Re: Comments on various posts

From: Janet Attard <attard_at_businessknowhow.com>
Date: Tue 05 Feb 2002 11:01:01 -0500

"Mark Hopkins" <mark.hopkins_at_powerpackedads.com> wrote:

> Except you want the SB to spend $1000 per site. With 100 test
> sites = $100,000. NOT fine.
>
> That's the problem.
>
> In other words, the SB tests market-niche (list / site). This
> is different to a "broad market" BB requirement.

The fact is, that most small businesses can not advertise
effectively with banner ads any more than they can advertise
effectively in name-brand magazines. The reason is they do
not have sufficient ad budget to launch a sustainable
campaign. Just about every small business who has an
established product and decides to try to speed up customer
acquisition by purchasing a single quarter page or bigger
ad in a national publication (say a product for computer
users advertised in a national computer magazine) will tell
you how disappointed they were in the results. After
spending thousands of dollars they usually lucky to make a
single sale.

Businesses with very limited ad budgets need to find
creative ways to develop customers until such time as their
business grows, their product line grows, and their
distribution system grows (so people can, say, walk by
a product in a store, recognize the logo from ads they've
seen, pick it up and look at it..... and ultimately buy it.)

(Check my Business Know-How book for dozens of ideas for
low-cost marketing. Our site has a lot of ideas, too.)

> The solution is to differentiate and make the ad space worth
> more. If you're a brand site yourself, this helps. But most are
> not and then you have to show either that you have results or
> have a target market that is desired. This means meeting SB
> needs.

No. If the publisher expects to be profitable themselves, it
means meeting the needs of advertisers who can afford to pay
them, and meeting the needs of web site visitors or newsletter
subscribers. A publisher can't publish if they can't pay their
own bills. While an online publisher doesn't have printing
costs to pay, they still have sigificant expenses and still
have a need to make a profit.

Which also means trials, detailed information,
> and examples of successful products/advertisers.

Umm... those are the kinds of things a small business should
do to get their product known. A content web site or ezine
that has just launched and has few subscribers may do that.
But, any publisher who has a sizeable mailing list or large
number of unique visitors to their web site if they do such
tests at all, normally will only do them on a very limited
basis where they see a likelihood of developing some type of
long, profitable relationship with either a major corporation
or a well-established small business.


--Janet Attard (attard_at_businessknowhow.com)
Author, The Home Office and Small Business Answer Book
Content development, web development, surveys, online directories
More than 13 years experience building online content and
community sites
http://www.businessknowhow.com and http://www.careerknowhow.com






Received on Tue Feb 05 2002 - 10:01:01 CST