Author: Dave J.

Postcards are dead?

Got this email from my ad agency:

SAE Automotive Engineering Intl Postcard Deck is offering a discount for a

card in their May deck. Regular rate is $1955 (net), discounted rate is

$1249.50 (net). First come, first served. Closes now. Let me know if

interested.

Are card decks dying as a form of advertising? My last effort at card decks returned ALL JUNK!

Even right now, I am looking at a lead report from a trade-pub with four names on it, and they all look realatively legitimate. But there is no “Kzoptronilis” company that I can find. Oh, well, well send it out and see.

Following is my post to newsgroup biz.ecommerce

I have been a webmaster for a smallish company since 95. I haven’t ventured out in the “woods” of this biz.ecommerce newsgroup before, but am starting to feel like I need to discuss things with others like me. (I am currently in an MBA/ecommerce program, too.) I also started a blog (I’ll share URL later).

I market b2b expensive capital equipment and have been pretty successful with the search engines. Now, I a being beat at the game by *pros*. Let me explain:

“Industrial Quick Search” http://www.industrialquicksearch.com is a search-engine-optimization service that runs directories for a lot of smaller businesses, then charges us in that industry thousands of dollars to get on their directory. Of course they are experts at keywords, so they are at the top of every search engine (nearly anyway).

I really hate to lay out $400 a month to attract the leads I should get anyway, as I am still close to the top of the listings. But they do offer a convenient platform for searchers, so I don’t want to dismiss it either.

Any opinions about such services and tactics? How would you respond?

–David

FTP is such a simple, but unforgiving technology. I could drag and drop on my desk using PowerDesk (www.ontrack.com), but that wouldn’t be as cool.

Spam?

Today I am working on sending out an email survey to a list of recent customers who I have email addresses for. Is this spamming or not? Not sure, but it probably isn’t very good marketing. I should have a comprehensive customer-relationship program going, shouldn’t I?

But I’m not trying to sell something and I already have some relationship with the person.

The survey isn’t my idea, either. But we really need some feedback from the market as to whether we should expect a recovery soon. The salespeople want the survey generate leads to follow up –ick! I am offering a Palm M125 as a prize to those who respond.

Notice how Oveture doesn’t let you know how many searches are made any more, just how many clicks you get. You have to use the search-suggestion term to get an appoximate number on each term.

My email is: jungd@student.gvsu.edu (student account to give some anonmyity). Let me know if you are reading this.

Another fun topic: Bidding on Overture to keep our website well-visited. Some search terms are hitting $3 a click-thru. Is that cheap or expensive?

My first post. Lets list the current issues on my plate that I want to discuss in the future. Basically, I have several “directory listing services” to pick (or not). They are:

Thomas Register

Kompass

GlobalSpec

Industrial QuickSearch

Throw those on top of Trade advertising, website design/maintenance, and internal issues to make an interesting blog for like-minded people.