Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1998 20:56:31 -0500
Reply-To: "John H. Rodgers" <inua@QUICKLINK.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <Vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: "John H. Rodgers" <inua@QUICKLINK.NET>
Subject: Re: Web&IncreasedSales?
-- [ From: John H. Rodgers * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --
I have worked with the Web a lot, studied it, read mountains of magazines
and books about marketing and marketing/advertising on the Web, participated
in moderated groups with international membership dealing with marketing and
business on the Web. Ultimately I and many others have come to the
conclusion that the state of developement of the Web and internet marketing
is such that expecting web site by itself to make you money is a waste of
time. There is much that has to be done to make it work. The Web sight is
only a single tool out of many that you need to have in operation to make
money through your web site. One of the most important elements is to make
your contacts off the internet, then refer them to your web site.
It takes one or more persons working full time to keep up with the changes
and adjustments in a website to keep the webcrawlers putting a website on
top of the list, so it can be easily found. That is a big expense. And
unless you are in the software business, it's not worth it.
You are ahead of the game to buy the business license list from your State
licensing bureau(now-a-days the complete list with all names and addresses
can be had on CD rom for about $100) and sent out a mailer with your
business info on it, your e-mail address, and your website address. That
will get more hits than expecting people to find it randomly.
You can also buy one of the CD rom phone book programs. There are yellow
page and white page versions. There is good demographic data there. Names,
addresses, etc. Use it. Send your web address with an invitation to visit.
You really do have to excercise marketing techniques off the web to get the
website to be worth anything. Otherwise, to find your website is like trying
to find a single pea in a pot full of peas, without being able to
differentiate between them. And that is a waste of time and money.
Consider who you are trying to sell to also. Are they mostly other clay folk
checking out your site? Sorry, I love'em all, God bless'em, but with only a
few exceptions perhaps, they are not your target market. They are not going
to make you money.
I hate to be crass about all this, but you must get really commercially
focused and work out a good marketing plan. Then work your website into it.
If you don't you are going to waste a lot of time and money and ultimately
be doomed to failure.
It can be done, so get on with it. But do it right!
Luck!
John Rodgers
'85 GL Vanagon Driver
Clayartist/Moldmaker
"God created His best work from clay, shall I strive to do less?"jr
-------- REPLY, Original message follows --------
Date: Wednesday, 12-Aug-98 12:12 PM
From: Helllll \ America On-Line: (Helllll) To: Multiple
recipients of list CLAYART \ Internet: (clayart@lsv.uky.edu)
Subject: Re: Web&IncreasedSales?
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I talked to Paul Soldner about the web once,and he seemed pissed that a web
site with his work on it hadn't sold a thing.... so he thinks the web is
worthless... internet servers make money by selling web pages to people to
advertise there stuff.. that is all well and good.... but the web is an
"information highway" not an advertisement highway....i think it is good to
have a web page....but you should have realistic hopes for it.....
hank over and out
-------- REPLY, End of original message --------
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