I'm advertising great actually, my main question is TV. I've normally been against advertising on TV because it is not trackable which I do not do since I"m more of a direct response guy. But what are you favorite advertising methods

If I read your site right, your DVD is a how to make money doing these four styles right? You are therefore marketing a "business opportunity", so you should have a marketing strategy for a business opportunity. As you have a benefit of a strong community, I would suggest banner ads, animated, on black female specific websites.

Is your program too big to be converted to a downloadable version? What makes it worth the asking price?

Just some thoughts.

What's your marketing strategy?

What about people who would want your product on VHS or even CDROM, or have it DOWNLOADABLE, or streaming somewhere? Your market is relatively small in comparison to the mass market because your product is most useable with black people right? Not that white women don't like these styles, they are most often seen as a part of a do right?

Now how important is the money making aspect versus the how to aspect? Does the how to aspect not work because an individual would have a hard time doing the process by themselves? Are your demos of your wife doing someone else? This is an important part of your marketing strategy.

How are you going to promote the product, beyond the website?

Kent Capener

I'm not sure about your claims of the cost comparison to others.

Kent is right. Before you can promote your product, you have to know who would be interested in it, and what they think about your type of product.

Right now, your site sends two messages: I braid hair (aimed at customers) and I can teach you how to braid other people's hair (aimed at "competitors"). These are two different audiences, with completely different needs and concerns.

I assume that you are making enough income braiding hair right now, and that you want to leverage your knowledge with the DVD. That's your side of the story. But you are selling that DVD to someone else, and you won't make the sale if you don't get in sync with THEIR side of the story.

So let's think about their perspective.

First I'd like to address a few things about the customers coming to your site to see about getting their hair braided. (Can't resist--there are some obvious things that could be improved.) One, you need to make sure that your photos are as flattering as possible. That means you will want to set up a place in your home (or wherever you do the work) with lights set up correctly (the secret of good photography is largely in the lighting). The background you used in your own site shot is nice, by the way.

You'll want a light on either side of the person, slightly in front (out of the picture, of course), and one light a little stronger than the other. Make sure the person's makeup is as professional as possible; this will make a difference. You may want to check online for some tips on taking proper "head shots." There's too much to it for me to cover in detail here, but I can say that anything you can do to improve the photos will help both your customer business and your DVD business.

Second, the "nested menu" aspect of your site is not helping you, i.e., the copy on the left saying, "Click on the right for a picture," etc. You're placing too many barriers in front of the person who has come to your site. For example, the "gallery" link should immediately open a page with "thumbnail" (small) photos that can be clicked on and enlarged. This is not a super big deal, but the way you have it now is just irritating to the people coming to your site. Too many clicks.

The larger versions of the photos should be larger than they are now--about twice the size would be about right, so people can see the details of your work (it looks like your work is good enough to stand that kind of detail).

OK, now on to the DVD customers. Again, these are DIFFERENT people than the ones coming to your site for braiding. So you need to set aside a section of your site for them (if/when you can afford it, I would even suggest a completely different site/URL).

On your customer site, the "star" message is: "I can braid your hair and you will look great afterwards." This is your promise. All marketing and selling is based on the promise you make and keep.

On the DVD site, the star message--the promise--is: "Spend $29 on this DVD and you will learn how to do professional-grade braiding, that can make you money in your spare time." The message should be direct and personal, like a letter to a friend. I can imagine copy that says something like the following:

Hi. My name is Marquetta Breslin. I've been braiding hair professionally for 12 years, and am a Licensed Hair Braider (Commonwealth of Virginia Board for Barbers and Cosmetology). It's been a great source of income for me, something I can do in my spare time. Most months I make $1200 or more.

I only handle local customers, and there are always more people who want my services than I have time for, so I decided to create a DVD showing these techniques. My hope is that you will be able to use the DVD to start learning these techiniques, and will be able to open your own business as a braiding professional.

The DVD is X minutes long. It shows you how to create the following styles: [show a picture of each style--don't make them click on anything, just put it right in the page--and a caption next to each one describing it...include the time it took and other details that the person would find instructive].

Order your copy today, and we will send it out to you right away. If you have any questions afterwards, please feel free to email me at contact@braidsbybreslin.com.

I look forward to hearing about your success with these techniques!

There are probably a few other snippets of information you can put in your copy, but this will get you started.

One thing to remember as you proceed with the DVD customer is you are selling a techique. You are TEACHING. That puts you in a category similar to those who teach people how to do things, like publish their own books (see http://www.parapublishing.com for an example of that--I'm not affiliated with them in any way, it's just an example). Note how he has created a variety of products--reports--on different subjects related to self-publishing.

You've done a little of this on your site, but you can always do more. For example, you may be able to do follow-on DVDs for different styles. You could even create a DVD that they could buy to give to THEIR customers that shows their customer how to take care of their new, braided hairstyle.

I bet if you and Ricky sat down and started to create a list of all the things you could teach someone, the list could be pretty long. For example, another idea that occurs to me is to help people become certified. I'm sure becoming a licensed hair braider wasn't a super easy thing to do, and you could create a written guide for others. Make sure it includes a disclaimer about how you're not a lawyer, that this is not legal advice, and that the rules and regulations in their region might be different, etc.

Before you can start attracting new customers to your site for your DVD, if you're going to market through the web, you'll have to know what keywords they'd use to find you. Ask around. Talk to the other beauticians/braiders you know and ask them what they'd type into Google if they were looking for you.

Once you've done all this, it's time to start bringing customers to your site. You can start with Google Adwords (just go to Google.com and click on "Advertising Programs"). It's pretty self-explanatory. The goal is to start small, with one or two ads, and see how you do. Use the keywords you discovered from your interviews to build your copy.

You'll learn things that will help you adjust your copy over time. When you feel you have optimized your copy, and you've made some money using these methods, you'll be able to start using other methods. But before you spend a penny, call the people who have ALREADY purchased your DVD and ask THEM how they think you should promote the DVD, based on the way THEY would look for it and buy it. They'll give you all sorts of great ideas, if you ask open-ended questions and listen carefully.

Good luck.

Thanks to everybody for your advice and time spent on writing them