My cry for help. lol

nathandumoulin

nathandumoulin

WPBL / RUNOUT MEDIA
Silver Member
For those of you who don't know, I've produced a series of movies that feature Mika Immonen (www.mastering-pool.com). The result of my efforts has been more than satisfactory, meaning that the movies themselves have surpassed expectation.....however now that they're complete, it's become quite clear that I have absolutely no idea how to market these movies.

Filming, editing, scripting, graphics....these are all things Im good at. When it comes to marketing the finished product, I'd rather leave this job to someone who knows what they're doing. Preferably someone who does this sort of thing for a living, and also knows the billiard industry.

So my question is this. Can anyone here please advise/suggest/direct me on how I can get these movies to the mainstream? Pool & Billiard Magazine reviewed them as the best instructional DVDs on the market in last months issue, so I know that they're good enough for the mainstream audience. The problem is getting them there. Ideally I'd like to acquire the contact info for a person or company that I can hire to take care of this sort of thing for me.

(The same applies to my new upcoming pool movie, as discussed here: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=141733)


EDIT: So far I've tried running ads in international Pool Magazines. This works, but its *expensive*. About $1200 for a full page. Its not a cost effective solution. Ive also started doing the trade show thing. The one thats going on in Vegas right now has a Mezz Cues booth, that has part of it dedicated to my DVDs, including a giant banner ad. My DVDs are also on amazon.com, target.com, seyberts, and will appear in the upcoming distributor catalogs for CueStix and Accustats.

EDIT #2: This thread is from May 2009 and was randomly revived. Please take into consideration that circumstances have somewhat changed. :p
 
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Have you tried contacting accu-stats, perhaps they will be able to carry them.

There is also Palason billiards in Ottawa, and I believe there is one in TO as well.

If they have vendors stands available at the Canadian Championships I would try to get involved in that.

Have you been in contact with a publishing company?
 
I know that I have seen many skateboarding dvd's and anime movies at bestbuy so maybe you could try contacting them
 
fsarfino said:
I know that I have seen many skateboarding dvd's and anime movies at bestbuy so maybe you could try contacting them
Click to expand...

This is exactly the sort of thing I need. However what I'm looking for is the kind of person that already has the contact info for all these places, and knows what strings to pull in order to get the DVDs on the store shelves in a realistic period of time.
 
I'll first take this opportunity to endorse the tapes. My wife got me the full set for my library last Christmas and the production values are the best I've ever seen in pool videos. The information is solid, too. So I do think you would sell many more copies if they were easier for more people, especially beginners, to find.

Here are some ideas:
  • Place ads using http://adwords.google.com/. I tried some searches on "pool lesson videos" "pool instruction dvd" etc ... Not only does your site not come up in the regular search results, your site doesn't come up in the paid search results (off to the right on the Google search page). Under the Adwords program, you only pay if people click-through to your site. You can monitor clicks and sales to make sure you're paying a reasonable price. What's promising is that only Ozone Billiards and sportsvideos.com appear to be advertising on these search terms. So you can get a link to your site on the first page of search results with a very low per-click bid.

    Google does a very good job of placing "better" ads more prominently. They use many algorithms to accomplish this, but the punchline is that better ads result in better (higher) placement and a lower cost per click. So buy words that people who want your videos might search. Don't bid on "pool video" because most of those people are probably looking for videos of matches. Instead bid on [every variation of the word "pool" + [every variation of the word "lesson"] + [every variation of the word "video"].

    Experiment with the text of your ads -- the better the wording is at getting people to click through, the less you'll pay per click. And the better the wording, the more likely it will be that people who click through actually purchase.

    Anyone who searches on "Mika Immonen" is a likely prospect, so bid on those too. And don't forget that people can't spell. So bid on "Mikka Imonen" and "Meeka emanen" ... You only pay if someone clicks, so it can't hurt.


  • Once you master Google, you can move on to Yahoo and MSN. But Google is where the customers are.


  • eBay -- Why not? Fees are fairly low and the sales would be incremental to the higher margin sales through your site. I've never heard of the Australian Oyster, but he finds it profitable purchase a feature add on the term "pool instruction" (see http://tinyurl.com/qpxlrt)


  • Amazon -- I think the fees are higher, but if the sales are all incremental, then why not? I did a search for "pool instruction dvd" and there are Randy G.'s DVDs, but not yours! Why not?


  • Website optimization. Right now, your website doesn't make the first page of search results for "pool instruction dvd". It doesn't make the first page of search results for "mika immonen" either. That shouldn't be the case. I don't know that much about site optimization, but here's the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

    I do know that people clicking-through (on non-ad search results) to your site improves your rank, as will more links from external sites. So more links and more visits will help -- success breeds success. You just have to get the ball rolling. You could even ask your happy AZB customers to "Google bomb" you. Basically, every time someone searches "pool video" and then scrolls through until they find your site, then clicks on that link, your site gets a better ranking from Google. (This is only slightly unethical.)


  • Why doesn't Mika's blog link to your video and feature an ad prominently? It's not a lot, but Mika gets 76 visitors per day and they're all potential customers.


  • The APA audience would seem to be the gold mine. Were you at the recent national singles tournament? Will you be at the big tournament in May? Can you get Mika to show up? Do you play in your local APA league? Can you get your LO to include an ad in the envelopes? Do you have friends in other markets that could ask their LO to do this? Would you consider sending LOs a free copy for their review and offer a discount to their APA members? Do the same for TAP and any other league.


Long story short, you want to make it so that anybody who looks anywhere on the internet for anything related to pool instruction or Mika Immonen will learn about your videos. I'm fairly tuned in to these things, but if it weren't for AZB I wouldn't know about your videos at all. The problem with AZB is that, while few are as good as they pretend to be on here, the audience is still pretty experienced and so they're not really your target audience.

You want the rookies, and they don't know about AZB. Find them, or at least make it easier for them to find you.

Good luck,
Cory
 
to be honest with you, I don't think that having a marketing guy helping you is going to make much of a difference. You should be able to get this DVD on every major pool supplier on the internet, amazon, etc. The quality is obviously the best there is. Eventually, quality is going to sell. Perhaps you can hook up with some other pros and do more specific productions on different disciplines, etc.

You can sponsor pool tournaments, etc. Look at what OB-Cues is doing or any of your competitors. You are obviously a creative guy, I would apply that to getting the product out there as well.

Paying a marketing guy to get your product out there is going to be VERY expensive and the reality is that your MARKET is very small in the big scheme of things.

Another idea is to try matching up with a product maker to include your DVDs as part of a package to customers, especially beginners who are buying beginner sets or new pool tables, etc.

Have you considered providing your DVDs on a rental basis online where people can watch lessons in high quality from your website?
 
Da Bank said:
to be honest with you, I don't think that having a marketing guy helping you is going to make much of a difference. You should be able to get this DVD on every major pool supplier on the internet, amazon, etc. The quality is obviously the best there is. Eventually, quality is going to sell. Perhaps you can hook up with some other pros and do more specific productions on different disciplines, etc.
Click to expand...
To expand, my earlier post was aimed at things you can do yourself with a little time and effort. I agree with Da Bank about the cost of a real marketing person.
 
nathandumoulin said:
This is exactly the sort of thing I need. However what I'm looking for is the kind of person that already has the contact info for all these places, and knows what strings to pull in order to get the DVDs on the store shelves in a realistic period of time.
Click to expand...

getting your product on store shelves is a huge undertaking and if you are small time, these huge corporations are going to do everything they can to string you up.

Anime and Skate Boarding, like it or not, are way more popular than pool... and those aren't even instructional DVDs. I challenge anyone to find more than 3 instructional DVDs of any type at one of these places.

Also, anime and skateboarding are products that appeal to people who spend money.. namely kids with parents who buy shit for them.

As we all know, pool players are as cheap as they come... you are going to have to come up with ways to get around this, which is not easy.
 
Welcome to pool.



respectfully eric


and yes hey are the best video's ever in pool. the fundemenal problem is the subject matter is pool, Mika is great.
 
marketing isn't easy

Marketing isn't easy. Sounds like you are doing the right things. To hit the big marketers isn't too hard if you have a good product. All you have to do is give up 70% to 125% of your profits to get your product in front of hundreds of thousands or millions of eyes, most of whom won't buy anything from that catalog and when only a tiny fraction of one percent have any interest in your video's. These same people will often want you to give them exclusive marketing rights too. Such a deal!

I know quite a bit about marketing and have some contacts. All I want is the same thing most marketers want. A large guarantee for myself against a major percentage of the profit per unit sold.

fatboy put out catalogs. I have seen them. He bought stuff for crap prices and sold it for gold prices. Although he took it to extremes that is what marketers do. Get tangled up with people that are primarily marketers instead of primarily pool niche people who need to add your product to their line and you will find yourself giving up almost all of the profits from your hard work for far less in sales than you envision.

You have to be very careful who you partner with and after all of the work making the video's and the cost of having them burned and packaged your real work has just began. Sales is the hardest part. I do know people who put out niche video's. They put a hell of a lot of work and effort into it, had the industry connections, and worked for a lot less than minimum wage when all was said and done.

Hu



nathandumoulin said:
For those of you who don't know, I've produced a series of movies that feature Mika Immonen (www.mastering-pool.com). The result of my efforts has been more than satisfactory, meaning that the movies themselves have surpassed expectation.....however now that they're complete, it's become quite clear that I have absolutely no idea how to market these movies.

Filming, editing, scripting, graphics....these are all things Im good at. When it comes to marketing the finished product, I'd rather leave this job to someone who knows what they're doing. Preferably someone who does this sort of thing for a living, and also knows the billiard industry.

So my question is this. Can anyone here please advise/suggest/direct me on how I can get these movies to the mainstream? Pool & Billiard Magazine reviewed them as the best instructional DVDs on the market in last months issue, so I know that they're good enough for the mainstream audience. The problem is getting them there. Ideally I'd like to acquire the contact info for a person or company that I can hire to take care of this sort of thing for me.

(The same applies to my new upcoming pool movie, as discussed here: http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=141733)


EDIT:

So far I've tried running ads in international Pool Magazines. This works, but its *expensive*. About $2000 for a full page. Its not a cost effective solution. Ive also started doing the trade show thing. The one thats going on in Vegas right now has a Mezz Cues booth, that has part of it dedicated to my DVDs, including a giant banner ad. My DVDs are also on amazon.com, target.com, seyberts, and will appear in the upcoming distributor catalogs for CueStix and Accustats.
Click to expand...
 
I'll tell you the same thing I told a friend of mine that has a DVD series...there are a number of successful internet-based pool distributors. Partner with them and you gain a wide audience with little effort. Having your product sitting on their internet shelves is one very good avenue.

Think: pooldawg, muellers, platinum, poolsight, ozonebilliards, billiardwarehouse,....even AZB has a video store!
 
Put it on U Tube. :rotflmao1:

Won't make you any money but will get a lot of free exposure. :yeah:
 
Figure out what your:
per unit cost is
inventory on hand is

then dump them all at break-even (based on above) to a single party.

then move onto next project.
 
Black-Balled said:
Figure out what your:
per unit cost is
inventory on hand is

then dump them all at break-even (based on above) to a single party.

then move onto next project.
Click to expand...

I don't think inventory is an issue per se. Unit costs on DVDs are trivial. His costs are mostly fixed, paid up front (i.e., production costs). So additional sales are close to 100% profit, with some small incremental costs for shipping and taxes.
 
to add to what others already stated, hiring a marketing guy probably wouldn't help unless u found someone that knew pool and worked cheap enough to spend a lot of time doing it, if your videos are out there but people dunno it exists they won't be searching for it

i like the ebay idea jimmy reid has been selling his dvds there for years now, if it wasn't working he wouldn't waste his time, someone also mentioned youtube i think it'd be great to make a trailer of each of your dvds with a few good pointers and maybe even some other leaked couple minute clips, $30 a pop is an investment and most people like to be informed b4 they invest in anything, most trailers are better than the movies themselves if they put in the right highlights so surely it would boost sales

an idea no1 else has mentioned is myspace, most of your smaller pool businesses use myspace to reach a larger clientele, u can piggy back off of these other businesses and work along side them, u could also piggy back from mika's myspace, i found a page for him but it didn't look too active, all you'd have to do is find other pros pages or pool businesses and add their buddies, u could even work together to advertise bulletins to leech off each others friend lists
________
 
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I want to thank everyone here for their insight (Cory and Da Bank especially).

A lot of the suggestions are well thought out, and will prove to be a tremendous help. You've all also made me rethink a few ideas I had, and probably saved me a fair amount of time.

I look forward to hearing more from you guys. This thread is proof that Azb has a great thing going here. A great community with people that are willing to help. :thumbup:
 
Cory in DC said:
I'll first take this opportunity to endorse the tapes. My wife got me the full set for my library last Christmas and the production values are the best I've ever seen in pool videos. The information is solid, too. So I do think you would sell many more copies if they were easier for more people, especially beginners, to find.

Here are some ideas:
  • Place ads using http://adwords.google.com/. I tried some searches on "pool lesson videos" "pool instruction dvd" etc ... Not only does your site not come up in the regular search results, your site doesn't come up in the paid search results (off to the right on the Google search page). Under the Adwords program, you only pay if people click-through to your site. You can monitor clicks and sales to make sure you're paying a reasonable price. What's promising is that only Ozone Billiards and sportsvideos.com appear to be advertising on these search terms. So you can get a link to your site on the first page of search results with a very low per-click bid.

    Google does a very good job of placing "better" ads more prominently. They use many algorithms to accomplish this, but the punchline is that better ads result in better (higher) placement and a lower cost per click. So buy words that people who want your videos might search. Don't bid on "pool video" because most of those people are probably looking for videos of matches. Instead bid on [every variation of the word "pool" + [every variation of the word "lesson"] + [every variation of the word "video"].

    Experiment with the text of your ads -- the better the wording is at getting people to click through, the less you'll pay per click. And the better the wording, the more likely it will be that people who click through actually purchase.

    Anyone who searches on "Mika Immonen" is a likely prospect, so bid on those too. And don't forget that people can't spell. So bid on "Mikka Imonen" and "Meeka emanen" ... You only pay if someone clicks, so it can't hurt.


  • Once you master Google, you can move on to Yahoo and MSN. But Google is where the customers are.


  • eBay -- Why not? Fees are fairly low and the sales would be incremental to the higher margin sales through your site. I've never heard of the Australian Oyster, but he finds it profitable purchase a feature add on the term "pool instruction" (see http://tinyurl.com/qpxlrt)


  • Amazon -- I think the fees are higher, but if the sales are all incremental, then why not? I did a search for "pool instruction dvd" and there are Randy G.'s DVDs, but not yours! Why not?


  • Website optimization. Right now, your website doesn't make the first page of search results for "pool instruction dvd". It doesn't make the first page of search results for "mika immonen" either. That shouldn't be the case. I don't know that much about site optimization, but here's the Wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization

    I do know that people clicking-through (on non-ad search results) to your site improves your rank, as will more links from external sites. So more links and more visits will help -- success breeds success. You just have to get the ball rolling. You could even ask your happy AZB customers to "Google bomb" you. Basically, every time someone searches "pool video" and then scrolls through until they find your site, then clicks on that link, your site gets a better ranking from Google. (This is only slightly unethical.)


  • Why doesn't Mika's blog link to your video and feature an ad prominently? It's not a lot, but Mika gets 76 visitors per day and they're all potential customers.


  • The APA audience would seem to be the gold mine. Were you at the recent national singles tournament? Will you be at the big tournament in May? Can you get Mika to show up? Do you play in your local APA league? Can you get your LO to include an ad in the envelopes? Do you have friends in other markets that could ask their LO to do this? Would you consider sending LOs a free copy for their review and offer a discount to their APA members? Do the same for TAP and any other league.


Long story short, you want to make it so that anybody who looks anywhere on the internet for anything related to pool instruction or Mika Immonen will learn about your videos. I'm fairly tuned in to these things, but if it weren't for AZB I wouldn't know about your videos at all. The problem with AZB is that, while few are as good as they pretend to be on here, the audience is still pretty experienced and so they're not really your target audience.

You want the rookies, and they don't know about AZB. Find them, or at least make it easier for them to find you.

Good luck,
Cory
Click to expand...
This is great advice. Do this. I've seen the before and after results. Like night and day.
 
ShootingArts said:
Marketing isn't easy. Sounds like you are doing the right things. To hit the big marketers isn't too hard if you have a good product. All you have to do is give up 70% to 125% of your profits to get your product in front of hundreds of thousands or millions of eyes, most of whom won't buy anything from that catalog and when only a tiny fraction of one percent have any interest in your video's. These same people will often want you to give them exclusive marketing rights too. Such a deal!

I know quite a bit about marketing and have some contacts. All I want is the same thing most marketers want. A large guarantee for myself against a major percentage of the profit per unit sold.

fatboy put out catalogs. I have seen them. He bought stuff for crap prices and sold it for gold prices. Although he took it to extremes that is what marketers do. Get tangled up with people that are primarily marketers instead of primarily pool niche people who need to add your product to their line and you will find yourself giving up almost all of the profits from your hard work for far less in sales than you envision.

You have to be very careful who you partner with and after all of the work making the video's and the cost of having them burned and packaged your real work has just began. Sales is the hardest part. I do know people who put out niche video's. They put a hell of a lot of work and effort into it, had the industry connections, and worked for a lot less than minimum wage when all was said and done.

Hu
Click to expand...

Hu,

you are old and wise, right? there is a old saying "Dont open your mouth unless you know the shot". So with respect please live up to your self proclaimed standard.

yes I did sell for a very high margine 70%, but we financed the merchandice and lost our asses on all product sales, because the default rate was so high, the catalog devlopment cost us a million/yr-probably because we didnt know what w were doing, we lost another $500,000/yr on the wearhouse. We made up for all of our losses on memberhip fees, annual fees.

Hu isnt aware of our business all he has is the bad shit on the net to go by for referance, we still service accounts to this day-it cost us over $500,000 since we closed it a year ago, we didnt have to do that or blow that $$$, but it was the right thing to do. So we funded a unwind company to handle the accounts until they dry up-on good faith. So Hu shove it.

anyways marketing is a very delicate balance, you have to be in a biz where there is $$$ in the first place, thats why i was in credit, I have something new in the works. but I cant figure out how to make a nickle in pool, I dont want to either, for me its fun.
 
as usual, you open mouth and insert foot

Fatboy said:
Hu,

you are old and wise, right? there is a old saying "Dont open your mouth unless you know the shot". So with respect please live up to your self proclaimed standard.

yes I did sell for a very high margine 70%, but we financed the merchandice and lost our asses on all product sales, because the default rate was so high, the catalog devlopment cost us a million/yr-probably because we didnt know what w were doing, we lost another $500,000/yr on the wearhouse. We made up for all of our losses on memberhip fees, annual fees.

Hu isnt aware of our business all he has is the bad shit on the net to go by for referance, we still service accounts to this day-it cost us over $500,000 since we closed it a year ago, we didnt have to do that or blow that $$$, but it was the right thing to do. So we funded a unwind company to handle the accounts until they dry up-on good faith. So Hu shove it.

anyways marketing is a very delicate balance, you have to be in a biz where there is $$$ in the first place, thats why i was in credit, I have something new in the works. but I cant figure out how to make a nickle in pool, I dont want to either, for me its fun.
Click to expand...


fatboy,

Despite your lies about only dealing with the lowlifes you sent me a catalog when I was on workman's comp years ago. Seems you sought out those that might be desperate too, regardless of their credit rating. My credit rating was extremely high at the time and I never paid anything late the entire time I was off work.

Your catalog had close to a half-page of very fine print for your disclaimer. Buried deep in the fine print was the acknowledgement that your credit card was only good for your crap and the rates were beyond ridiculous.

When I stated you bought stuff for crap prices and sold it for gold prices I am talking about specific items in your catalog. The exact same items were $3.00 to $7.00 at the weekly local junk auction brand new. You had it priced from just under forty dollars to almost seventy. If you think that is 70% profit your math is a hell of a lot worse than your spelling.

You are foolish to keep calling me because I'll bust you for what you are every time and you aren't much.

Hu
 
Ahh...lol...my thread turned into a drama fest. :eek:

Guys...I do appreciate your help prior to this little argument...but maybe you could settle this via PM?
 
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