Internet Advertising, E-Zines And The Small-Business Entrepreneur - Part 2
Assuming the foregoing perspective to be
correct - and, for the sake of argument,
we will proceed on this assumption, then
we apparently are left with just three
possibilities once the dust has cleared
from the great e-commerce advertising
shoot-out at the not-so-OK corral. These
are: (1) Begin writing articles for other
e-zines which may, among other things,
help drive traffic to one's Site; (2) try to
develop one's own e-zine; (3) think about
using e-zine classifieds.
As I try to find a way to commercial
solvency, I have begun to concentrate on
precisely these three possibilities.
Unfortunately, I have been at this for
only a short time and, therefore,
whatever data I have is of far too
preliminary a nature to be used for
establishing whether there are any
reliable patterns which are emerging that
could be used as a basis for making
general projections about what other
people might discover if they were to
pursue the same three possibilities.
The early returns do suggest that people
actually take the time to read classified
ads in those e-zines which permit
advertising. I say this because traffic to
my Site tends to increase significantly
immediately after each ad-placement.
To the best of my knowledge, given what
I understand about my Web Site
situation, there are no other variables
known to me which could account for the
observed correlation between the placing
of ads and the increase of traffic to my
Site. Furthermore, whenever I stop
placing ads in the e-zines, traffic to my
Web Site tends to fall off, and this seems
to dovetail well with the previous
indicator, and , therefore, when these
two pieces of empirical data are taken
together, they appear to indicate that
e-zine advertising can beget increased
traffic to one's Web Site.
Yet, inducing traffic to come to one's Site
is one issue, and inducing people to
become willing separated from their
hard-earned cash is quite another
matter. Indeed, as hard as an individual
must work in order to persuade others
that it is in their potential interest to, at
least, take a peak at one's Web page, the
real tricky part - insert a miracle at this
point - is somehow, to bring about the
transition which magically transports
money out of the client's pocket and
places the medium of exchange securely
in one's chosen receptacle of
accumulation.
People in the know, refer to this, in
technical terms, as a "sale". By all
accounts, despite the billions of dollars
which allegedly are being beamed about
cyber-space, there are lots of would-be
e-commerce people who only know about
sales as a virtual rumor and not as a
concrete reality.
If one would like to transform a potential
sale into an actual sale, there are some
things that one can do which may
heighten the probability (but not make
this a certainty by any means) of
someone purchasing a product or service
once that individual arrives at your Site.
For instance, some people suggest that
having free things to give potential
clients (such as an e-zine, or some useful
information, or something to download,
or a contest of one kind or another, or
being able to add their URL for purposes
of promotion) is said to help put a
potential client in a positive frame of
mind.
I have, yet, to see any hard data which
establishes what the ratio is of free
things given away to actual sales,
anecdotal stories notwithstanding. The
previous statement should not be
interpreted to mean I am claiming there
is no truth to the idea that offering free
items, services, or whatever may lead to
sales. Rather, I am merely trying to raise
a question about whether or not one has
any substantial reason for believing there
exists a solid causal connection between
give-aways and sales.
There may be a correlation between
give-aways and sales, but this is not the
same thing as demonstrating that a
primary reason for a given company's
increase in sales is directly due to the
free things or services which are being
given away. Indeed, untangling the many
forces and considerations which may be
underwriting an increase in sales is not
an easy task.
If a business does not have a product or
service in which people are interested,
then can one contend that by giving away
free things, one can expect an increase in
sales? I don't believe this logic will stand
the test of the hard realities of
commercial life.
People have been buying goods and
services for thousands of years without
benefit of such gratuities. In fact, no
matter how much one gives away, if one
does not have a product or a service in
which people are interested, then the free
items are not likely to serve as the magic
wand which transfers money from a
client's pocket to that of a virtual
shop-keeper.
One may even have a very good product
or service to offer, but merely adding
give-aways to the menu, as an added
inducement for people to stop and take a
look at a company's non-free items, will
not, necessarily, in and of itself, lead to
an increase in sales. There are just too
many other areas of a business operation
which can be done incorrectly (ranging
from the aesthetic appearance of one's
Web page, to navigation about the Web
Site, to the amount of personal contact
or service which one is providing, to
poorly written content) and, as a result,
these factors can all undermine the sales
process.
Furthermore, there are now so many
places offering free things, many people
have become spoiled. In some ways, the
offer of free items and services has
become more important than any
commercial message which is juxtaposed
next to it, and, consequently, the
commercial side of things has become
mere noise, or background, to the
information concerning free gifts.
A lot of potential customers have become
jaded and cynical in this respect. They
don't want to know what you are selling,
they want to know what you have done
for them lately.
In effect, they want to be bribed. If the
package you are offering is sufficiently
tantalizing, then, maybe, just maybe, they
might purchase something from you.
However, one should not count on this
taking place. What is more likely to
happen is that the potential customer will
strip-mine your Site of its free offerings
and move on to the next place with little,
or no, thought being given to how much
time, energy, creative talent, and, money
are being spent by you in order to be able
to offer those free items and services
which are being so easily taken by the
visitor.
I refer to this as "Internet welfare". This
term refers to the growing expectation
among some people on the Web that they
have a right to be subsidized by the
efforts, money and talent of other people.
Internet welfare, like its close cousin
corporate welfare (and personal welfare
when this is abused), is rooted in a false
economy. More specifically, it is rooted
in the belief one can take as many things
as one likes at the expense of others and
there will be no problematic
consequences which will ensue from this
behavior.
Unfortunately, when there are inequities
in the relationships among cost, effort,
value and returns, there always will be
problems which, eventually, will come
back to haunt us. If nothing else, a great
deal of talent, energy, time and good-will
are forever lost to the Web when people
are unwilling to reciprocate and help
support those who are providing free,
useful goods and services for people in
the Web community.
Furthermore, I do not believe that one
can, with any real justification, consider
the elimination of good Samaritan's from
the virtual community, through our
failure to reciprocate and help them to
continue what they are doing, to be
merely a matter of the invisible hand of
the marketplace sweeping away
inefficiencies. In fact, it is this very
failure to reciprocate which is, itself, a
fundamental source of inefficiency and
which has vast adverse ramifications for
the health of the marketplace - virtual
and otherwise.
At the same time, the best interests of
potential customers, e-businesses, or the
larger community - virtual or otherwise -
may not be well-served when the
commercial equivalent of a nuclear arms
race breaks out in relation to freebies.
As is true of its nuclear counterpart, the
freebies arms race not only places a
tremendous burden on the community
due to the manner in which it drains
non-renewable resources away from
more important considerations (through
repetition of what already is being done
by others), but also because of the
tremendously distorting effect it has on
the nature of community and our
relationships with one another.
If one wishes to give free items or
services to visitors as a gesture of
good-will, then do so. This is a
neighborly and communitarian thing to
do.
However, this should be offered in a
spirit of generosity, without any strings
or expectations attached to it. The
freebies should not be given as merely a
gambit-like move in some master plan
that is calculated to induce people to buy
something.
Another factor which seems to have an
important bearing on whether or not the
people who visit one's Web Site might
make a purchase revolves around being
able to provide what people are looking
for as quickly as possible. This is so in
several senses.
For example, the destination point within
one's Web site to which one hopes the
link associated with a classified ad will
bring people, can make a tremendous
difference in whether or not a potential
client decides to stick around and visit
other parts of one's Web site. In other
words, among those people whom
actually follow-up on the lead provided
through one's advertising campaign,
there seems to be a fairly strong desire in
many of these individuals to be taken
directly to useful information and/or a
demonstration concerning the potential
value of one's products and/or services to
them.
If they have to hunt around for this kind
of information or demonstration, then
chances are they will leave before ever
finding the material which might have led
to a sale. In fact, anything in one's Web
Site - whether due to content, navigation,
the sequencing of information (i.e., the
sales process), or some other facet of
things - which obstructs and confuses the
visitor and interferes with a, more or
less, immediate satisfaction of the sort of
desire which prompted these individuals
to respond to the "enticing allurement"
of one's advertising, is likely to send
traffic away as quickly as it arrives.
Under these circumstances, one might
have a very high rate of traffic to one's
Site, but this becomes an almost
meaningless statistic if there is not some
small, but significant sub-set of this
traffic that is being converted into actual
sales. Consequently, as important as the
traffic-generation aspect of e-commerce
may be, once at the Web Site, the visitor
must be introduced to a catalytic process
which will help speed the decision
process along in an affirmative direction
with respect to sales.
Another ingredient which seems to make
a substantial difference in whether or not
purchases occur once traffic has arrived
at your Site involves being able to offer
the potential client relatively quick
access to the goods and/or services about
which one has been advertising. The data
that I have seen indicates that, in terms
of overall sales on the Internet, services
appear to out-perform goods in many
instances, unless the goods in question
are something which can be downloaded
- such as software.
There are exceptions to the above
mentioned finding. But, usually, there are
special circumstances surrounding these
exceptions to help account for why some
goods are able to overcome the more
basic tendency of people to prefer
services to concrete goods because of the
factor of immediacy which appears to
shape many people's buying habits on the
Internet.
Book sales, for instance, may be a good
example of what has just been said
simply because so many people already
have learned to accommodate themselves
to waiting for books through their
experiences with things such as
book-of-the-month clubs and so on.
Thus, in terms of the immediacy factor,
people may be more inclined to purchase
a book over the Internet than they would
be prepared to do so in relation to other
concrete, tangible items, simply because
they have been primed to do the former
but not, necessarily, the latter, as a result
of their prior experiences concerning
such matters.
Another factor which probably should be
taken into account in the attempt to have
other people's money take up residence
in one's pocket, concerns the issue of
'struggle'. More specifically, the more
one's style of doing business forces a
customer to have to work in order to pay
for a good or service, the more is this
factor likely to adversely affect a
successful realization of sales.
For example, if one is not prepared to let
potential clients have a free trial period
of some sort in relation to a service or
product, and/or if one has no on-line
means for them to pay (such as secured
credit transactions), then one is placing
obstacles in the way of generating sales.
The more that these kinds of difficulties
are thrust upon a customer, the more the
customer has to struggle to buy
something from you.
The foregoing does not mean that if one
requires a check to be sent or faxed or if
one is requesting some other method of
off-line payment that, therefore,
absolutely no one will purchase one's
goods or services. It only means the
following.
If you place yourself in the shoes of the
other person and ask yourself whether
you would be prepared to jump through
various hoops in order to acquire a good
or sale from someone else's, I believe you
know the answer you, probably, would
give in this situation. In short, although
there might be certain goods or services
which we would want despite any
inconveniences that might be associated
with them, in most cases, we tend to shy
away from having to struggle to spend
our money.
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