Chava from PregnancyTestsIsrael.com asked the following question:
I sell pregnancy tests online; people buy from because it’s discreet and anonymous. I don’t have big bucks to advertise. I want to get into social media and go viral *BUT* I can’t imagine my customers yelling “I just bought pregnancy tests!” on their Facebook wall or telling their friends standing in line at the grocery store. How can I cultivate online buzz when I sell something that people keep quiet?
There are some things that people just don’t want to discuss on Social Media. Is it possible to create a viral buzz around these “top secret” topics.
Great question!
This question is very relevant to many businesses that sell products and services that don’t naturally lend themselves to the pajama-party atmosphere of the big social networks.
Other examples of this include: lawyers, psychologists, accountants, translators (my old field), and high-level B2B services.
Let’s hear what the experts have to say:
Hadassah Levy Answers:
The first step in successful social media marketing is to decide what your niche is. Your niche is always broader than what you actually sell or promote. If you are an Israeli non-profit feeding the poor, your niche might be “poverty in Israel.” If you sell coats, your niche could be “the great outdoors.” Applying this to your question about pregnancy tests, you might define your niche as “Jewish parenting” or “raising children in Israel.”
Once you have defined your niche more broadly, you have a topic that will interest a lot of women. Some are potential customers and others will share your posts and bring in new potential customers. You might get a lot more shares on a post about the best diapers in Israel than on one about the accuracy of your pregnancy tests. But if people are reading and sharing your posts in general, that post about the pregnancy test will reach many women who are in the market for your product.
Hadassah Levy is a social media marketer, content writer and SEO specialist at i-Point Media Group.
Margelit Hoffman Answers:
With something personal like pregnancy tests, I would focus on a more personal (and more effective) form of marketing: email.Create a webform signup page (landing page) and link to it on relevant blogs, LinkedIn groups, and Facebook groups, and do some free PR by answering relevant inquiries on HARO.  Create a 1-2 minute video explaining why what you sell is the best, put it on your landing page, and have a big red arrow pointing to an email signup box on the right.Send whoever signs up an email with a link to your stuff once a month (considering the “frequency” with which one might be checking for pregnancy. You should schedule your promotional email to send immediately, then one month later, if not more frequently – this gives you a better shot at reaching her at the right time of the month.
Remember to keep your emails short and written in a casual voice. Â Link to your product a few times throughout the email, with a clear call to action to click and buy. Â You don’t really need to add pics or get fancy with the graphics, since most people check email on mobile anyway.
Naomi Elbinger Answers:
Social media marketing should always be creative, but you are going to have to be extra creative if you want to use it successfully to generate a buzz about this kind of product. One idea that comes to mind is to create funny and touching images and cartoons related to motherhood, babies, pregnancy and Israel. We all know that women in your target market share these viral images on a daily basis.
Here’s an idea: get a photo of an adorable toddler hugging his Mommy’s pregnant belly, and insert a speech bubble of him saying some cute, hilarious wisecrack. There are many options for these kinds of images – you don’t have to spend any money. You just need some creativity and wit. Just make sure to clearly brand them with your name, tagline and domain name.
Try doing this 2-3 times and ask all your friends to share them to get the viral ball rolling. See if this works in terms of driving more traffic to your site, more leads and more sales.
Naomi Elbinger is a web marketing strategist and Blogger-in-Chief at My Parnasa – The Jewish Business Blog. That’s this blog – Subscribe here.
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I agree with everything all three of these brilliant women and experts said, but also to weigh in: I have many friends confide that they wish they could buy pregnancy tests in bulk because they take one every month just to make themselves feel better… Lots of embarrassing products have used humor to reach their audience and put them at ease discussing something, like being able to laugh about using them monthly. And that would be one way to go.
Also, I was shocked when I posted a blog post once simply titled “Another Baby?” (http://www.ima2seven.com/another-baby/). The amount of discussion generated was very surprising! It is clearly a very emotional topic for lots of moms from across the world that really do want to discuss that, even if they don’t want to discuss pregnancy tests per se. It would be a good way to get in on the conversation with the niche audience Hadassah is talking about.
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