Eddie’s Energy Bars Blog

Over the past few weeks, I have been developing some articles for your reading pleasure. You can check them out by clicking here.

At first, I was a little skeptical about jumping on the article marketing bandwagon, but I decided to throw up an article about five all natural snacks you can eat while you are on the go (including my healthy energy bars). The article has gotten a good amount of views, and continues to do well, so I decided to write a couple more articles that are in revision right now. They should be up within the next two weeks, so make sure to check back.

Another great thing that article marketing does is give me credibility and influence in the health and wellness area. Although, I am only in college, owning an energy bar business for over year has taught me a lot about the industry, so I am able to write about it in a knowledgeable manner.

Make sure to check them out, and if you are in business for your self, like I am, or you just like to write, and want someone to listen, then go ahead and write some articles. It’s free, and you might even get published, for some good ol’ free publicity.

Have a great night,

Michael
Eddie’s Energy Bars

PS: Last day of classes tomorrow!

The point of a blog is to connect with your customers. I want to let them know that I am a real person they will be dealing with when they order their energy bars for Mother’s day. To know their product is handmade, hand-packaged, and hand labeled before it is sent to them. I feel like I haven’t been personal enough on this blog. Sure, giving tips on health and fitness, keeping up to date on my college life as an entrepreneur, and some random things thrown in as well are great, but are they topics I should be writing about? Do readers like what I am writing? Should I be including pictures of my life, and personal anecdotes? I guess I haven’t quite been able to find my “blogself“.

I don’t even know if that is a word, but finding my blogself is what I need to work on. I am reading constantly on writing to your target market, what they want to read. I believe I am doing that, but do you think so? I feel my target market is the consumer with an active lifestyle, somewhere between the ages 0f 18 and 45, however, many of my customers are above and below that target age (mostly family and friends), and I think that is fine. If you like Eddie’s Energy Bars, eat them, and you will join Eddie’s NATION, the growing group of consumers who have had the privilege of eating a moist, flavorful, and healthy energy bar made in the Green Mountains of Vermont.

I was hoping, my customers would be thrilled to read what I have to say on my blog, and I would be able to interact with them to form a long-lasting relationship with me, Michael Adams, owner of Eddie’s Energy Bars. Instead I don’t know who buys my bars, unless people tell me. Sure, I know who is buying energy bars online, but who bought the dozen bars that sold at Beaudry’s in Huntington (I know Ann Zuccardy of Vermont Shortbread Company bought some). It is the mystery behind manufacturing for retail sales. I want to know who my customers are. I want to be able to talk to them, find out if they enjoyed my bar, and form the great relationship that everyone says you should have in owning a small business.

I try to make a personal connection with readers of my blog and customers I meet hanging around town, but is it working? Am I going in the right direction with this? It is something I will have to figure out with time. This summer (hopefully), Eddie’s Energy Bars will get out more and meet its customers. How to go about doing that, I don’t quite know, but it is a priority of mine.

Feel free to leave any nuggets of wisdom for this budding young entrepreneur.

Michael Adams, Owner
Eddie’s Energy Bars

I present to you the College Entrepreneur’s guide to marketing on, not a shoestring, but half a shoestring. That’s right folks! Marketing on a college student’s budget.We all know that, in general, college kids have no money. It is a true fact, probably even scientifically proven by some professor with a PhD, at some college that has a lot of broke students.

I am often faced with the problem of marketing on a ridiculously small budget. Why such a small budget you ask? I haven’t had the privilege to obtain some large sum of money (i.e. winning the lottery, or more realistically, getting a decent-paying part-time job) quite yet. Basically, I am still running off the money I got from my Bar Mitzvah when I was thirteen. Well, not really. I have had an hourly-wage job since I was sixteen, but the money I made quickly dwindled once I had to pay for a year’s worth of college textbooks (It’s highway robbery as far as I am concerned).

After many months of marketing with a tiny budget, I have decided to let out my secrets, so that maybe, just maybe, a big company will catch on and say, “Hey! That’s a great idea, and it’s cheap too!” That probably won’t happen, but nonetheless, here is my list of things you and I can do to market on half of a shoestring:

Word of Mouth-form a supportive network
God didn’t create mouths for no reason. People are meant to talk to other people, so go ahead and tell them about your product or service. Make sure you carry your business cards with you everywhere you go. Chances are if they aren’t interested, they will know someone who is, and will let them know about your fantastic company. If you’re young, play the teen card. Everyone is impressed when I tell them that I am 19 and I run an established energy bar business, Eddie’s Energy Bars. WOM is probably the most effective type of free marketing, but be careful. If your company has a bad product or service, the customer will tell 30 people about how the dislike your company, but if they like your company, they will let 10 people know, and those will hopefully be 10 future customers.

Press Releases
I love press releases because, once again, they are free. Press releases should be written when your company does something newsworthy. For example, when your business starts, launches a new product, or donates to a great cause–all of these are reason for a press release. With a press release, you probably won’t land on the TODAY Show, but you are likely to land in your local paper because writers are always looking for stories to publish. Press releases are how Eddie’s Energy Bars landed a spot in WCAX Channel 3’s “Made in Vermont” segment. For tips on writing a press release, click here.

Free Samples of Your Product or Service
Although this is not free to you, it is certainly not expensive. I offer free samples of my homemade healthy energy bars all the time. I do it because I know that consumers in the store are hesitant to buying a product they have yet to try. Once they enjoy the product, they will always come back for more. The same could ring true for your business. If you own a car detailing business, detail your neighbors car for free, and give them some business cards to distribute when their friends ask why your neighbor’s car is so shiny.

Create Long-lasting Customer Relationships
Marketing in the 21st century is all about forming relationships. Once you have the customer, you need to keep them around, having them constantly thinking about your company. This can be done be simply following up with a phone call or an e-mail asking if the product arrived OK, or if they were satisfied with the service you provided. You could also create a e-newsletter if you had the time, and send that to customers once of twice a month, but newsletters are a whole other story.

I hope these tips will help you market your company on half a shoestring. Let me know how it works out.

Michael
Eddie’s Energy Bars