Re: Advice on marketing a so far unsuccessful online venture

From: David Yancey <dyancey_at_proactics.com>
Date: Mon 20 Sep 2004 09:44:29 -0500

Hi Jim - - Thanks for having the courage to ask publicly for help!

You sound like you need help in getting prospects to come
visit your site. I could not see you ranked in Google, for
example. Ad server solutions and ad space sales services
are legion, so you are going to need to work hard to get as
much free visibility as possible. You'll also need to do some
paid advertising or SEM, I think. I understand the problem
of a lack of funds, but the solution to that is to make sure
that when you spend, say, a hundred bucks in visitor
acquisition costs, you make sales worth at least three times
that number (in lifetime account revenues.)

But getting traffic is not your number one problem, IMO.
Your site does not do an adequate job of explaining your
services in a way that makes them compelling for
prospective advertisers.

Jim, I really empathize with your dilemma. I was a systems
programmer, and often have problems to this day getting
people who are not technically-oriented to understand my
ideas. The first piece of advice I can offer you therefore is
in three parts: first, be patient; then try a little more
patience; then, when things get really frustrating, be even
more patient.

Here's a bit more specific advice in communication with
your prospects.

Put the problem you solve into the prospect's perspective.
Your service/software seems to solve *several* problems,
for several potential types of users. It seems to be pitched
at site owners who are unhappy with the performance of
AdSense, for example. But also for those who want a tidy
way to track affiliate clickouts. And also for those who
want their own programmable ad server. There may be
other cases.

My point is that this is very confusing for most folks,
especially the ones who are new to selling ad space from
their site in the first place. Buying ad space is equally
confusing for smaller advertisers. Both these semi-newbie
categories are your primary targets, Jim, so you need to do
a lot of educating.

I suggest you have a separate entry page for *each* specific
type of possible customer, so they can instantly see how
you are addressing their specific problem. Having distinct
entry pages will also enable you to test SEM and other
advertising programs very effectively.

The Directory function is not clear. When I went to the _how
it works_ page for advertisers, there was no *instantly visible*
link to the Directory. The directory itself seems to include
mostly non-clients (of yours). If that is true, why would
someone need to go to these sites through you? This is just
one aspect that I think will confuse normal people.

Indeed, Jim, your site could really use some simple process-type
"how it works" graphics, IMO. To you, probably, all this linking
and tracking stuff is obvious, but I have tried to explain the
basics to very successful investors, including some in
ad-technology firms, and seen one blank face after another
staring back at me.

Also, if you develop a really good "basics of selling your ad
space" section of the site, you'll have the foundation for getting
better ranking in the crawler search engines.

I won't comment here on the technical side of your services,
since they are not really the problem - - yet! They may well
be, but until you get sales and a user base, there's little
grounds on which to build a product evolution plan.

Best of luck!

David Yancey
http://www.vivante.com
_Web searching *your* way_






Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 09:44:29 CDT