Internet Options for Advertising Specialty Professionals
A few hundred years ago when I was a young guy, I opened a retail bike shop. For the first several weeks the phone never rang. Then, one afternoon, the phone started ringing like crazy. After the 10th call, I asked the next caller where they had heard of me. Turns out that the Yellow Pages had dropped that day.
Today you need the Internet for all the same reasons. The yellow pages is not the first place people go to find a resource any more.
Two Unique Aspects of Advertising Specialty on the WWW
After years of web site development for California Springs and reading reams of articles and books on the subject, my conclusion is that most advertising specialty companies and reps need an integrated strategy to help their potential customers find the "store." And they need a method of communicating with existing customers through the web that keeps their clients from trying out somebody else's store.
Part 1. A simple web site is easy to get started and not very expensive. If you have a site that is more than 4 years old, or that is unprofessional in appearance, or if you have no site at all, consider using one of the many ad specialty suppliers of web sites. These sites are like a prefab home that gets you into the starter mode. Would it be better to create a completely custom site with bells and whistles that your competitors can't claim? (like http://www.californiasprings.com) Sure. Plan to spend 500 man hours of artist or web designer time at $20 per hour or more.
The other drawback to the custom web site is time. You need something NOW, not in 3 or 6 months. The prefab approach can be up and running with a very professional look in mere days.
Part II of the strategy is e-mails. You need to drive people to the site. I discussed e-mails at length on the post of June 10. While e-mails may have a message that doesn't require a trip to the web site, it is very important to use the e-mail to encourage visits to your site. This will allow bookmarking as well as exposure to the ease of doing business with you through the web.
Part III is the blog. Blogs (you are reading one) provide a way to offer personality and special service en mass. If I were to spend all day on the phone, I might get to speak to 20 distributor owners, salespeople, or vendor relations people. Through this blog we get an average of 100 people a day that are making contact with us. And that is after only a few months. We expect that this number will be many hundreds per day as the site becomes better known.
I have written about blogs earlier here, and will be writing much more extensively about them later.
Today you need the Internet for all the same reasons. The yellow pages is not the first place people go to find a resource any more.
Two Unique Aspects of Advertising Specialty on the WWW
After years of web site development for California Springs and reading reams of articles and books on the subject, my conclusion is that most advertising specialty companies and reps need an integrated strategy to help their potential customers find the "store." And they need a method of communicating with existing customers through the web that keeps their clients from trying out somebody else's store.
Part 1. A simple web site is easy to get started and not very expensive. If you have a site that is more than 4 years old, or that is unprofessional in appearance, or if you have no site at all, consider using one of the many ad specialty suppliers of web sites. These sites are like a prefab home that gets you into the starter mode. Would it be better to create a completely custom site with bells and whistles that your competitors can't claim? (like http://www.californiasprings.com) Sure. Plan to spend 500 man hours of artist or web designer time at $20 per hour or more.
The other drawback to the custom web site is time. You need something NOW, not in 3 or 6 months. The prefab approach can be up and running with a very professional look in mere days.
Part II of the strategy is e-mails. You need to drive people to the site. I discussed e-mails at length on the post of June 10. While e-mails may have a message that doesn't require a trip to the web site, it is very important to use the e-mail to encourage visits to your site. This will allow bookmarking as well as exposure to the ease of doing business with you through the web.
Part III is the blog. Blogs (you are reading one) provide a way to offer personality and special service en mass. If I were to spend all day on the phone, I might get to speak to 20 distributor owners, salespeople, or vendor relations people. Through this blog we get an average of 100 people a day that are making contact with us. And that is after only a few months. We expect that this number will be many hundreds per day as the site becomes better known.
I have written about blogs earlier here, and will be writing much more extensively about them later.
posted by Randy W. Kirk at 12:08 PM
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