NONE: Re: A money-making web site (was: Cost/Audience Comparisons)
Re: A money-making web site (was: Cost/Audience Comparisons)
rhoy_at_tenagra.com
Mon, 22 Jul 1996 06:33:51 -0500
erik kraft <erik_at_ensuing.com> wrote:
>pre-selling goods such as a car maker or airline company. Even this is a
>debatable topic. Most of these are nothing more then web-brochures for the
>company that offer lower advertising costs than traditional methods. There
>may be a few sites that are run by a couple of guys in their spare time
>selling stuff. But that is basically a hobby. They are mostly advertising
>their own products or services.
I do not envision web sites to be revenue generators on their own for quite
awhile. In my opinion, there just isn't a critical mass of consumers online
willing to buy goods and services. Measuring a web site's success in these
terms is only going to lead to frustration.
I do think that web sites can be effective promotional and public relations
vehicles. The success criteria here is that your site generates positive
attention for your organization within a target audience (or audiences).
You are absolutely right when you point out that most web sites are
"nothing more than web-brochures." Notice that successful web sites - ones
of which we _readily_ think - are not brochures. These sites use
advertising dollars to fund in-depth content development and create useful,
forward-thinking interactivity.
An example to which I always like to point is C|Net Central
<http://www.cnet.com/>. I visit that site almost everyday because there is
so much damn good information about what is happening on the Internet.
There revenue model appears to me to be strictly advertising. And I do not
mind advertising provided I get some value out it.
There are plenty of others that fit this definition of success.
Does this translate into a bigger bottom line for an organization? I say
the connection between advertising/promotion and increased sales has always
been a tenuous thing to measure in any medium. I would be suprised to find
any PR or advertising firm that tells you that they will do X amount of
promotion and get you Y amount of press coverage and new sales. But, in
general, I think we all agree that the amount of talk about you on the
streets is proportional to number of sales for your organization.
richard
moderator, online-ads
