Changes In
Marketing Beyond 2004
According to About.com "You can have a superb product
and the best Web site on the Internet, but if you can't
get customers to visit your site you won't make money."
Now this seems a little obvious, but many business don't
devote sufficient resources to marketing.
Traditional advertising can be compared to a shotgun approach.
How many times have bald men been subjected to advertisement
on television for a hair-coloring product? The advertiser
had no way of selecting his audience. The television broadcaster
is sending the signal virtually everywhere. The Internet
search engine has changed all of this. When combined with
a venue such as Amazon™ or eBay™, the online business can
now target very specific interests. This is revolutionizing
marketing. With the merging of traditional television media
and the Internet, it will soon be possible to target marketing
directly to the household based on profile data.
Start by considering how you will reach your customer.
Consider where you will market your product and to whom.
We recommend that you start out by researching "search
engine" marketing. This is the least cost approach
and provides a low barrier of entry for the startup business.
A search engine is a computer program that indexes information,
and presents relevant matches to the searcher. EBay™ offers
a very powerful search engine that lets anyone locate an
item for sale by entering just a few key words in a text
box. Our strategy is to make sure that our product is presented
to everyone that may have an interest in it. The advantage
that eBay™ offers is that virtually everyone using its search
engine is a buyer. If someone searches for "blue jade
necklace" there is a good chance that they will initiate
a purchase as soon as the right item is found.
By creating at least one auction per week, you can have
buyers made aware of your items, in additional to providing
a link to your own store. Your only cost is the upfront
listing fee, and sale commission. When you take into account
the amount of visibility that this venue provides you, you
realize the opportunity.
Amazon offers a similar program except that they don't
charge an upfront listing fee as of the time of this writing.
They do however charge a higher sales commission. If you
are planning on selling through Amazon, you will need to
adjust your income-expense spreadsheet accordingly.
A traditional business plan would include a yellow pages
advertisement, perhaps a regular radio spot, and print advertising.
Sending out direct mail first class costs 37 cents for each
prospect. Bulk mail is cheaper, but forget about that these
days. All of these costs add up to tens of thousands of
dollars annually for the average business. Thanks to the
combination of search engine and commerce venue you can
exclude these costs from your business plan.
According to About.com "More time on site means more
sales" This point is worth remembering when considering
what items to add to your store. Make sure that the items
you are listing for sale will keep the potential customer
interested. Here again use the analogy of the "brick-and-mortar"
store. Think of the stores that you like to spend time in.
How varied is the merchandise? Is the merchandise self-descriptive,
or do I need help from someone? How is the merchandise laid
out? Are prices easily seen? Use the same thinking while
you are planning your inventory.
