to done
  • Not comparing to Harrys, but the same level of excellence, flow, and UX
  • Design/plan our ideal conversion funnel (headlines, images, popups, forms, buttons, header/footer)
  • Capture email first before anything else
  • Make every step seamless with the previous one, pack marketing/sales punch into every step
  • Incentive checkout completion at mid-way through or early in the conversion process
  • Integrate BounceExchange to minimize abandonment
  • Re-market via email to those who abandon
• Improve and tighten up design so that it = WOW
  • Get to Harry's level; again not in terms of comparison but in terms of quality and excellence
  • Better and more photos
  • Consistency and having everything match and flow seamlessly
  • Could get input from a super brand-oriented, detail-oriented, hardcore pixel pushing designer
• Integrate Optimizely in a smart way so that we can easily create customized landing pages
• Create referral program w/ incentives and tools to easily share a trackable link, upload Gmail contacts, connect to FB/Twitter, etc.

For what we need to do with boxes:

• Pack as much additional value into coffee box as possible: 3 kinds of coffee, bonsai mug, swag
• Add two new boxes that:
  • ~$20-25 price range
  • Not too perishable, easy to order and manage in batches
  • Can be targeted at both foodies and/or DIY/hobby/crafty type people
  • WAY more wow-ish, unique, off-the-wall, creative
  • With 3 complete boxes we will be defensible as a complete company, ready for PR and MKTG
  • Multiple tiers
  • Box without kettle
  • Box with kettle
  • Box with kettle & grinder (higher priced options make the middle seem cheaper)
• Fix packaging / shipping just make it all way better and prettier and optimized with materials and all

Then, Marketing:

• Work really really really hard on PR
  • Like super hard, maybe even working with a low cost startup specialist, or Audience.io type company
• Target segments like travel, culture, foodies, DIY, crafty segments on social, continuing guerrilla style
  • Data-driven following, favoriting, auto-messaging
  • Use twitterbots heavily
  • Own a hashtag
• Have different and customized landing pages for traffic sources and different customer segments
• Get really active with Instagram hashtags and following
• Get really active on Pinterest
• Figure out how to work with bloggers and influencers
• Vine, Vine influencers
• Do a deal with:
  • Gilt, Urban Daddy, Thrillist, Fab, and/or any other from Groupon on down
  • Work on an offline deal with Wholefoods and equivalent, or any other offline partner
• Consider some podcast ad tests
• Start podcast about amazing, unique, interesting skills / people who do them
• Come up with an approach to YouTube (publishing videos)
• Niche community promos (like be geared up and really hit them super hard, guarantee ourselves we get to top)
  • Designer News
  • Product Hunt
  • Hacker News
• Small paid experiments
  • Use our $50 free on Facebook ads and $100 free on AdWords
  • Twitter ads / cards

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DONE:

• Make homepage mobile friendly and knock out other small issues
  • Increase responsiveness

[zsherman]

Adding to the marketing list:

• Vine, both our own clips and working with vine celebs (I have a connection to one I think)

[zsherman]

It doesn't make any sense to keep this in a single issue, I'm working on splitting them out into reasonable chunks.