I have friends who own an online dining guide. They’re always bragging that they’re the 800 pound gorilla in their city. The numbers speak for themselves. They get 300,000 unique visitors a month. In fact, if you Google a restaurant in our city, their listing in the dining guide will pop before the restaurant’s website. And yet, my friends are only making about 60 grand a year from it.

Now you might say that’s not chump change for an online business. But at least half of that comes from his search engine optimization, web design and hosting business. So that leaves us with about 30 grand for the actual dining guide.

So why, if they dominate their market, aren’t they making decent money from this thing? For one thing, if you ask anyone around town about their dining guide, no one’s ever heard of it. Even though a majority of people in our city have probably been to it and use it regularly.

How they make their revenue

My friends don’t do any off-line advertising. So they have no brand value at all. No name recognition. They sell very little advertising on their site. And mostly, the only thing they advertise is restaurants, and that’s only on the home page. So almost all of their revenue must come from selling premium listings to restaurants.

Selling their 800 pound gorilla is a struggle

They’ve been around for almost eight years, they dominate their market, and yet every time they make a phone call to set up an appointment, they have sell, sell, sell. And it’s a struggle and long drawn out process with almost every restaurant they approach. Why?

Because most restaurant owners are not web savvy. They just don’t understand the value of the web. And they’ve never heard of this online dining guide.

I write all of the restaurant stories and profile pages for their dining guide. When I call the restaurant owners, most times they say, “you’re with who?” And only a few days ago they signed a contract with my friends.

Offline marketing is mandatory for online businesses

Since the dining guide doesn’t advertise at all, every sales call starts from scratch. “This is who we are, this is what we do, this is why you should use us.” And quite often, one of the first questions they get is, “so where do you distribute your dining guides? I haven’t seen them.” Restaurant owners are used to the idea of advertising in print.  And with no offline advertising to establish brand identity and distinguish them from print, it’s another uphill battle for my friends.

If you dominate your market and you’ve been around for eight years and your advertising has been effective, people should be coming to you. These people should never have to pick up the phone. They should be the decision maker in the process.

Here are the facts on marketing an online business. You have to have a recognizable logo, you have to have an effective by-line, you have to get your business cards in as many hands as possible, and you have to advertise offline.

To learn more about marketing an online business, please visit www.wordsmithbob.com.

HackingEthics

Originally posted 2007-12-14 07:55:51. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• Bad booth design at the Business After Hours in St. Paul, MN I was amazed by how many of the booths at the Business After Hours were really...
• Fake review - How to write a good one or get a great real review Image via Wikipedia A fake review should be done well. And by that, I mean...
• Adapting Your Business to the Internet Yesterday, I was a guest on WCCO Radio and I was stressing that almost any...

• Make Way For Free Classifieds In Your Business Advertising Business is always a part in the business industry. Wherever...
• Ways To Make Money On The Internet There are different ways to make money on the Internet....
• Movie Memorabilia Memorabilia -> Movie Memorabilia -> Props-> Posters Movies touch our...