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How Accepting are we to a Condom Website?

By Apeksha Goenka on 46 Comments / 7424 views

My fellow Rodinhooders,

I am the associate for sales and marketing for a website which sells condoms. 

Website: www.CondomPoint.com

I am looking for ideas on how I can promote this website.

I noticed that whenever I speak with anyone be it my friends or colleagues, there is always a “shy” feeling of “avoiding” notion when I speak of this topic.

May be this is one website, which can guide me on more ways I can market this website. We are a start-up company – self funded – therefore looking for “out of the box” ideas.

Condoms are Home Delivered in Brown packaging. “Unified Prints” the parent company is mentioned on the packet and not the website name anywhere on package for Privacy purposes.

Changing the website look and feel is not an option as we do not wish to spend more on development. Marketing is required.

What are your thoughts?

1. Ideas on how we can promote? Where can we promote?

2. Suggestions on which other category related products we can add? Any references/contacts?

3. How do we reduce the feeling of Shyness and Create awareness?

4. Any “Hat-ke” things we can do – with complete discretion to attract customers to our website

We are open to criticism and appreciate all feedback. Look forward to your comments / suggestions.

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46 Comments

  1. Hi Apeksha,

    You are right this is the right site to discuss on any topic if related to business and entrepreneur.

    1) You can launch some awareness campaigns online through FB and google and an offline campaign through road shows, etc.

    2) Don’t spam directly on public pages of a social site because talking about a condom is still a taboo.

    3) Target all the dating websites, you can talk about your services freely there.

    4) Associate with NGOs working towards AIDS awareness.

    This is what I can think of right now, shall ping you if something new comes to my mind. Anyway soon you will have loads of comments on this post with ideas and tricks.

    Regards,

    Aman A Jha 

  2. Hi Apekhsa…

    I may be trying to reinventing the wheel.

    But I am just wondering why would some one log on to an online store to order condoms. Means, If I am SHy buying it “Over the Counter” then I am SHYer ordering it online. And this is not a niche product which may not be available in Rural areas so that they would buy online as happens in couple of other categories/Brands.

    Secondly, I believe that even if there is a market for buying condom Online,  Only selling condoms would not make the show run. Need to add many more products, wherein The condom sales should not be more than 10%.

    This is my view with my limited knowledge.

  3. Good suggestion on adding more products. Please could you suggest me some? What type? 

  4. How would I market this website on Dating websites, please could you help with details.

    Also, please share your thoughts on how I can associate with NGO’s

  5. There could be many that goes with the theme but does not go with the domain. As your Domain is very specific.

  6. Like which products would go with the theme according to you?

  7. Well with the theme and mood… Books Related to Kamasutra would work, Boxer Shorts with Naughty messages, Deo’s, Flavoured Lip Balms, Perfumed Candles, Romantic Music Cd’s means everything which adds a catalyst in Love Making around which your theme is based. 

  8. Awesome suggestions. Thank you for the same. Please do continue sharing more ideas.

    Any Recommended Shops / Distributors / websites where I can source these products? May you could email me these details on apeksha.goenka@gmail.com

  9. I just visited your site…. and noticed that you do have other categories too…. But most of the products are out of stock. Doesn’t Speak good about the Site. 

  10. Which categories are out of stock? Please could you be specific so I shall work on them right away. Thank you for this feedback

  11. errr apeksha – your site – why don’t you check what’s out of stock?!!!!

    🙂

  12. UPDATED

  13. Anything we do to improve our HomePage? 

    Any suggestions on which Featured Products to display? Banner to say something different?

  14. Hello Apeksha,

    First of all kudos to you guys who have taken up a product which is considered to be taboo all over India an in a lot of places across the world. I am a digital marketing consultant and here are my views regarding your website.

    1.The fold : First of all you need to understand the fold . <history> Basically, if you have seen a newspaper its folded in the middle and anything above that was called above the fold and anything below that was called below the fold. </history> The same applies for your website also. If you have noticed in newspapers they put all the good stuff above the fold and you should be doing the same. For eg : I saw that you accept master card / visa from different banks. These are credibility triggers on a website and its better if its above the fold. Check out this website : https://www.undercovercondoms.com/ . And you know how Indians hesitate to use their cards online so use things like Verisign etc.

    2. Use icons : The 100 % secure , cash on delivery , discreet shopping all are blind spots on your website according to me. Instead use icons along with text and put it on top right header . Again this will definitely build up your credibility as a website. 

    3. Put your best stuff in front :  I am sure you know which is your best selling products . Put it in the front because thats what people are looking for, the more easier you make them to buy those products the more your sales. I thin something like top sellers or something like that and put it right in front. It also serves as a social proof because that way people will think there are others who are buying this stuff so why not try it.

    4. Email marketing : In our industry they say the money is in the list and it is very very true. You need to start building an email list and start marketing to your subscribers. How do you persuade them to give their email addresses? Give them the sex book that you are offering ( Please consider changing the name of the book , some thing like “10 things to make your partner go wild in bed “) . You can use an email pop up and how it performs. If you want to see how an email pop up and email marketing works check out my blog post here : https://clickmeister.com/2013/06/27/11-ways-email-hacks-that-can-increase-your-productivity-dramatically/ . After about 7 seconds a pop up will appear. 

    Now once you have peoples email address don’t go like buy buy buy buy . This is an excellent opportunity for you to educate them . Educate them about a lot of thing including sex, about condoms about so many other things related to your domain. You need to understand how to subtly sell things. When you add value to your visitors they WILL buy from you because now they know you are a trusted source. And more over you have a database of emails who have been your customers, who might be your customers and who might suggest customers to your website and they can be repeat customers. Nothing like it 🙂 

    Also you can educate them in other ways also, you can write blog posts and stuff like that. 

    5. More info : You need to be more descriptive about your products.Even if the users don’t read it the search engines will. It seems like you have done some SEO but there is much more things that you can do and get a lot of traffic. A quick research showed more than 2000 people across India are trying to buy condoms online in India. Be there when they are looking for you. You can also check out Adwords, you can get good quality traffic from Adwords. I can hook you up with a coupon for 2500 bucks if you are interested. 

    6. You can use Social media very effectively . You need to contact this called Kunal who is on this forum . I am sure he can help you out with Social media or at least point you in the right direction . 

    This is all I can write right now cause I am heading out . I hope this helps. 

    If you have any questions I will be more than happy to help you. You can always shoot me an email at sanjay [at] clickmeister.com 

    Cheers

  15. Ok thinking from the shoes of customers, I would not like that I get the courier at home or at office. So beside the option of delivery at your doorstep, give an option of delivery in your hand, that means you can delivery anywhere discreetly like a hustler and walk-off. Use-in-hand Delivery as your USP.

    Use a brand ambassador, be it a celebrity, animation character or even a truck driver Balbir pasha (I think there was an ad earlier to use condom and fight AIDS)

    Various women magazine reports show that men are bad in beds, which is they lack intimacy, foreplay etc. have those products which will bring out those things, educate people to buy that stuff too. Survey ask women what would they want, ask women magazine and women communities.  May be run event, expo those products.

    Have option of people SMSing you say KS or CP and you delivery them your product.

    Target newly married couple, I think customer in this segment once set would not like to change the way they buy and the source from where they buy this product.

    Word CONDOM has become derogatory, abusive and a teen ridicule change it to something different or subtle like word ‘KS’

  16. Hey Apeksha,

    I am thinking your target market are college students and I am answering this post with that assumption.

    I would start with small stands outside colleges (give like 3 days per college), then places like toilets of Night clubs, bars, lounges and restaurants (may be). 

    You can target College students on FB, also people connected to confession pages of colleges (apparently these are doing pretty well). 

    All the very best.

  17. What would be the best way to educate people on Sex Education via. Our Website. 

    Who would be the correct people to speak with for the above:

    1. Doctors who are Gynac’s or some other field?

    2. Organisations NGO’s – HealthCare Communities

    Can anyone suggest ideas or recommend who we can speak to. You may send details on our email: sales@condompoint.com 

  18. Thank you for your suggestions

  19. I need suggestions from some Digital Experts on How we can partner with a Sexologist for this website? What type of partnership should it be? 

    They would be the correct medium for creating awareness of Sex Education and Acceptance of Condoms in our society.

    Please

  20. FEEDBACK:

    If you have visited our website: http://www.CondomPoint.com 

    Please be strict on your feedback so we can get quality feedback and improve where possible.

  21. Dear Sanjay,

    1. Excellent suggestions on the Top Half of Website Display. We are implementing your suggestion within this week. and We have also changed the 100% secure bar on our website.

    Please share your views on the same.

    2. As you mentioned, besides SEO many other things can be done. Please can you suggest which other ways are good to market / promote this website. 

    3. Which websites besides Coupon Websites would be good to work with as Traffic Generators? Any Suggestions? 

    Thank you in advance for all information

  22. Dear Arun,

    Thank you for all your tips 

    1. Excellent concept on IN-Hand delivery. Very Apt name for the mode of delivery for our website.

    2. Do you have contacts with any women magazines or anyone else who can connect us to the right people?

  23. Hi Apeksha,

    I am not a big fan of coupon websites in terms of generating sales and getting customers because the customers you get from these kind of sites are not very loyal and they are the type who will always expect a discount because the only reason they came to you was because of a discount. 

    Why don’t you try guest posting on some really good websites about condoms. Think content marketing. Educate them in a fun way maybe you can make some infographic or an application or anything which is fun to use and understand about all these things. 

    Why don’t you start being active in certain forums and start posting there. That can drive a lot of traffic. 

    I will keep commenting as and when I get more ideas. 

  24. We are trying to implement a new section on our website – Sexpert Zone – Trying and Post Educative Tips

    Also,

    We are working on Sexpert Questions on our blog – http://www.blog.condompoint.com

    Please let me know your thoughts on the same.

  25. Call a line of your products “Dipper”, and run a tagline – “Use Dipper at Night”! Should work! 🙂

    If you strike big, remember to attribute part of the success to me! 😉

    All the best…

  26. Apart from condoms, there are a lot of things that people feel shy to buy. Your website can be a great one stop shop for all that – especially considering the fact that to justify delivery costs, delivery sizes should be big.

  27. I know Shruti Kohli – Editor at The Petticoat Journal –  

    Linkedin – in.linkedin.com/in/shrutikohli

    Twitter – iShrutiKohli

    Other names you can get on the newspaper stand 🙂

  28. Dear Ramanuj,  

    As per your discussion above, Please could you share with me examples of which other products do people feel shy to buy? 

    We shall definitely look in to them right away.

  29. dear apeksha,

    you’ve been getting such awesome ideas and suggestions here!! but honestly, i think it’s time for you to also take these ideas fwd rather than expecting everyone to spell out everything for you… 🙂

    e.g gurpreet suggested adding products that go with your theme – you asked him which ones? he told you. you asked where should you source them from…names of shops, websites, distributors, etc???? that’s what YOU need to RESEARCH. a simple google search can give all the specifics you need after you get these ideas…

    i suggest you create a survey in case you need more info. so there are pinpointed q’s. and people who feel like filling it up will do so. that should provide you a lot of valuable answers as well.

    get creative girl!! you’ve got such an exciting product domain to deal with!

    all the best!

  30. Asha:

    We have already started to implement many of the ideas suggested by rodinhooders on this discussion. 

    We have already sourced the different products as suggested by Gurpreet, waiting for their arrival and they shall be displayed on the website as well. Few of them already are on the website.

    I appreciate all your kind help and guidance throughout.

    We are help and knowledge hungry as a website and always looking forward to more and more ideas.

  31. Dear Apeksha,

    If your friends feel shy to talk about condoms its because you have too many discount and wholesale deals in Bhiwandi! :)The larger segment of the urban population is neither shy nor conspicuous about buying or using different versions of condoms available.

    You have one of the most suggestive products, one of the easiest to promote and market actually. You just need to flip the challenge and look at it from a more fun perspective. “Whisper” was such an oxymoron when they decided to insist that chemists place their product in the front rack/counter instead of behind the scenes. Now every company does the same, albeit covered packages during the sale.

    While a lot of others have given you plenty of great ideas on how your website can be improved with better products and enhancements, I believe that your current challenge is marketing your online shop.

    I would suggest the use of suggestive content like Local Baniya does on fb: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=581020195273927&set=pb.293346387374644.-2207520000.1376115622.&type=3&theater 

    If you need a more comprehensive digital PR or marketing plan then email me at pawan@digicat.in with your contact details.

  32. Dear Pawan,

    This is good knowledge for our team to understand about whisper. Definitely a very good strategy which worked in their favor.

    As mentioned, Have emailed you to know more 

    Thank you for your time

  33. Menstrual cups will be interesting. Few people in India know about it – but slowly and steadily many people are using it now.

  34. Hi Apeksha

    even durex delivers the stuff directly to homes you could see their site as well.I think the colleges and universities will be a very good option for you especially as there are lot of pgs around and hostels and may be you can target place delivery and time delivery as people may not accept the products at door step.

    Plus maternity wards are a good option too.even health centres in rural areas can be used but there u could start with free samples and then may be open a small point of outlet. A dangerous idea but railway stations/metros advertisement outside and inside and specific areas of cities could be targeted.

    Special campaigns can be launched on world aids day ,womens day.

    Last but not the least the thing that can work the most is matrimonial sites….and sites offering medical help for couples.

    hope it helps.

  35. Great ideas Arpit. Appreciate your suggestions.

    We shall definitely try and implement these as much as possible. 

    Thank you.

  36. Apeksha you really need to be whacky in promotion on social media just search whacky strang condoms on google and you will get lods of images that will trigger some nasty campaign ideas.

    And your offering need to source some wackiest product from around the world and sell

  37. We have ADDED two new links on our website:

    NEW CONTENT – PLEASE SHARE FEEDBACK

    1. SexPert Zone – https://www.condompoint.com/content/category/6-sexpert-zone

    2. Condom Ad Commercials – https://www.condompoint.com/content/category/7-condom-video-commercials

  38. Excellent idea on the whacky strang condoms – we can start adding these to our blog 

    http://www.Blog.CondomPoint.com

    Please do give your feedback on our blog 

  39. Thanks Apeksha at lesst I deserve one complementary pack of condom from your site…

  40. Dear Ashwin, let me not be partial to you only coz everyone on this website has helped us a lot.

    Discount Code: RODINHOOD

    This code offers a discount of 12% Flat on the entire website.

  41. please get some good writers on board. pay them well – they alone can make this blog work and get you thousands of hits.

  42. Hi Apeksha,

    I just checked out your sexpert zone and the condom video ads. I have a few things to say if I may.

    The sexpert zone : The sexpert zone has duplicate content. Google or any search engine for that matter is not a big fan of duplicate content. Infact Google might even penalize you for using duplicate content on your website. So if I were you I would remove the content immediately since it’s doing more harm to you than good. You should writing your content around keywords and also general topics that have already been mentioned. Keep your website fresh, Google loves fresh content . I don’t think it should take you much time, 1 hour a day should be fine or you can even outsource. You can take ideas from other articles and rewrite them completely and you have your fresh content. You can start sharing this on your social media to attract more visitors . You can use the sponsored post feature to reach out to a lot of people. One of the rodinhooders Dushyant whom I am helping with his website, he is having great success with sponsored post . You should probably talk to him. 

    The commercial videos : You have just links to videos on the internet. So technically it is for people who are already ON the website correct? The whole point of the videos should be to get visitors from outside TO your blog using these videos. Instead of linking to other videos. Why don’t you download the ads from youtube and make your own channel and upload the videos again. Put banners in the video and the description to direct people FROM youtube TO your website. Now you don’t have to worry disappointing people already ON your website cause you can embed the videos you just upload on your website. I think the videos should get you a good amount of traffic to your blog. If you are concerned just do the numbers. If you upload 100 videos ( 3 a day should achieve you 100 in a month, well almost ) and each gets a 100 views that’s 10,000 total views. If your click through rate of the banners and links within the videos is around 5% that’s a cool 500 targeted visitors to your website. Cool or cool? 

    I don’t think you will have any copyright issues since you are only promoting their ads and also selling their products. And if you promote the videos well you can achieve better numbers than that. Hint : Youtube is the second biggest search engine in the world. 

  43. Dear Sanjay, 

    I shall look into the given tips right away. Again, thank you for the same. Much appreciated.

    We would like to understand more about the Commercial Videos you have mentioned… If you don’t mind, since this is new to us, would like some guidance for a start and then we can take it forward from there. Its quite simple the things you have mentioned but we would like a better understanding of the same process, would appreciate your time for the same.

    Please could you share your contact number / email so our technical team and get in touch with you for the same.

  44. Excellent suggestion. We shall start our search for good writers right away and make a plan around them for the blog

  45. Hi Apeksha,

    You can send me an email at sanjay [at] clickmeister.com . We will take it from there 🙂 

  46. Thanks

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