At 10:16 PM 5/12/1998 -0500, Ronnie Gauthier so eloquently stated:
>Build it and they will come. ;-)
>
Ah, the infamous "Field of Dreams Fallacy." ;-}. Decades ago (at
least in Net terms, 18-24 months ago in real life) it was much
easier to get noticed. There wasn't as much competition for
space, and the search engines were a useful tool. As the Net
catapulted and more pages and sites became available, getting
noticed becomes more difficult. Everybody is fighting for the
same thing. And as we get more of the corporate "Dilbert" types
on the Net, all with grandiose ideas and no money, the Net will bog down more.
IMO, if you don't have a budget for promoting a site, don't build
it. Adam Boettiger, moderator of I-Advertising Discussion List
and a member of E-Tailer's Digest recently posted in answer to
our Question of the Week about how much to spend on advertising:
"You would *never* open an offline storefront without budgeting
money to promote it. Why is a storefront on the Net any
different? It is a business just like any other. You need
people to visit your storefront/site in order to sell product.
Visitors don't just magically appear once you build the site.
It costs money to bring people to your site in any significant numbers.
Yes, there are a number of promotions on the Net that businesses
can do for free or low cost; however you can expect to hire a
salaried employee working 40-100 hours per week (full time)
devoted solely to the promotion of your site if you want to make
a dent using these free methods, and they in no way compare to
paid on-line advertising."
He goes on to say that a company should budget $40,000 for
advertising the first year if you want to be a serious contender.
I agree with him.
One of our retailers on E-Tailer's (Coastal Tool) spends $50,000
annually on advertising, which generates between $100,000 -
$110,000 each month in business! And 94% ($47,000) of his ad
budget is recouped from co-op advertising!
Details of Adam's comments and our discussions on co-op
advertising can be found in the archives (searchable by keyword)
at http://www.gapent.com/etailer/ Adam's comments are in issue #0027
I know that's not what you want to hear, but it is a reality.
George
_______________________________________________________
George Matyjewicz, C.M.O. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
GAP Enterprises, Ltd. http://www.gapent.com/
Moderator of E-Tailer's Digest http://www.gapent.com/etailer/
Your Resource for Retail on the Net
MYWEB - Marketing Your Web
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Subject=MYWEB_Info
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