I signed up at RocketProfit a few weeks ago, and was immediately impressed by their selection of campaigns, especially in exclusive campaigns, so I’ve been excited to give them a try. In the few months since I really got into CPC, I’ve done most of my advertising with NeverblueAds campaigns, but since some of my favorite campaigns were recently disabled, it’s been a good time to try something new.

It was good timing to see John Chow’s new contest for an Elite Retreat pass, because he’s challenged us to come up with a marketing strategy using campaigns from RocketProfit - something I was already doing. Elite Retreat sounds like a dream come true event for everyone involved - like a Dragon’s Den for online entrepreneurs to bring their business plans together, learn from some really talented and experienced mentors, and to benefit from their expertise to strengthen your business plan.

There are so many possibilities with the RocketProfit campaigns right now, I really don’t know where to start. While there are a lot of campaigns that can simply be pushed through CPC on search and Facebook, I’d like to come up with something where I’m not at risk of competition driving my keyword prices up too much. I’d also like a campaign where I simultaneously build a list of my own, so I can re-use it in the future.

What I came up with is simple, and effective. The one flaw is that there is already competition in the market, but I’ve come up with a contest that would hopefully help me to promote the application.

Grower Flowers Campaign

My campaign involves creating a Facebook (and Bebo) application to send virtual flowers for Valentines Day. Once the application is installed, it allows you to send virtual flowers to any person on your contact list, along with a message.

The application will advertise Grower Flowers in the application window, as well as recommending to the sender that they can follow up with real flowers after they send the virtual ones, with another link to Growers Flowers. As with any Facebook application, the transaction will be featured in both the sender and recipient’s news feeds, and on the recipient’s profile page. A text ad will appear beneath the gift, allowing the recipient to send back a virtual flower, or send real flowers using Grower Flowers.

In order to encourage people to install the application, I would give away 1 real flower gift through Grower Flowers per day randomly to 1 person who sent virtual flowers, and list those winners in the application. The free flowers will be valued at $39.95 USD

To advertise, I would place ad variations with Facebook Social Ads. I would promote that you can send virtual flowers for free, with a chance to win a free real bouquet from Grower Flowers. I would also promote the app through Facebook App advertising platforms like SocialMedia and Cubics.

As a bonus, I would collect information about the people who install my Facebook application. I can use the birthday information to promote sending flowers on birthdays, and I can market the application seasonally.  There is also the opportunity to sell the application as it grows larger.

I think that done right it could be a successful, long term campaign that could cycle many different online flower retailer affiliate programs.

Rough projections here..

Growers pays $14 per sale. I would expect to pay an average of $0.35-$0.60 CPC on Social Ads and $0.10-$0.20 on apps. I would expect to get more installs through app advertising, but higher quality leads through the Social Ads. With a $500 advertising budget per day, I’d hope to see 1500+ clicks and 500+ installs (rough numbers) daily, escalating as the app grows virally. That means I’d have to sell 40 flowers per day to break even, but I may be able to cut back on my ad spend as the app grows as long as I keep meeting my 500 daily installs. That is 3500 people by Valentines day, sending a minimum of 3500 virtual flowers. At minimum, I’d have to convert 250 of those to a sale to break even on a $500 daily ad spend (or 7%). The success would really depend on how viral the app went, and how many installs I could get over 3500 to decrease my required conversion ratio.

I hope that this idea shows some of my thought process - my approach to marketing is to try and create an application of value rather than to just dump campaigns into search and hope my margins work. I’m currently working on some big ideas that I’d love to bring to Elite Retreat - especially since I’m quitting my day job to pursue them next month.