by Ingvar Grimsmo

I will share with you a few things I have learned about marketing a Web site. When I set up my new site a few months ago, I dreamt about the thousands of hits I would get. I scraped together about $1,500 and set out to buy prospects. As an "expert" I certainly could spend this money wisely - and do the right things. I should have spent the money on a vacation in Hawaii.

First off, I got this 1/2 price offer on a 10,000 eyeball banner promotion on a "well know business site". I jumped, and thought.. Hmmm. 10,000 eyeballs will see my "dynamic and persuasive" banner. If only 1% clicked, and only 10% of those bought I'd have 10 new clients, probably worth about $1,500 to start. So I whipped out my credit card and went ahead. Got 6 click throughs, and no sales. 6 out of 10,000. Later research told me that banner advertising is pretty useless unless you have the bucks to go onto Yahoo in the right section at the right time. Don't do it.

Then I thought... a press release! That's it! Get the press to work for me. So I wrote a "pretty good release", and paid $300 to have a company distribute the release. Nothing. Or, as far as I know, nothing. (Aug 25 - got written up in American Venture magazine) 3,000 editors didn't care. Not news. I learned that a press release is a good thing, but it has to be NEWS. The fact that you have a new web site won't work. It's gotta be news. Like "12 year old boy from a poor family with cancer sets up web site and makes millions. He gives all the profits to charity." Moral of the story, try to be so different that it's news worthy. Once you get some press, it's great. I have done this in my past lives, and it does work. I haven't figured out what's newsworthy about my project yet, but I will come up with an angle. Any suggestions? Stay tuned.

Oh well, so far I had only spent half of my PR budget. No problemo. Onward we go. I have more money to burn. Reading some more, I came up with the e-zine classified ad angle. Now, THAT sounds good. Advertise in opt-in newsletters that people actually ASK to receive. Topical newsletters. Hey... that's me! Came up with a great e-zine on Internet marketing, and bought an ad. THAT worked a little better. I did get enough leads to close a few sales, therefore earning my investment back. Nothing big, though... and the next time I might not be so lucky. But then again, I might do better. We'll see.

OK, doing better. Then I thought... heck, there's gotta be local companies I could work with that need their web site tweaked! I went in and looked at some of the local sites. Oh yes... I could definitely help these poor people. So, I bough a display ad in the local monthly business paper. Nice ad. No calls. None. Zip. 10,000 business people read this thing. Most of them have web sites.

My batting average is really slipping here! Where are those millions of web surfers? By wait.... what's this I hear about e-mail lists of opt-in folks who actually WANT to receive e-mails with product offers? Hey, just like the old days of direct marketing. I'd make money on only a 1.5% return. Not spam, because people WANT these e-mails. (They should get a life). So THAT's it!

I found myself a nice opt-in e-mail service and fired off 10,000 e-mails. I did get a few responses, but no orders. I learned that these people like getting e-mails but never buy. Lonely people wanting attention, I guess.

OK, this is war. Is it me? Is it the offer? Does my service suck? No, that can't be it because I get rave reviews, and every one of my clients like what I do. Clients? How can I have clients? I can't get any advertising to work, my PR money is gone - how on earth can I have clients?

The light came on. The clients I have I got the hard way. One by one. By asking for them. By going directly to the source. By attending chamber meetings. By referrals (You've gotta talk to Ingvar. He can fix you up.) By contacting people directly I feel can use my services. Personally, over the web, by phone - any which way you can. By honestly and completely answering questions in newsgroups. (This is one of my best source of leads). By providing service beyond expectations. God old fashioned PR and marketing. Stuff we used to do years ago before the Internet. Stuff I know how to do very well. I just got caught up in the "get customers the easy way".

I also got an article published on an Internet site. That got me a whole slew of leads that are turning into nice, profitable clients. And, ALL the responses I got were from genuine, nice people from all over the world. It is fun reading their e-mails. I am going to focus on getting published more. It works great.

So, what's the bottom line you ask? Well, qualified prospects do not come by themselves. You have to go and get them. Unless you have oodles of money, don't expect to get any results at all from banners, ads, bulk e-mail, press releases and all the other methods that sound too good to be true. Get Back To Basics.

P.S. Wanna buy an ad...???? Kidding.