Today on the More Cheese Less Whiskers podcast, We're talking with Gordon Geraci, and if you are an ice cream lover, today is going to be a podcast for you!
Gordon's from Cincinnati, Ohio, where he's invented what is he's calling the perfect ice cream bowl. He's very passionate about the product. He loves what he's created. I think it's a great idea, and we talked a lot about how to get the word out about this new product.
This is a great episode for anyone introducing a new product or idea to people. Ice cream lovers are everywhere, all over the world, so how can we apply the 8-Profit Activators to the marketing of the perfect ice cream bowl.
This was a fun episode, and I think you're going to enjoy it.
Show Links:
ProfitActivatorScore.com
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Transcript - More Cheese Less Whiskers 214
Dean: Gordon?
Gordon: Good morning, Dean. How are you?
Dean: I am so good. How are you?
Gordon: I'm doing very well.
Dean: Well, where are you calling from?
Gordon: The great state of Ohio in the city of Cincinnati.
Dean: Okay, perfect. Well, I'm down here in sunny Florida holding it down. And I'm ready - today.
Gordon: I'm more than ready too. First off, I want to tell you how exciting it is to get the opportunity to work with you today. You're a true marketing guru, and I'm anxious to hear your thoughts as you attempt to help my upstart. I love listening to More Cheese Less Whisker podcast. And of course, I've gotten some great insights and ideas from you through your platform, for example, to give a true value gift card to your customers to give to their friends instead of coupons.
Dean: Have you experimented with that?
Gordon: I haven't experimented with it yet, but I've done things like that in the past. And I totally agree with it. And I am going to tweak my use of it to increase it. I think it's just an excellent idea.
Dean: Awesome.
Gordon: I've given out some gift cards but not for referrals. And that's a tweak that could lead to a lot more business for me and my core business. Today, I'm anxious to discuss with you theperfecticecreambowl.com and-
Dean: Okay, theperfecticecreambowl.com. I like it.
Gordon: Yeah. And if it's okay with you, I'll set out a short product biography. Is that all right?
Dean: That sounds great. Tell me.
Gordon: Okay. Well, during the COVID shut down in the spring of 2020, I decided I wanted to create a product that would be exciting but inexpensive gift that people would love. Our target price for this was $10. I've been a recent convert to the YETI style insulated coffee cup, and I love how it keeps my coffee hot and it keeps it hot a long time. So I started thinking about applying the same principles of insulation and temperature maintenance to ice cream because people love ice cream. So we sourced the insulated stainless steel bowls and began to put together a complete product so that it could be sent as a gift. We knew we wanted the packaging to be first-class and continue to enhance if not heighten the excitement of the product itself. We brought five different designers on the packaging. And then we set the design to one of the top product box manufacturers in the country so that we would have a complete gift.
And we're now able to offer this gift, theperfecticecreambowl.com, for only $10 and that includes free shipping directly to the buyer or to the recipient the buyer wants us to send it to directly for them, including a gift note for them just like people send flowers or strawberries or gift baskets. But at only $10, we're hoping to make this a fun gift. By the way, we clear $2 per unit less any advertising expensive. It really is a great gift as people passionately love ice cream. And I've seen them get truly excited when they see the product box. And then when they open it to reveal the streamlined, lightweight, high tech perfect ice cream bowl.
We wanted to complete the build out of our e-commerce website and we began marketing December 9th, just about four weeks ago. Our initial marketing was to target business corporate accounts via bulk email. And we sent out approximately 5,000 emails. So 4,000 different companies hitting about 1,000 of them a second time. We got zero response. And that's where we stand today.
I'm interested in finding out how you would select a target audience for selling this product direct to the consumer, and what evil schemes you would employ. I'm also wondering if you might think we should raise the price of the product from $10 right now, or not since $2 profit doesn't allow for much margin for investment and decline acquisition.
Dean: Yeah, I agree with that. And I think that that's going to be your big challenge, is that you don't really have a margin for acquiring new clients. You can maybe bundle in sets like this rather than one at a time kind of thing to bulk that up a little bit.
Gordon: Since you grabbed that point, how about if I interject? One of the strategies I was considering would be to launch it at $10 and get some word of mouth going thinking that I could raise the price over time and I could fund the initial upstart advertising cost until we get it rolling. Or maybe you feel like that's a bad way to go. Get it to 15. That's a decent price point, including shipping, and just go from there.
Dean: Well, could you go? So I'm curious about the product itself here. So the bowl itself is all of your cost for making it, can you get that cost down in volume or is it that it's expensive materials to make the...?
Gordon: Well, I think of the $10, the most expensive part is the shipping. $5 a bowl, there's $5 of cost right there. The box and the product therefore is $3.
Dean: So you're including the shipping in that $10?
Gordon: Yeah, that's a big point to the consumer.
Dean: Oh, okay. So I think that would be outside. You could charge for shipping. I think everybody's kind of used to that. So separating the cost of shipping from the thing, but what is the actual bowl cost? Now then, so you've got $3 into the...?
Gordon: The bowl and the box combined. Yes.
Dean: Is $3. Okay, that's more like it. Okay. I thought it costs that much and then people are going to pay shipping on top of that. Yeah, that's what I was thinking. You only had $2 even with people paying shipping. Okay. That is-
Gordon: So you're saying the first thing you would be separate out the cost of shipping?
Dean: Yes, of course.
Gordon: Free shipping is not that big of a bag to you. Okay.
Dean: Well, it's a nice thing for when you can bundle it into a more expensive product, but your shipping is double the cost of the actual product. Right? So your cost, so it's too much in there. I'm wondering about the... How does it compare to a regular bowl? And I'm wondering if this is an issue. One thing I would wonder is does it insulate your hands from the cold in a way? Your hand is warm-
Gordon: Yes, it does, and that serves two purposes. One, your hands don't get cold, and two, the bowl doesn't transfer in the heat from your hands to cool down the ice cream and melt it.
Dean: Right. Okay. So that's a win. That's perfect because sometimes, that's the bigger problem. I always find actually that at home ice cream, the freezer and I don't know, everybody maybe keeps their freezers at different things, but I always find our ice cream is a little bit harder usually. And I don't mind that it melts. I'm usually waiting for it to melt a little bit. But the thing of keeping your hands warm is a nice thing. It's not really solving a problem per se as a lot of people aren't lingering over their ice cream like they do a coffee. You described the YETI coffee thing of keeping your coffee warm for a longer period of time. Typically, and I may be doing it wrong, but my experience of eating ice cream is that I'm actually eating the ice cream. What is your take on that? I'm trying to punch holes in it for you to look for-.
Gordon: That's fine. I would say at $10 gift price point, which maybe could be even lower if we want to lower it, but if we're going to separate out the shipping, but it can't solve super issues at that price point. It's just a little gift kind of a Hallmark card does. A Hallmark card might be $5 and you send that to a grandson or granddaughter for their birthday. Whereas with this, you could just ship this direct to somebody and say, "Hey, I love you." And just for no reason almost because I know you love ice cream. Yeah.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). Okay.
Gordon: I think it's meant to solve the gift giving problem we all face when another birthday's come up for yet another person.
Dean: - ice cream bowl. Okay. And I'm wondering, the bowl, I have in my house here a... Do you remember several years ago, somebody invented a cereal bowl that keeps the cereal separate from the milk so that your cereal doesn't get soggy? Do you remember that bowl?
Gordon: Absolutely. I've seen it doing my research. Yes.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. And I wonder if they're still selling and what the price is. Do you recall anything about that?
Gordon: I don't want to say clearly anything negative about it. It just didn't look real active, if you will, the website where I found it. However, maybe they've got $5 million in sales and I don't know, but-
Dean: Maybe. Who knows?
Gordon: ... I saw it and I thought it was okay and maybe people want to buy that. But the people who love ice cream, it just gets exciting when I talk about it to the designers, the box manufacturers, doing research. I love ice cream.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. So functionally then, let's say that it does serve a purpose for keeping the ice cream cold or longer. How much longer does it stop it from melting, let's say?
Gordon: I haven't run any scientific tests on it because I think that is I want to say kind of negligible and I don't have the budget to run a scientific test and it's going to depend on [crosstalk 00:13:43].
Dean: No, I'm just wondering on a... Yeah, I wonder if you'd ever done just a candid test of putting ice cream in a regular bowl and then your bowl and seeing what people would notice as the difference. Is there anything noticeable if you didn't tell people what it was because it's not going to be evident looking at the bowl what it's doing, right?
Gordon: Well, I think it would be evident if you had the bowl in your hand and you were familiar with stainless steel via the YETI product and understand that it's conductive of temperature and it's employing the same.
Dean: So you would notice. That would be something you would experience, notice, if you -.
Gordon: However, the difference between that and the YETI, to be candid, is there's no lid on this and therefore room temperature is more infiltrating the source of what you're trying to keep as a regulated temperature.
Dean: Right. So the real thing is that it's from your hands then, right? So it would keep your hands warm and not melt your ice cream from the level... We don't know what it would... I understand just the novelty of an ice cream bowl. You're just calling it that, but it could be a soup bowl just as easily. Right? There's nothing magical about it that makes it just for ice cream.
Gordon: Exactly, exactly. It could be a chili bowl, whatever. But the reason-
Dean: That's what I'm saying, is that imagine-
Gordon: ... I went with ice cream, ice cream I thought really was a marketing way to go at this that screams to somebody, "We know people that love ice cream, who loves soup," and if you count those two groups on your hands or run any kind of study, you're going to find ice cream much larger.
Dean: Yes. But I wonder about... It'd be kind of an interesting thing about products like this. One thing that this draws to my mind is there was a product that was a pumice-like stone, like a sponge-type of thing about the size of a potato, right? We had about the size of a toilet bowl wand on it on one end. And what was really interesting about it was that in one packaging, they had it in pink and they were marketing it as the Heeldini which was a pumice stone for ladies for their heels. That they can have a handle on it. So it's easy to use, right? But then I don't know whether that wasn't selling well or whether that was whatever happened. But there was also then the same product, exactly the same thing with a blue package and blue handle called the magic toilet wand, which was for getting rust stains out of your toilet and your bathtub, the magic toilet scrubber kind of thing, same product.
But I guess they were experimenting or with two different markets to see which one was the most effective. It's funny to me. I'm wondering out loud, I'm always looking for, is there any... You're buying it for fun, of course, like you said, but if there's a practical use for it too that that can be a fun justification, let's say, for it, or a practical reason for it. Right? That you're keeping your hands warm or that you're... If you think about this as the ultimate tailgate bowl where you had that bowl for chili or soup or whatever you're saying that that would keep your chili warmer or your... I'm just thinking out loud for being open to other ideas as a fallback. how has it been received? So far, what concerns me is you said you sent out the emails and got no responses to it. Have you run any ads on Facebook and Instagram?
Gordon: I have not yet. I wanted to do that sample of 5,000 emails distributed as I explained, hitting a couple different places, right at the Christmas season. It may have been too late being December 9th for a corporation to get their hands around. It may not be the type of product upon second thought and having results and you look at why the results may have produced nothing when you had hoped that it would. And it might be it's not the type of product a company wants to give to their staff or to their customers. And that's what I'm thinking now. And it was just an easier way to go out at it because you would stand to sell more bulk purchases when somebody has to buy a hundred for their staff and then they just pass them out as another stocking staffer.
Dean: Yeah. You got to have a reason still for it in terms of... Because if you're not going to talk about the functional elements of it, then why would somebody buy a unicorn bowl for their kid or a superhero bowl or something that the fun is baked into the identity of it?
Gordon: I mean, it seems like it's a far cry from a unicorn bowl.
Dean: No, no. I mean, I'm saying like you said, that it's fun. That everybody loves ice cream. They need this bowl. But I don't see that, how that, that everybody loves ice cream equates to, "Oh, yeah, of course, I'm going to get this bowl."
Gordon: No, no, I agree with that. And that's not the proposition. The proposition is more along the lines of, "I know grandpa loves ice cream," or, "I need to get my grandkids a gift," or something along those lines. And that's where I think it could have its place just because of the affinity somebody has for ice cream. It shows I know you. I mean, think about the selling of coffee shop gift cards without mentioning the brand names. How personal is that gift? Here's a gift card. And that's a big business. People get gift cards that have plenty of money and could go anywhere they want anyhow.
Dean: Yeah. And that's kind of the thing, is I know you're going to whatever coffee shop you go into or whatever. It's kind of just nice saying, "Hey, let me buy you a coffee," kind of thing. Nobody ever had the wrong size of that. Don't even return anything.
Gordon: It strikes me as a non-personal gift, not personal.
Dean: Yes, I get it. Yes.
Gordon: Okay. Whereas if you buy somebody that you know loves ice cream the perfect ice cream bowl, I feel like there's a real nexus of... And then you're going to hear them say, "Oh, that was really nice." And when they open it, if you're with them, you're going to see that they kind of get excited. This is different. This is cool. And I love ice cream. They open the box even to see the product and the lightweightness of it, the streamlineness, the installation of it, the stainless steel aspect. So all that for $10 or if you talk me into raising the price a little bit more.
Dean: No, I think the price is fine. But I think you can add the shipping and that's going to -.
Gordon: Yeah. That's results to the same thing for the consumer.
Dean: Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). But you don't get blamed for the shipping. If you raise the price to $15, that seems like it's... Well, that's expensive for the bowl, but you're really at 9.95 and then plus shipping. That sounds reasonable. Nobody blames you for taxes or shipping.
Gordon: And quick aside, would you go with 9.95 as opposed to 10 or 10's just a smaller, simpler, cleaner number in this day and age?
Dean: It could be. All these things are about testing, but when you look at the historical wisdom of every product marketer, there's some psychological difference to 9.95 is under $10 than $10. Just as an aside. So there's probably lots of research on those things, but here, that's going to be a micro-difference. That's not going to be the big difference. Yeah. I think that the way you would kind of get in front of people who love... I guess, I'm wondering, is it something that people wish? Would ice cream lovers buy it for themselves if they saw it? Would they recognize that, "Oh, this would be something I would love?"
Gordon: No, I don't think they would. I think it's pretty clearly marked as a gift. You've seen the packaging of it. So it is a gift and it's an indulgence. And I think it's something a wife might buy a husband for sure or buy a set for the family but buy for yourself, probably not. There's probably a lot of things that fall into that category. I don't know if we kind of humans leave a couple small things out there that people can buy us for gifts and just kind of mentioned. I saw this cool thing that we could have afforded to buy, but yeah, okay.
Dean: Yeah. Love it. I think getting a video or showing it in action there, I just think of the number of things that I've bought on Facebook and Instagram that have kind of come through my feed. I'm holding in my hand my reMarkable tablet. Now, this is the second of these that I have. But I bought the original reMarkable tablet 45 seconds after I knew it existed because it was something that I knew would be something I would want, right? I bought these shoes that I saw on Facebook coming through my news feed. And I think we're very visual like that, right? This is an impulse thing. That if somebody saw it and knows that it exists, that there would be a chance that somebody might live by it. And you need to see to experiment how many people do you have to show this to for somebody to buy one?
Gordon: To determine acquisition cost. Sure.
Dean: Yeah. To get a sense of-
Gordon: I'm thinking about trying to go after a niche versus just broadcast. And I'm thinking maybe... So you got to look for targetable groups. And I was thinking maybe target grandparents to buy it for grandkids. And so everything on the website is going to be about that. Every ad is going to be about that. It's just really focused initially to try to do that. Maybe the website doesn't have to do that, but maybe the advertising does it. And maybe you deliver that advertising to grandparents. Do you like delivering it to grandparents better to buy for grandkids or-?
Dean: I like to deliver it to everybody. Profit Activator, number one, is select a single target market. And Facebook gives you the opportunity to select grandmothers and grandfathers and create creatives that executes on that idea. You could have a video that shows to grandmothers with a grandmother and granddaughter sharing ice cream and the one kid say, "Oh, my hands are cold or whatever." And then switching to the ice cream bowl and now the grandmother and granddaughter are enjoying ice cream together in their new ice cream bowl. There's that. Same thing with grandparents. You could do it for younger adults as a gift for their grandparents or for their aging parents. That that's something that might be... They might like that that may be... I mean, I know lots of people that ice cream is their kind of one indulgence. That they love a scoop of ice cream every night kind of thing. And that that might be the perfect kind of thoughtful gift for someone like that. You know?
Gordon: Right. And of course, small, little microdot businesses like I am, we can only afford to A/B test so much. And then we have to really define the best A and the best B to test each other. For instance, we wouldn't want to have car salesman buying it for their car customer. Okay? So we could do grandparents, we could do grandkids. But I feel like maybe you might even want to funnel down or at least take a percentage of your budget and say, "Okay, I'm going to dedicate 80% to grandparents and to target to them, and maybe 20% target to parents who have children." I.e., therefore, they have grandparents that they buy the gifts for anyhow. I'm going to send this to grandma and grandpa because they love ice cream. Which of those two groups do you like better or would you like to put more money in?
Dean: Yeah, I would like to put more money in the one that proves that it's the winner. The only vote that counts is the marketplace, right? We can speculate and build a hypothesis, but in everything, if you're a direct marketer, you have to be an advocate of the scientific method. So you have to test this. And whatever we believe-.
Gordon: My issue with that is simply, "Well, if you put those two against each other, do you need to consider what should be a C or it's just a B?" That's the same thing kind of.
Dean: You're going to find the... Because I look at them as separate things because you're only showing that they're two different audiences. Right? So you're showing that market segment your ad and you're building your messaging around that, but I would certainly... In order for this really to get traction, I think you're going to have to have some general acceptance of it too. Right? I mean, I would start out with showing to everybody and seeing what the insight tells you who's engaging with this or who's looking at it because the Facebook algorithm will show you that women 50 to 75 are engaging with this at a higher rate.
Gordon: So you would just broadly test it male and female?
Dean: Because you don't know. Yeah. And what did you say, sorry, that last part?
Gordon: Well, I said do you broadly test it male and female all ages, maybe over 18?
Dean: Right, exactly. And see who it is. Have you got videos that show it? Have you got your messaging down your one-minute? You really almost need like a short-form infomercial about it.
Gordon: Well, on our website, we do have two videos on the homepage there. One has a spokesperson talking about the bowl. And the second video is about people receiving the goal and opening it, receiving the bowl and opening it
Dean: I got you. Okay.
Gordon: But we don't have kids in it. We don't have grandkids in it. And so this is a new thinking since the corporations apparently did not work out. And I don't know at what point you write off a market or you go, "That was just too late in the day." And then I'm also thinking about other groups that might buy it. Chamber of commerces, people that buy little gifts, companies that give out spiffs, things like that. Just a little something to give people.
Dean: You wonder now like who would be a good person. Who would be a related thing or could this be an interesting gift from them on purpose?
Gordon: Yeah. Maybe an ice cream manufacturer.
Dean: Absolutely right.
Gordon: Ice cream shop. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Somewhere that wherever people are buying ice cream. There's probably a lot of local dairies
Gordon: Creamy whips, that kind of thing. Yeah.
Dean: Yes, exactly.
Gordon: Where you get the soft serve ice cream and it's locally owned.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). That might be a thing too. But I think it's interesting too. You have to think about an experiment or at least be open to experimenting with some other markets too because you never know. It might make perfect sense for tailgate... It might be the ultimate tailgate bowl.
Gordon: And so are you thinking you're going to design or you would have our company design different creatives for different Facebook approaches or it's the same creative-?
Dean: Yeah. You definitely need to... That's the advantage of being able to narrow your focus like that, is to use the creative to speak directly to that audience.
Gordon: Well, I wasn't sure if you were saying, "First, put it out there as the ice cream bowl, generically broadcast, same message, see who gravitates towards it."
Dean: Yeah. You want to see, is interested in this in general? If you're saying-
Gordon: - creatives at the beginning, and then you funnel down to what seems to be an engaging market and create a creative just for them.
Dean: That's right. And that's the thing, is you're going to have to tell the story about it that makes it what's going to motivate people to do it? And so if it's a nice gift occasion, that's great. But you may want to... It may be something that someone could bundle with some other stuff. If you're thinking maybe it could be in the ice cream shops sell takeaway pints or whatever of ice cream, an interesting thought that I had when you said that about the YETI, it'd be interesting to take that technology or that model that you've had and make a jacket or sleeve for a pint. To put a pint-
Gordon: A koozie.
Dean: A koozie.
Gordon: A pint koozie. Yeah.
Dean: A pint koozie in that.
Gordon: Yeah. We're looking into that as well, but we're kind of going one at a time and you still got the same marketing issues with that. You still got to drive people to your website or to... Yeah, I guess to your website. So looking for your niche and we don't need any more product to look for our niche. We need to put our money now into advertising, I think, to see if there's any bear there first. And then if there some there, to really capitalize on that.
Dean: Yes, that's it. And that's what I was saying about maybe in those... I'm thinking about when I was in Toronto, there was a dairy, steamed dairy, and they made... They were a local dairy and they made ice cream that you could buy by the pint or court, I guess, the gallon, by pint or gallon. And I'm thinking about there, if people are... You're right at the source there where if you had the ability to put some kind of advertising along with every pint that was delivered or sold. What I was thinking is reaching your audience right at the source. And that's the guy who did the advertising for Snapple years ago. And when they launched their Snapple mango flavor, they contracted with the Mango Growers Association to put stickers on 10 million mangoes that said, "Now available in Snapple."
And so you imagine on mango, you got your exact market match because the person who's actually buying mangoes would be the ideal person to buy mango flavored Snapple because mango is kind of an acquired taste. Not everybody likes mango. But I was thinking that imagine if on every pint or gallon of ice cream that was sold in a particular dairy or with a particular brand, that there was some information about your bowl.
Gordon: I don't know. That would be great if they would do it. And I don't know how much Snapple had in the bank to make that worth their while.
Dean: Yeah. Just got to think out loud. Right there in Ohio, you've got to think about... What I would look at is right there within 15 miles of where you sit right now, if you just drew a bubble around that, that is a slice of America right there. Right? Whatever is in that 50 mile radius is going to be the same as what's in 15 mile radiuses all around the country. Right? You're going to have...
Gordon: Give or take some population differences, yes.
Dean: But that's what I mean. That the makeup of the people, you're going to have some younger people, some older people. You're just taking a swath of it, right? If it's going to sweep America, it's got to sweep Cincinnati. Got to swing through things. So I would start thinking about, "How can I get this in front of right here right in Cincinnati?" I mean, I'm talking getting right into the... Doing the things that you would do if your only thing is this 15 mile radius. Because the challenge with having something that appeals globally but not having the pocket book to expose it globally, the thing that you want to look at is, how can I make it ubiquitous in the 15-mile zone right where I live? And so you start to think about... You hear of a company called Zipcar?
Gordon: No.
Dean: Okay. Zipcar was a car rental company. But it's like a club where you subscribe. It's a membership. They have cars all over the neighborhoods. And you can go swipe your card and you take a car for two hours or whatever you need it for. And then you bring it back to that parking spot. And you're only charged for the two hours that you have the car. So it's really practical in urban areas primarily. It's a really practical solution for people who don't need to have a car all the time. But it would be great if you could have access to a car, right?
Gordon: Yeah, yeah. That's kind of cute.
Dean: Yeah, that's kind of what it is. So in order for people to feel confident to join up with this, they would look on the map to see where the cars are and how many cars there are. And you kind of get the sense that, "Yeah, I've got confidence that I could get a car when I need it." Right? And so there's one right around the corner there. Oh, there's another one three blocks over. Oh, yeah, this would be good if I could take those cars. So it was expensive business to start because you had to have all of the cars ahead of time. You got to build it before they come, right? And so they couldn't afford to do a big scale, so they took one quadrant of Boston.
Gordon: It was based in Boston.
Dean: Yes. So they took one quadrant of Boston, and they fully subscribed all the cars. Got all the cars that they would need. And then they spent all of their promotional money on subscribing Boston Northwest, right? Getting fully subscribed there. And then they took that money and rolled out into the next quadrant. And then when they have that quadrant full, they went to the lower half and they started parlaying their win.
Gordon: And that's scary with such a capital expenditure as cars. What we're talking about on Facebook, I think, if we're talking about Facebook, trying to discover a niche might be a bit different. It's that we just can choose the quadrant being the spec of the age or the demographic that we're looking for.
Dean: What you run into is reach and frequency. And so it's almost like being on Facebook. You're going to have to... The choice is, like radio in a way is, do you want to convince 10% of the people 100% of the way or 100% of the people 10% of way?
Gordon: I believe in frequencies. I believe in frequency and that's why I thought my email campaign didn't work. I only got some of them one time. But I would think if that was a good market, maybe one out of 4,000 might have bought it or something. So I think there's something to be derived from it. But no, I would try to email first, get the emails if I can get to emails of grandparents. Or are you opposed to doing it through email? You like Facebook a lot better? Just maybe [crosstalk 00:47:26].
Dean: Email, it seems so random and there's no kind of visual element of it, right? It seems weird. Why would I be getting an email and who would it be coming from? And how would you start that? How would I see an email in my inbox about this ice cream bowl?
Gordon: Are you asking me how I would target?
Dean: Yeah.
Gordon: You can buy list. And once you buy a list... I use a sales genie in outbound known as Data Axle Genie. But you can buy a thousand in a northeast quadrant, Boston, or even a smaller section. And you can put in the age demo you want. You can put in the household income you want. You can find your demo. You purchase the emails or you rent them, and you email to them once. You email to them a second time. You email to them a third time to get your frequency up. And then maybe once a month, you stay in front of them and just see what happens after 12 months.
Dean: Yes. And how much do you-?
Gordon: On gift buying occasions. Yeah, go ahead.
Dean: Mm-hmm (affirmative). So all of that, I think if I were to look at this is figuring out, where is this? Where is the receptive audience in that 15 miles because it's about observation there. So I would look at starting to go to the ice cream shops even and start to see I think real grassroots stuff here to see where... Because you're going to learn from what people say about it to encourage others or just even having people experience it.
Gordon: Butwhat do you think about just giving some away?
Dean: Well, that's what I mean, is maybe but even just having the awareness of it, that if you start to think about just being in front of that audience where ice cream is being sold, you're certainly in front of ice cream lovers. I wonder if even when you think about, is there somewhere that you could even just kind of demonstrate for people or to... Because that's where all of those infomercial products that you see that have become household names all started out at home shops or the fair or flea markets where you're there. I guess now with COVID, probably not as much on the flea market, the stuff in your area. But it would be interesting to start thinking about the digital things that you can do. Right now, you can get an impression in somebody's phone for two or three cents. Right? The equivalent of one screen on their phone is about one ad is.
And those impressions cost about two to three to four cents depending on how targeted you're getting. And so you start to look and see how many people, even if it was what you could get for a cost of sale.
Gordon: My lead cost, is that what you're talking about?
Dean: Yeah.
Gordon: Okay. Yeah. See, I think that's a much better way to go at it, and then setting up a display booth, that's way too labor intensive. Even if you could sell 20 right there with engagement, that's not my long-term goal for the business.
Dean: No, it's not about that.
Gordon: It's not right for labor. Go ahead.
Dean: It's not about that. It's about the insight that you're going to get from the interaction. You're just looking to hear the words right from real people, the feedback. If they're saying to you... If you're showing it in front of the newsfeed, the only feedback you're getting is, are people liking this? Are they sharing this? Are they buying this? Are they commenting on this? That's the kind of feedback or interaction that you can get, right? Now, if you're in front of people, they're either going to be, "Wow, this is a great idea. My hands are so warm," or, "Oh, that's cute. This would be a great gift for grandpa." Like you said, if that's what people are saying, that's going to help you out. But if they're looking at it physically in person with blank stares and they don't get it, what it is, that's going to give you an indication that what chance would you stand in their newsfeed if they're there in person that they don't understand it?
Gordon: Yeah. I mean, I can see doing that and I'm not sure that what you're going to get isn't... It might be better to just spend that time, money, energy, force, marketing it broadcast and/or to a niche that you believe in and seeing if there's any there there because in the end, that's really how it has to go. I think it's a gift.
Dean: Absolutely.
Gordon: It's a gift and would people buy this gift when they get an impression of if they get a second impression, you track it that way. Versus if I'm dealing with 25 people coming out of the creamy whip and saying, "Hey, come over here and look at this." I mean, could set up a table easy. "What do you think of this?" I feel like you're going to get positivity, "Oh, that's really cute," whether they think so or not. "Well, that'd really cool. "But could you imagine given this to anyone? If, who would you give it to?" I mean, I don't think anything is that unknown really unless your instinct is.
Dean: But if they pull out their money and want one, you have inventory of them, don't you?
Gordon: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. So they pull out their money and buy one, that's the ultimate thing. There was a great, I think, on 60 Minutes, there was a story about a guy who lives on Park Avenue in New York, dresses in a suit every day, older gentleman. And he goes out on industry in New York and sells his potato peeler just by demonstrating it on the street. And that makes a lot of money doing the demonstrations because people see it. They go, "Oh, wow, that's great." And he's got the whole demonstration. I think you're going to have to figure out, what is the sales message that compels people to buy it?
Gordon: Are you saying you're not a believer that it's just kind of an interesting niche gift that will appeal to... I don't know if we'd speculate on how many people love ice cream, I'd say 70% of the population. And 40% of the population knows, A, grandpa really likes ice cream. He has ice cream every night. And then you get hit with this and it just clicks. Is just what I was kind of seeing more than, "I need to test this." It's already got the inventory now. So that might have been something to do before you bought the inventory, I guess. - Go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt.
Dean: No, no. I guess your objective now is to get rid of your inventory. How many do you have? How many bowls do you have now?
Gordon: Well, my initial order was 5,000.
Dean: Okay. So you got 5,000 bowls right now, which is potentially $50,000 that's in sales that you've got potential right there. Yep. So that's good. Now we've got to see how much it's going to cost to get that 50,000.
Gordon: It could be a good party favor for kids' birthday parties when they have over the seven-year-olds and they actually give gifts to the kids for going to the party, the guest.
Dean: Yes. Well, I think-
Gordon: The idea to track how to get to them.
Dean: Well, that's true.
Gordon: Or just getting the parents. Just getting the parents of youngsters, preschool parents.
Dean: That's where I think the Facebook thing is going to start. I think there's going to be something to showing the bowl, showing the use case, showing the joy of it and seeing who buys, and buy now or buy more if...
Gordon: Go ahead.
Dean: You can experiment with if they buy two, get free shipping or something or get a second one, just pay separate shipping and handling. Or you know how they do the double your order kind of thing?
Gordon: Yeah, yeah. But today and we'll double your order. Yep, sounds good.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). Yeah. Just pay separate shipping and handling. So that way, your total order would be $20. You know?
Gordon: Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Well, I think that it's going to be... I can't wait to see... It's easy to test. I mean, you could do this today. Get the ad. Even the ad that you've got on the video that you have on your homepage, you could put that right in the Facebook app.
Gordon: Yeah. What I would have to do is reformat it so that it's square and not the 1080 length on whatever is on the length and square it up. And then I'd probably mix the two videos, figure out what's the ideal time that one video can be, should be in an advertisement. So find out what the Facebook rules are. But I've got the raw footage in two videos, but I think kind of bring them together so you have a little bit of the sales spiel, a little bit of the client engagement as they open the gift, and then put that together and then just get it out there to a few different... You're a believer of put it out there to the whole marketplace. I would want to rule out people like 18. I'd like to get the parents and grandparents, I think.
Dean: Yeah. I mean, maybe adults. That's what I meant by just in broad. 35 plus kind of thing. That we get parents and grandparents.
Gordon: Yeah. Well, I think that sounds good. Would you be wanting or thinking, "Hey, are you on Amazon? Are you on Etsy?" Or do you feel like that's not the way to go with this or sure, why not?
Dean: Well, I think Amazon certainly is a marketplace, right? Everybody is looking for things on Amazon.
Gordon: You do like getting in there?
Dean: Yeah, certainly. I mean, every anybody who sees anything, first thing you want to do, just even because I do this, just because it's one click. I don't have to fill in anything to buy. I don't have to go to an unknown vendor. I can just buy it and get it with Prime.
Gordon: Yeah. I'm kind of thinking that I wouldn't really want to market this video until there's a major gift giving occasion that's coming along like Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day. Of course, birthdays are scattered about, anniversaries are scattered about, but I think it'd be really good to focus when everybody needs to be getting several gifts for like Valentine's Day.
Dean: Uh-huh (affirmative). That would be scary to me to think that the only time your product is going to sell is at gift times. I think you really want to get the... It feels like you wonder if it's going to be something that somebody would buy for themselves.
Gordon: I just don't think it is. Do you? Does it strike you as something...?
Dean: I don't know. I'm trying to give the best thinking around how to make it as appealing to find the right people. But is a gift... And now, we've got to make that connection even that... Yeah. I wonder if one of the things of Facebook, we can... Birthdays coming up this month. I wonder if there's an audience or the spouse of someone with a birthday coming up, or parents or someone with a birthday coming up.
Gordon: That would be nice. Kind of thinking it's not going to go that deep and that specific, but that would be ideal. Yeah.
Dean: Yeah. Well, it's very exciting. What's the website again so -?
Gordon: It's called theperfecticecreambowl.com. And the videos are there, product description. You can order right from that website. Hey, I wanted to give a quick shout out if I could to one of your longtime disciples for introducing me to you. His name's Tom Schmidt. He's the author of 10 Mile Famous. It's kind of funny you were talking about 15 mile radius. And so he's been a longtime follower of yours. And he's turned me on to you. And so it's the way the circle and the networking works. And I really appreciate all your time today. And I'm sure you've helped me. I'm going to apply every word you've said and kind of figure out how I sort it out and go forward. I've really enjoyed it. It's been fun.
Dean: Awesome. Well, thanks so much. I'm going to check out the website.
Gordon: Sounds good. Thank you so much for the email. I appreciate your time today. Okay?
Dean: Okay, thanks. I'll talk to you soon.
Gordon: Take care. Bye-bye.
Dean: Bye.
And there we have it, another great episode. Thanks for listening in. If you want to continue the conversation, you want to go deeper in how the 8-Profit Activators can apply to your business, two things you can do. Right now, you can go to morecheeselesswhiskers.com and you can download a copy of the More Cheese Less Whiskers book and you can listen to the back episodes, of course, if you're just listening here on iTunes.
Secondly, the thing that we talk about in applying all of the 8-Profit Activators are part of the Breakthrough DNA process. And you can download a book and a scorecard and watch a video all about the 8-Profit Activators at breakthroughdna.com. And that's a great place to start the journey in applying this scientific approach to growing your business. That's really the way we think about Breakthrough DNA as an operating system that you can overlay on your existing business and immediately look for insights there. So that's it for this week. Have a great week, and we will be back next time with another episode of More Cheese Less Whiskers.