Advice on marketing?

[i-make-robots]

I don't know much about marketing and I suspect it's killing my business.

I've put together a build-your-first-arduino-robot kit, a line follower that can be upgraded to a maze solver. It's got a wiki, sales page, support options, three lessons, and needs no soldering or wire cutting.

I've put together a drawing robot that's easier to use than anyone else's and uses Adafruit's motor shield.

I'm trying to work the banned, I put out business cards and plaster reddit with mentions. I've managed to get into the Make blog and even the Adafruit blog.

I get ~80 unique visitors a day on my site, and sell maybe two units a month.

I have a new item that is definitely novel in the DIY arena and I don't want it to flounder like the last two. I'd like to organize some kind of coordinated blitz with make blog, adafruit blog, hackaday, slashdot, reddit... I don't know who else. I've never written a press release. I have barely 200 friends of facebook. Since I'm in Canada Kickstarter is not an option - and even so, I don't know what I'd ask for there, other than "please buy so I can upgrade my workshop and make more robots".

TL;DR: Lots of tech knowledge. Very little business or marketing experience. What do?

[adafruit]

I don't know much about marketing and I suspect it's killing my business.... TL;DR: Lots of tech knowledge. Very little business or marketing experience. What do?

good information is advertising. how many tutorials do you have? how many blog posts showcasing your expertise are published? there isn't a trick, or secret - it's waking up every day and want to share as much information as you can and helping others, sometimes they'll reward you with a purchase

don't look at things as a marketing blitz you do once, tell a story over time, share what you're working on - show the details, thought and care. a "big release" is fun, but get in to publishing something on a daily basis. post a video, post an instructable - teach folks something and they'll be back for more.

all the sites you listed generally do not like press releases any way

cheers,
adafruit support, phil