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Share your advice for Beefjerky.com’s dilemma. Should the company branch out into retail sales? How can it create repeat customers? Which marketing tools will attract new business? Filed under Uncategorized
Posted by arlittle 11:37 am 19 Comments
 | Add a comment I have to say that I too love Beef Jerky. As far as retail is concerned- start with your local stores in your neighborhood. Go see them yourself- and get your product on the shelf. See what works and what does not through trial and error - before you spend gobs of money on a national campaign- you will learn a ton. Posted By Rob Carol Vancouver Canada : March 27, 2008 9:10 pm
 I believe the retail market should be pursued; however the approach I would recommend is to market to Convenience Markets such as 7-11 and AM/PM, gas station marts, truck stops and the like. I would also expand on the Yellowstone idea to ALL resort areas where the customer is likely to be on vacation which will reduce the problem of competing with your own retail customers as the consumers buying in these locations are passing through and not regular customers of the stores. If the consumers like the product they will contact your website giving you opportunity to make them your online customer. Online customers should be offered ensured freshness by ordering subscription type service….delivery every three months at reduced rates made possible in part by reduced packaging, handling and shipping expense. This is the “jerky club” idea expanded on. Credit card authorization on file until withdrawn by customer. The jerky should be vacuum packed in small quantities to keep it fresh. “Freshness quality” is very important to consumers who want really good jerky and cannot be overemphasized. All subscription or regular purchase customer should be given credit for a bag or two to be sent to our overseas troops with their names listed on a donor roll with each mailing to the troops. I disagree with the “don’t give anything away” statement. That is exactly how to introduce your superior product to the market. Prudent “targeted” give away is the order of the day. I think cruise ships have welcome aboard packages as do other events such as conventions and trade shows. I would put very small samples into their give away bags and then make purchases available on board or at the food vendor areas of the trade shows. Packaging IS important I want to see and feel the quality at point of purchase displays hiding product in paper bags is not a good idea however, online purchases would only need vacuum packing to ensure quality even if not in a transparent package as I would already know the product. Posted By Fred Sardella : March 17, 2008 3:43 pm
 Beefjerky.com is a great domain name but for those that find you online the site experience is very poor. Even though online commerce has been steady rise most people simply don’t trust the medium. Design and copy can play a big role in building that trust. If you want Beefjerky.com to ever become the Amazon.com of jerky you’ll have to invest in your store. My other observation is that instead of competing on price expand your flavor/meat options and compete on that. People searching for Jerky online are unhappy with what’s available at their local stores. I myself have hunted for spicy jerky but never found it at my retail store, use the power of niche. Feel free to read my blog on online retail at http://betterretail.wordpress.com/ Posted By betterretail : March 15, 2008 10:17 pm
 One thing I like about your website is that it is easy to navigate. As a fellow online business owner, there are a few suggestions you may want to consider to help you improve your sales. First, add a phone number to your contact page. I also have an ecommerce website, and initially I was a bit reluctant to put my number down since I didn’t want to be overwhelmed with phone calls. But since I did, my sales increased and I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t receive that many phone calls. In some cases, having a customer call gave me the opportunity to close a sale that I may have lost. Second, I feel that your prices need to be more competitive. You may want to compare your competitor’s prices with yours and see if you are able to make more sales by lowering the prices. Customers can easily compare prices online, and you don’t want to lose a sale simply because you are charging too much. Third, if you want to keep your prices higher than your competitors, you need to convey why one should pay more for your products. Good luck with your business. Best regards, GlamForLess.com has been selling affordable bridal jewelry and accessories online for over 3 years. Posted By Uche Unachukwu, Chicago, IL : March 13, 2008 1:48 pm
 This sounds like a product where the story can create “buzz” and the market. However I would add some specific food for thought below: Retail sales? Beef Jerky is a portable, and in the case of Space Jerky, healthy “on-the-go snack”. I know because my son who is training as an EMT/Paramedic/Firefighter always has a pack with him. It is also something hikers, hunters and fisherman (basically outdoor enthusiasts) enjoy. I would suggest he approach big retailers such as Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Outlets with his product. Hunting and fishing is a $16billion per year industry which enjoys both strong and internet based sales models. This could greatly increase sales and exposure but he has to have the production capacity. Other Marketing – with a boutique specialized product such as this perhaps he can use local distributors to reach smaller buying groups. He could establish an independent sales force around the country who sell to their friends and professional associates. Of course price is the question. I know that my son could sell products to his firefighting friends and fire houses. Having 100 personalized sales people selling to 100 people each around the country could have a dramatic but controllable affect on sales. Good luck and I’ll be looking for Space Jerky soon… Posted By Robert M. Gravely, Altamonte Springs, FL : March 10, 2008 3:10 pm
 With 13 years of stewardship of Dynamic Net, a business hosting company focused on small to medium businesses, and as one who appreciates beef jerky on a very regular basis, I would like to share some thoughts on the beefjerky.com makeover. The web site is slow, and the shopping cart system does not work in Fire Fox unless JavaScript and cookie support is turned on for multiple sites. If you want to be the Amazon of beef jerky, then the shopping cart system should be user friendly, not take customers off site to paypal.com, and not require JavaScript and cookie support for more than your site. For small businesses that don’t want to spend what Amazon.com spent on their shopping cart, and yet retain full use of the cart and license, I recommend ShopSite from http://www.shopsite.com/ I agree with Joyce Mallonee on the topic of branding and labeling. When I visited http://www.beefjerky.com/ I ended up asking myself why I would buy some one else’s jerky on Nemitz’ site. As one who really appreciates beef jerky, I do make my own for approximately $2.50 to $5.00 per pound depending on the cut of steak. So as a consumer I would ask myself, why would I want to pay $27.68 per pound online? I wouldn’t pay that in a store. Please note I’m the type of FSB reader who does typically visit various web sites mentioned in the magazine; and over the years bought from many (and several as a repeat customer), but I’m not going to pay 6 to 10 times more for something as easy to make as beef jerky. Even the FSB special at http://www.beefjerky.com/fsb.html appears extremely over priced. That stated, maybe there are valid reasons why some one (including myself) should pay such a high premium for beef jerky on-line; but if there are reasons, it was not clear on the Web site. There was no compelling copy as to why beefjerky.com vs. anyone else. Thank you. Posted By Peter M. Abraham, Denver, PA : March 10, 2008 3:08 pm
 As someone who makes their living online – I think Gregory has a lot of the right pieces he just needs to put it together. Gregory did well to register BeefJerky.com - but it definitely needs a revamp. The first things I look at when working with clients are the simple things that can create incredible leverage. 1. The headline on the site is not benefit oriented enough. You only have a few seconds to get someone interested to stay or they’ll click away. In tests – different headlines have been proven to increase conversion 2x, 3x even 10x+. The original headline on the site - “High Quality Beef Jerky, Fresh From Beefjerky.com” doesn’t say much that’s specific. Everyone uses the words “high quality”. Better would be something along the lines of this: I’m so confident you’ll absolutely love our hand-made beef jerky that I’ll buy your first bag. (Keep reading for my crazy idea.)” 2. Gregory needs to make himself more of a personality. I’m not saying become Capt. Beef Jerky – but simply telling his story. The book Primal Branding talks about the ‘creation story’. This is really powerful and shouldn’t be brushed aside. Why did you fall in love with jerky? Why do you hate store-bought jerky (there needs to be an enemy)? How do you make the jerky the ‘old-timey way’?, etc. 3. As you can see from the headline and subhead I proposed – I’m making a somewhat lopsided offer in the favor of the customer. I don’t know the traffic numbers but from the appearance of the site not being optimized for conversion I know you could get a lot more than 4500 customers if you had a low barrier to entry. I would suggest a free jerky sampler pack and the customer only needs to pay shipping/handling (i.e. $7.95 or $8.95). This should cover the cost of the product and put you at a break-even. Buying a customer at break-even is fine – but with a back-end sales process in place – you’ll do significantly better. 4. You need to increase the transaction value of each person that purchases. This could be started immediately even without using any of the other suggestions. When someone has their wallet out already they are very likely to purchase more if presented in the right way. I have an article on this here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23408430/. Using the upsell method you could take that ‘freebie’ sale and have people prepay for a special offer you present them. I’ve had as high as 66% of visitors take upsells from our site (typically, I’ll see 15-30%). But that’s all ‘free money’ essentially. 5. The next point is you need a way to ‘lock’ your customers in. As Bob Hughes suggested a ‘club’ is a good idea but I prefer to have customers given an opportunity to join immediately and reap the profits from a monthly shipment to them. Depending on how aggressive you want to go – I’d have a checkbox that customers can add to their order the Jerky shipment of the month or have the checkbox pre-checked (with the option of opting out). It must be presented as benefit. Study a company like ProActive, that markets the acne cleansers, and see how they get one-time customers into their ‘club’ to keep purchasing. You may need to upgrade from the current low-end Paypal shopping cart to something more robust to do this. 6. There is a serious lack of credibility on the site. Yes, you want to maintain some of the home-made look since it’s hand-made jerky but I think the site does need to be updated to be a bit more professional. I suggest using a resource like http://www.sitepoint.com/contests and running a contest for web work there. You can set your prize of $200 and let designers submit re-designs and you only pick a winner if you like it. Another site element to consider changing immediately are your testimonials. You have customer comments tucked away on the left-hand side. Most people won’t get there. I’d put your best ones right on the home page to increase credibility. Nothing helps sell more than what other people say about you. In fact, I’d be running contests and specials to your customers asking them to send you in little home-made videos of them with your beef jerky and why they love it. Use something like Crazyegg.com to see where your visitors are actually clicking and going and that will help decide what to keep and what to remove. 7. I’d look into who are the serious consumers of beef jerky and target them instead of the casual eater. Perhaps it’s health-conscious people or maybe it’s people who love exotic flavors. Look at your own records and see who has frequently re-ordered and then contact them to see why. What is similar about these customers? That will help niche your product. I believe you have at least 2 niches that could be quite profitable (the fitness related buyers and the exotic buyers). You would need to talk to them differently and probably set up separate landing pages or sites for them but it’s well worth it. Each of them would be an opportunity to put into a continuity program. There’s a company that took Ostrich jerky and dubbed it a healthy jerky and it’s now sold in Vitamin shops. I think you could do the same with a good brand name related to fitness and lean meats – which sets up the next point. 8. Your affiliate program needs to be revamped. Personally, I have 43,000+ affiliates and they have been a major driving force for my business. (I paid out over $800k in affiliate commissions last year and was extremely happy to since those are all sales I probably wouldn’t get on my own.) When I went to the page to sign-up as affiliate it didn’t open for me – but maybe it was a temporary glitch. I think you would have a lot of success with your affiliate once you targeted a few niches (i.e. the health and exotic/gourmet markets). It’s much easier to find sites that have very specific groups of consumers than trying to get mainstream sites to sell your jerky. For example, once you create the health jerky – get fitness related sites to promote your product. Also, I would give my affiliates a generous payout that includes the monthly continuity. 9. You mentioned your newsletter. This is a huge area for improvement. If you are not regularly in contact with your customers and prospects they will forget about you. It does sometimes become tedious to keep putting out a new newsletter so you might consider using some ‘evergreen’ content and delivering to your subscribers via an autoresponder. I think that should keep you busy for awhile. I’m a beef jerky fan so I purchased a sampler pack to see how it is – so at least he got some business and free advice from me. - Yanik Silver, Author “Moonlighting on the Internet” and online entrepreneur. http://www.InternetLifestyle.com Posted By Yanik Silver, Potomac, MD : March 7, 2008 10:15 am
 I love beef jerky but I have never searched online to buy it. I search regularly for lots of things but have never thought about beef jerky. I guess because it is so easily available locally. You need PR and co-promos to get the word out about your brand and site. Second, your site needs to be redone, and when you do it, make sure you work with a company that understands SEO. Your domain name is great for seo for people that search for beef jerky. Third, get a regular payment processor instead of paypal so that it integrates with your site. Fourth, your pricing structure does not list a price for 1/2 pound. Is it available or is the minimum order 1 pound? It needs to be clear. Also, the pricing structure is WEIRD. Why would you drop the price per pound from 27.68 to 23.80 per pound for the 1.0 - 2.5 pound range, and then raise the price per pound again to 25.42 - 24.20 per pound for the 3.0 - 4.0 pound range. Why these odd and complicated prices - why not something simple like 14.95 for a half pound and 25.95 per pound. Fifth, most people will not want to buy larger quantities until they are sure that they like your product. Offer a free 1 oz sample for $2 postage as a one time offer. Get your products out there where they can be sampled by large amounts of people. Sampling just works if your product is tasty. I’d also suggest lots of free samples sent to the media. Sixth, position beef jerky as THE snack for diabetics. I am one and eat it regularly. Seventh, I think your idea about selling other meats as jerky is a winner. They are less available at retail, which makes them better for web sales. Good luck with everything. Rob Cox Posted By efocusbusinesstech : March 7, 2008 8:40 am
 One of the prior posters makes a very good point. Every one of the NASA centers has a visitor area that sells t-shirts, freeze dried ice cream, etc. Get your “Final Frontier Jerky” in there at all those centers ASAP. Also, as suggested the Air & Space Museum, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center (Hsv, AL), U.S. Space Camp (Hsv, AL and at Kennedy center in FL I think) are all big tourist spots where getting placement should be much simpler in a shorter period than a generic retail or convenience store approach, which will take longer. To extend that idea, there are websites that sell “astronaut food” and other space related things, which should make it an easier sell to get your product listed with them as well. A prior poster also mentioned your website and he’s right - get it redesigned and fast. Posted By Ronnie Colvin, Madison, Alabama : March 6, 2008 6:32 pm
I’m a New Yorker, but I still crave the soft, sweet, salty Biltong from South Africa I had over a year ago. The issue is that one cannot bring ANY of the stuff back with them from their once-in-a-lifetime safari vacations. I wouldn’t be surprised if bringing meat back from any of the African countries -not just South Africa- is totally forbidden. But, it is truly the stuff of luxurists -Biltong comes in many varieties including cow beef and impala meat. Isn’t that just as original as the salesmanship of a NASA astronaut?? Biltong has such a unique taste, that it is better to obstain from American beef jerky altogether and wait for the next trip back to the contient where your teeth can once again sink into the real thing. My advice: become an importer of this stuff or start making your own variety. I would imagine that becoming an importer may be easier and more “authentic” –you could cater to the increasing number of Americans traveling on safari to South Africa as well as the posh restaurants that pride themselves in unique game. Regardless, if you have never had Biltong, your first move may be to book a tour to Kruger National. Best of luck. Posted By Charlotte, New York NY : March 3, 2008 4:24 pm
 BeefJerky.com Website Analysis It’s pretty well known that orange and yellow hues make us think cheap when it comes to website design. When I landed on beefjerky.com (amazing domain, by the way) I was struck by the overall lack of quality design (orange colors) and I didn’t feel the good ol boy, pat you on the back, cozy feeling, that should be expected from a quality online retailer. Why would you put so much time, energy and money into translating your site into over 14 languages and then hire someone with only novice web design skills to create your store? Would you hire someone who has never built a building to build your brick and mortar store? If the answer is no (and it unequivocally should be) then you’ll realize that’s exactly what you’ve done with beefjerky.com This is one reason you’re not selling as much jerky as you definitely should be! Here’s your schedule for tomorrow. Wake up, find the best designer you can, don’t sleep until the website is re-designed. Now to increase traffic…ahh…this is my favorite part. Your title tag is currently “Beef Jerky,com. The Best Beef Jerky, Fresh from Beefjerky.com” Sorry to break it to you, but not many people are typing in “Fresh from beefjerky.com” or “the best beefjerky” according to Google’s keyword tool. And this is prime keyword realestate your giving up to non-performing keywords that are with out a doubt holding you back from receiving grater traffic. Consider these keywords instead: Gourmet Beef Jerky, Beef Jerky Online, Buy Beef Jerky. These keywords are searched by potential relevant customers that are more likely to make a purchase online. And there are tons of other keywords you should be using across your site to drive traffic. For example: Start a page on how to make beef jerky and then sell your visitors a starter kit which comes with a sample of how the jerky should taste when done (they’ll like your sample better and return for more!) Obviously the keywords for that page should be “how to make beef jerky”. And don’t worry about teaching your consumer how to make your product, most people are way to busy with there every day chores and responsibilities, to become serious jerkers (is jerker the proper terminology?) There’s a million other things I would fix on this site to probably quintuple sales in less than 60 days, but if you can’t see the mistakes your making, you should just sell beefjerky.com to one of your competitors for a couple million and retire. Otherwise find a good website navigation design company, web designer and SEO company to arm you with the latest and greatest tools to launch your sales into the orbit and get ready to make more jerky than you ever have before. Sincerely, Jean-Pierre Khoueiri has been in the SEO and web consulting industry for over 4 years and lives in Miami, Florida. Posted By Jean-Pierre Khoueiri, Miami, Florida : March 2, 2008 10:17 am
 You’re not capitalizing on your biggest asset. How many jerky companies or any businesses for that matter can say that astronauts use their products? You need to completely revamp your brand and core business proposition to the fact that your jerkies are eaten by NASA’s astronauts in the greatest space program in the world! Don’t just include this as a side note, make this your company’s identity from now on. Your name, your packaging, your entire thinking should be based upon this core offering which has one of the strongest branding hooks I’ve seen in a long time. This kind of stuff will open doors for you, not to menion free PR and great partnerships. From that point on I would implement all the wonderful advice you’ve been receiving from the 3 experts to walk out continuous revenue. Posted By Brian Park, Huntington Beach, CA : February 29, 2008 10:49 pm
 Make sure you have a great tasting product, with some point of differentiation. Make sure you have quality looking package that shout what is good and different about your product. I would suggest a 3 prong approach. First you already have 4,500 customers that sought you out, send them monthly e-mails about “deal of the month” or “flavor of the month” Second create a user friendly, attractive web site. Find an expert on web advertising and conduct tests, make small buys at first, expand what works, cancel what doesn’t, it will likely be a lot of trial and error. Add new customers to your monthly mailing. Lastly start selling to retailers, set the price high enough, you will need at least a 50% gross margin, the cost of building a branded retail business is high. You will have to pay slotting allowances to get retailers to carry your products, if the product doesn’t sell, for what ever reason, you will have to credit customers for returns. I suggest concentrating on one market at first. Find a good food distributor to sell and distribute your product into retailers, you will likely have to pay the distributor 15 to 20% of sales to induce him to carry your products. Beef jerky is an impulse purchase, develop point of purchase displays, a good power panel (a rack that hold 20 or 30 bags that consumers can’t miss) and be willing to pay for placement. Quality product, attractive packaging, displays at retail. It is a lot of work and costly, but a successful brand it worth a lot of money Posted By Jimmy Spradley : February 28, 2008 6:20 pm
Why not take advantage of the tie to NASA/Astronauts and pitch the product to the Air & Spave Museum in DC. They been selling tons & tons of that freeze-dried Ice Cream Cr*p there for years - why not a new, healthy and actually edible option? Posted By dc : February 19, 2008 4:14 pm
 I lived in Central Africa for six years and one of my favorite jerky’s was made from Zebra. Why not try wild game jerky like Bison. Joseph Frank Posted By Joseph Frank, Oakhurst CA 93644 : February 19, 2008 12:08 pm
 Mr. Nemitz is not going to quickly grow his sales 1000% by focusing on his existing customer base. Getting there via one “home run” idea is a risky strategy, but could be the right strategy for him. This process will generate many ideas. The first thing to do is to build a scoring system that rates ideas based on cost, effort, sales potential, difficulty, risk, brand image, lifestyle impact etc. This will help Mr. Nimitz develop a budget for this effort and pick several ideas to pursue simultaneously. You want the final list to include different scores across the categories in order to minimize risk and maximise the probability of the effort making a high return on investment. The second thing to do is to make sure each idea pursued can have the sales results measured. This will help to take the guess work out of the selection process for the next round of ideas. Posted By Rusty Carr : February 18, 2008 1:04 pm
It might sound like a gimmicky marketing idea but, I attend a lot of trade shows and am always impressed when I find someone with a small booth at a technology show offering free samples and a bulk buy package. Technology shows are strongly attended by young and old alike that like snacks. Many are hikers or bikers looking for something other than trail mix to take with them. As a diabetic I carry Slim Jims with me on trips for the times I am unable to have access to any food. It has been a life saver at times. Another free idea, the airlines are getting tired of handing out peanuts and crackers. Package a micro-snack size and run market tests with the airlines who now sell food on trips. If there are no storage requirements then the item will be a success. Posted By SW, Raleigh NC : February 17, 2008 10:09 pm
 Granted lots of healthy food eaters crave for something …hmmmm.. a bit more spicy? Gleb Esman, SEO Consultant, gesman@mensk.com Posted By Gleb Esman, Ottawa, Canada : February 16, 2008 12:10 pm
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First of all although I am not a fellow business owner but I do read the FSB my boss is never in the office so I take the opportunity to catch on some business reading. I’m a customer and I love beef jerky, I buy it every time I can. I have no coments on the three questions that appear on FSB March 2008, my only concern is the picture of a factory worker belending meat with spices. I worked as an inspector for a local company for over 13 years. I think an employee who works this close with food should wear a mustache net or shave it off, mustache does shed and it will end up in your customer’ food. Keep up your good business.