Well, gang, it’s been way too long since my last post! Sometimes other responsibilities can get in the way but I promise to do better going forward!
Anyway – lots and lots of stuff to update on so here goes:
Sponsorshippin’
We’re now at the point that I’ve stopped soliciting tournament directors and now they are finding the IceMule and contacting me. And what great tournaments / people! Our newest sponsorship is with Drew Gregory’s new series, the 2010 River Bassin’ Tournament Trail, which he is doing in association with Bass Pro Shops. This is going to be a dynamite series and it’s in support of finding a cure for Lou Gehrig’s Disease so go sign up!
Also – I’ve recently added a new page to IceMuleCooler.com that lists all of our sponsorships and events, complete with logos, event names, locations and dates. It’s totally cool – check it out!
Reviews
Getting serious reviews from serious pros / reporters is critical to building credibility with our target markets (in addition to the awesome reviews and testimonials from our customers!).
Lately, it’s been an embarrassment of riches – not only is Drew Gregory (see above) going to write a review for us for posting on his terrific site, but I was also contacted by Jim Sutton of the Florida Times Union, who’s working on a review for the Sunday “New Stuff” column! Plus, Nathan Ward from Quicksilver Media contacted me and is now working on a review for AllAboutRivers.com!
Retail
This is really, really early stages, but I’ve begun a few initial conversations with reps about getting into stores – stay tuned.
Last weekend I was in Tampa for the IceMule’s first Kayak Fishing Tournament, the Whiskey Joe’s Mammouth Slam Classic, part of the Tropic Bay Kayak Fishing Classics Series. First, nothing held at a place called “Whiskey Joe’s” can be bad – it’s against the laws of the universe. Second, Captain Pat and the crew put together a first class event and it was awesome to be present when three IceMules were presented as prizes. I took the opportunity to shoot some video on my Flipcam and the results are in the YouTube video below.
Now here’s the thing. This is the first video I’ve ever edited using iMovie on my Mac. I’m using standard Mac templates and staying pretty safe with background music. I’ll get better as we go along here…for now, I’m fairly certain no one in the “Shorts” race for the Oscar is sweating.
In fact, the whole Sponsorshippin’ thing has taken off in a MAJOR way. We are now sponsoring over 50 tournaments! I’ll provide a complete list soon.
In the meantime, enjoy and provide feedback (but take it easy on my directorial debut!):
Whew. What a week. This whole Blog/Sponsorshippin/running a cooler company by myself thing is tiring!
It has been a heck of a ride this week, though, and all of it good. Punchline: I am TOTALLY into the whole sponsorship scene. Plus, tons of extras that have come my way as a result of reaching out through CoolerNotes and offering to sponsor some of the good people in the Kayak Fishing community. In fact, the extras are what are so surprising and they really speak to the power of social media / online-based marketing.
Let’s recap:
Sponsorships. As I reported a few days ago, Joe Cambria at KayakFishingMagazine.net (which rocks) suggested that I sponsor a few kayak fishing tournaments to promote the IceMule. Ok – seems like a lot of work, but…OK. So, I sat down, grabbed the tourney calendar on KayakFishingMag’s site, jumped to each event organizer’s site, found the contact info and sent each tournament director an email asking if they had any sponsorship opportunities for a young, growing cooler company with an extremely limited marketing budget. I even suggested that I could sponsor without paying but by providing IceMules as prizes or for raffles.
I contacted 7 groups, some that run individual tournaments, some that run a series of 5 or 10 or more events. Within 24 hours (in some cases, within a few minutes) 5 of the 7 had contacted me back. EVERY ONE was excited about our participation. Of these 5, I have already committed to 4 and all but one will be unpaid sponsorships. I fully expect to hear from the others soon.
These four are listed below (I’ll include an event calendar on CoolerNotes.com and IceMuleCooler.com soon) – go to their site & check them out. In some cases, the tournaments support worthy charities so if you’re so inclined drop them a check, I’m sure they would appreciate it.
And – here is the first extra of the week…my (beautiful) wife Meg and I invited some friends over for dinner this past Saturday night. One friend, Lisa, mentioned that she didn’t know that the IceMule was my product (she had seen it promoted on Facebook) until she got a note I posted on Facebook about CoolerNotes.com. So, we got to talking about it and she mentioned that her son was playing in an enormous Lacrosse tournament held in Fort Mill, SC this summer. She’s one of the event organizers and thought that the IceMule would be a great sponsor. I agreed.
What is interesting is how easy this is (that said, several of my weekends just got booked!) and how much exposure I’ll get. I estimate that – just from participants and guests, the IceMule will be seen – in context – by over 3,000 people. I’ll pay (all expenses in, including product value) about $2 per. I’m paying up to that much for certain Adwords right now and somehow I think that seeing an IceMule in action will be a heckofa lot more impressive than clicking a link. But that’s just the surface – as one of the tournament media kits pointed out, the community of anglers in these areas (NC – GA – FL) is very large but very interconnected. In GA alone there are almost 1 million fishermen, and they all will know about the kayak tournaments there (or even know someone who competed). Plus, each tournament has well-trafficked websites where my logo will appear, plus emails, newsletters and, in some cases, magazines. The reach can be staggering.
As promised in my last post, I’m going transparent in 2010 – I’m going to post about the various marketing tactics I’m using to promote the IceMule. I’ll describe the tactic, show our tracking methodology (you can’t manage what you can’t measure), tell you the cost (most of the time – I’ll still reserve the right to run behind the curtain every once in a while) and periodically post results from each tactic. I know, I’m crazy, but what the hey… I’m all about sharin’.
So – onto Marketing Tactic #1: Sponsorships.
I can hear you now: What? Sponsorships? That’s so traditional! Where’s the cool social media tactic?
Ok, fair enough. I’m already executing foundational online tactics (such as Adwords, tracking through Google Analytics and Compete.com, Facebook fan site, Twitter, and others) which I’ll cover more deeply in another post.
But the reason I want to discuss Sponsorships now is because it is relevant right now – lots of 2010 outdoor events have already started, the calendars are filling up and sponsorships are still available, but they won’t be for long.
Plus – and this is the big one – the entire world is not virtual – physical still counts. My product, the IceMule Cooler, is a physical product that is used in the physical world. Ok – you might say – but so are books, sofas, treadmills and marital aids and they are all sold online. True – but they are also known items – my product is different enough that to love it you have to see it in action. Videos (like the one on the IceMule site) help, but the product still needs exposure. Exposure leads to usage which leads to word of mouth which leads to sales.
Sponsorships might be the perfect way to get this exposure to a highly targeted market – they are relatively inexpensive, have a captive audience (especially when the product is given as an award) and get people talking about the product (“what did you win? cool! but what the heck is that thing?”).
Finally – and this is the intersection between the physical and the online worlds – I can sponsor events without being there personally! For instance, I am considering sponsoring Kayak Fishing ClassicS. This is a series of 10 kayak fishing tournaments in the gulf coast states. Perfect. Kayak fishermen – one of my main targets, 6 coolers awarded per tournament, hundreds of attendees per event and, best of all, Gulf Coast, where every season is cooler season. If I do sponsor, I could just send them the coolers, have a call or two to make sure they get it, and manage all inquires and any additional tasks from the sofa I’m sitting on right now.
I could do that – but more likely I’ll travel for the first tournament at least, introduce the product to the event managers and check the whole scene out. I could decide to go virtual for the rest of the season or maybe not. Either way, this kind of exposure will be the perfect complement to my online efforts and will also provide awesome market needs analysis opportunities.
So – there you go. New school, meet old school. I’ll provide the list of events I’m sponsoring soon.
One of the things I want to do with CoolerNotes is to post about marketing plans and then report on success or failure. In my day job as a corporate marketer I would never consider this – why would I clue the competition in on my plans?
Crazy as it may sound, though, this is what I plan to do – in detail. There are a couple of reasons I want to do this…
I can (modestly) tell you that the IceMule is the best soft cooler made. But, as a commercial endeavor, it is still experimental. And, as I experiment with tactics, my readers (all three of you) a) can see whether they work and duplicate them if they do, or b) will think I’ve completely missed the boat start yelling “Idiot” at their computer screen. BTW – in either case please send me a comment – I’m totally open to all ideas.
Roam-It Gear (the company behind the IceMule) has a lot of constraints. For instance, we have almost no marketing budget, which means that word-of-mouth is CRITICAL. Also, our product is extremely high quality, which means that it is expensive to produce, which means my margins are tight – which limits our ability to price the product appropriately for retail store sales (though that will change at higher volumes), so all of our sales need to occur online. Also – Roam-It Gear is not my full-time gig. Which means that I can’t travel to, staff and work trade shows or outdoor events often (if at all). Forget traditional advertising or establishing a large sales force.
What all of this means is that Roam-It Gear is representative of lots of small companies online that are trying to compete with brand name companies. My thinking is that if Roam-It Gear can develop (or duplicate) tactics that make it successful, then so can your company.
So – over the next year, we’ll try different tactics, we’ll take your suggestions, we’ll likely pull our hair out. And maybe we’ll sell some coolers and create some happy customers. Either way, it’s sure to be educational.
I’ll post plans for Marketing Tactics #1 over the next day or two. But don’t tell the big guys.
Early this week I got an email from Kayak Fishing Magazine, somewhat out of the blue, asking if they could do a product review of the IceMule.
Well, um, let’s see….I target kayakers, and specifically kayak fishermen through adwords, I have spent hours and hours trolling (that’s a fishing term kids) kayak blogs and message boards to better understand the needs of this audience, and I’ve been tinkering around with the idea of spending real money on a print ad (old school) in a competitor magazine. So, yeah, you bet you can review the product. How many do you need and where do I send them??
Why this market?
First, I am a kayaker and a fisherman (though I haven’t become a kayak fisherman yet – something I will remedy this spring), and I KNOW the IceMule is the perfect cooler for this market. Kayaks have hulls that are irregularly shaped so traditional coolers can’t fit well. Other flexible coolers will leak (but the IceMule never will) when they are filled with ice, and when you are fishing you need ice to keep the fish fresh.
Second, this is the perfect outdoor market. Like some other markets, these guys and gals are devoted to their sport. De-vot-ed. And when you care that much, you want the best gear. Heck, the gear is half the fun. And when a unique product comes along, you must have it.
Third, I have gotten this same inquiry from a competitor magazine before but the review never happened – so I am anxious to see what the pros will say.
Forth, Kayak Fishing Magazine gets thousands of unique hits a month – this kind of exposure would typically require a big ‘ol check to Google and the eyeballs wouldn’t be nearly as targeted.
