Survival Magazine Ads? Any success?

[Kris-TruPrep]

Has anyone out there used a Survival/Prepping magazine to submit advertising? If so, which one and what were your results?

[Gold Lock]

Kris - When you find out let me know. I've got a prepper gadget which I've patented that I think survivalists would be interested in.

[CountryGuy]

Gold,
anything I can help with on your invention let me know. I'm an engineer also and work in the plastics and tooling world and have worked for some large OEM's and contract manufacturers over the years.

PM me if you want to discuss or brainstorm.

[CountryGuy]

Hey just was looking at the vids on your site. Besides showing it with ur hollow coin or lead slug you might also want to use a real gold coin so people can see how it should work or not react with a real gold coin. Does it also work on silver too? Is it just coins or also bars too, though I'm guessing there is a thickness it doesn't work on.

On your marketing things, have you sat down and written down who you're target customer is (individual/ professional coin merchant, etc...) Hit all the social medias like FB, mewe, minds, pinterest and the groups on those sites involved in say prep/ survival but also those focused on numismatic and coin collecting groups. Hit the other social media like twitter and if you don't use it currently learn it and seek out groups and such that are into coins be it for collecting or for wealth security. Those are mainly avenues to reach the individual consumer; don't rule out groups or forget to target industry groups. Maybe there are trade groups for coin vendors and numismatic vendors; trade shows or groups that they are members of. If they are you need to possibly join or figure a way to target them. Marketing might not be the only word you need, it's sales too. To be honest you need to have a good story for most people to part with $50 for what they see as 2 rounds discs of clear plastic.

You need to be creative and create your story. Also don't set your bar too low as far as focusing only on private/ individual buyers. Don't think of selling one or 2 at a time, instead think of selling cases to distributors.Maybe try to get in and talk to places like JM Bullion or APMEX etc that sell coins. They might be able to do as an add on item and spin it as cheap security for their customers peace of mind. But be prepared for them to demand a lower cost based on volume. Know your limitations - how many and how fast can you make them and keep everyone perfect. They look a little labor intense to build, so if you got a few orders of say several hundred, think on how long it would take you to fulfill the orders.

Other places and targets to consider are pawn shops, it's crucial for them to know real from fake. hit the local and regional gun shows and coin shows. Might want to try to consider applying to that show Shark Tank. Assuming you even made it to the show, they might have 0 interest but it's a load of publicity to a national audience and several successes have occurred to people that were on there but didn't make deals.

Do you know what if any other ways are out there to spot fakes? If so you need to investigate and likely buy and thoroughly understand it. This allows you to do and honest self reflection on yours and theirs. Play up your but be prepared to address any shortages your product has compared to say a competitors strengths.

Lastly don't put your head in the clouds, be honest with what your actual market size is. I mean what % of Americans actually buy/ sell/ trade or collect gold coins? Out of 300+ million is it even a million people? likely not. I'm not trying to be a wet blanket but just trying to caution your reason. What do you want to get out of this venture? Being honest it's not going to be something to turn you into the next Bill Gates but it could be a nice side hussel to make extra money. If I can ask, and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but it looks like you all have been in business since when, 2015 or 16? To date, how many have you sold?

[Gold Lock]

Thanks for the input. Send me your address on my website and I'll drop a couple of scanners in the mail for you to try out and keep.

I'm really good at a lot of things EXCEPT marketing. Thank you again for the ideas. I'm adding them to my to do list.

I've taped tungsten wafers under gold coins and used a scanner to detect them but I haven't made a golden slug yet. The people that make the hollow dollars will machine down two halves of a golden coin and insert a tungsten wafer then press the halves together. It's going to cost some money but it something that needs to be done.

The max depth it will detect a 1/16" wire is about 3/8" with a rare earth magnet. If a electro magnet is used *Holtzman Coils" I think it will go an inch which is plenty for big gold bars. It works on both silver and gold. It will not work on platinum because it is para-magnetic like tungsten. It will work on coins, bars and nuggets.

Social Media - I haven't had much luck with FB. My first account was hacked and started spouting off things in Arabic. So I apologized to everyone and shut it down. I have a business FB account but it seems like there is lots of garbage on it. Maybe I don't know how to use it. I never heard of mewe or minds. I'll take a look at them. I never thought of using Pintrest. I've had good success with LinkedIn. I also need to check out Instagram. I need to learn how to use twitter.

Most of my business has been preppers and pawnshops. I haven't been able to sell to a large business yet. What I have offered is if they order 30 or more I can customize the scanners with their logo/name and reduce the price. Companies are interested but no one has committed. I've talked to JMBullion and NWMint. They aren't interested, yet. This might change with time. If I sell 30 at a time I can drop the price down to $30 each so they can make $20 on each one.

The gun shows are a great idea. I need to do these. I was going to set up a booth and offer free gold and silver testing. I have several fakes that I can show but none with tungsten inside. I have a dozen or so Krugerrands that look real but are nothing more than silver/copper alloy. I also have a stainless steel dollar that looks real.

We don't watch TV. There are too many other things to do. I did see a couple of SharkTank episodes when I was in a remote camp on the North Slope. I'll goggle them. I really didn't want investors or debt but the publicity would be good. I don't think coin/bullion scanners are glamorous enough for them but we will see.

I have been visiting the local pawn and coin shops. They need help understanding and how to do an Archimedes density test. I'm trying to package myself as an expert in precious metals validation.

There are some big gold/coin shows in the Lower 48. I need to take a vacation and open a booth at these and drum up some business.

The size of my market? I live under a rock so its hard for me to know what the rest of America does or thinks. Alaska has 700,000 people. Half of these people live in the Anchorage bowl. Out of 350,000 people I could see a maximum of 300 people buying and using these scanners. Roughly one in a thousand. Out of 350 million in America that would make 350,000 potential customers. Not all of them will buy a scanner but it will provide a comfortable living for my family and let me retire earlier. I also think it is important to leverage this and sell other precious metal testing equipment along with the scanners and offer advise/technical help with customers' analysis of metals. I have sold some scanners in England, Germany and Australia.

At first I hardly sold anything but it seems to steady increase every month. At first it was a scanner every two months. This month is our busiest at 14 scanners being sold so far. Its not very much but it is a start. I think most of my sales are word of mouth from other customers. We can crank out about 300 scanners in a day if necessary with the help of my teenage children, nephews and nieces. They are all trying to figure out how to make a buck and want to help. So far I'm still in the hole from getting the patent and initial blunders paying for professional advertisers.

The design has been changing and improving. When I first started it looked like an old McGiver TV show.

I think the biggest lever I need to use is affiliate marketers. One of the large bullion companies suggested that I look at AdSense.

QUESTION - How do I quickly and inexpensively countersink 1/4" plexiglass for 4-40 screws without going to deep? I'm always looking for ways to improve and this will keep the scanners from hanging up in someone's pocket. I'm moving from machine screws to button head screws but counter-sink would be the best. I'm counter sinking 1/16" plexiglass on the bullion scanners by using a sacrificial 1/16" thick piece of plastic backed by steel so it's not too large and always the same size.

Thank you!

Esker