The Virtual Woman: A Woman's
Weekly Guide To Cyberspace
Putting Your Business Where the Sun Don't Shine
Used to be that people thought that there were two kinds of businesses in this world: ones in the black and ones in the red. Nowadays no one cares about profitability-the question is really about which businesses are virtual (the dot-coms) and which operate in real space (brick and mortar). This week's column focuses on bridging the gap between the two and answers your questions about bringing your brick and mortar biz into cyberspace. Whether you're looking to find new employees, promote your new site or to sell stuff online you'll find some snappy ideas here!
Dear Virtual Woman:
I own an antique shop and recently,
my son set up a Web site for me so that I could market my goods through our city's Chamber
of Commerce Web site. He has all the HTML and CGI-scripting done, plus special encryption
so that people can safely order online or just look through the site like a brochure. The
problem is that not a lot of customers go through our city's Web site. My son suggested I
do some guerrilla marketing by going to a list of portal sites and entering my shop's
information. Kind of like scattering Internet ads door-to-door. But there must be a more
cost-effective way, to advertise isn't there?
- Lorraine, Sacramento, CA
Dear Lorraine:
Well you don't sound so antiquated to me! Heh heh. Anyway, kudos to your son for bringing you online and to you for being savvy enough to know where your future lays. First, I'd recommend this informative marketing group called Clickz (http://www.clickz.com) which provides unexpected ideas about marketing for traditional and non-traditional businesses. Click on "marketing services", and from there click on "Site promotions." Another great site is Sell It On the Web (http://www.sellitontheweb.com) I like this site for the information it provides and the scams it doesn't try to push on you. I've noticed surfing that a lot of places online that claim to help you get millions of visitors sound a bit iffy: The best thing to keep in mind is that internet marketing is as much about hard work and testing different things as marketing in real space is so don't get swayed by anyone claming super easy solutions. Stay away from those services that will submit your site to a gazillion search engines for like $50.00. They generally don't work (search engines reject many of these mass submissions) and you end up thinking your taken care of when you really are not. Also, if you submit to Yahoo to get your link included don't hold your breath. Yahoo doesn't consider itself an all inclusive directory any more-they pick and choose what they want-much the way a regular content site would. If you're lucky you might get in but again, don't hold your breath.
Dear Virtual Woman:
In this economy, its almost harder
not to acquire new business, than it is to turn down new business. Day-by-day, my list of
clients is growing, but my staff can't hire people soon enough to work on in-coming
projects. At one point, I used to receive stacks of resumes to pick and choose from to
fulfill entry to mid-level positions, but now it's harder. Is there anything on the Web
that competes with newspaper classifieds, head hunting agencies, and job fairs?
- Still Hiring, Minneapolis, MN
Dear Still Hiring:
Okay, I'm gonna give you the obvious answers, that is, the Big Boys of the online job classifieds business. You can, for a low fee to free place ads in Monster (http://www.monster.com), Career Mosaic (http://www.careermosaic.com), and Yahoo Classifieds (http://classifieds.yahoo.com/). Each of these services give job seekers and employers a decent amount of what they need. So I'd peruse all of them. One of the less obvious but most rockin' of sites out there is The Riley Guide (http://www.dbm.com/jobguide/). I love this site. It's stuffed with great links covering just about every angle for both the employer and the potential employee. You can investigate methods of finding people from a variety of angles including specific local web resources as well as resources that map to your industry. Check out the A To Z index first-it's amazing! I found stuff for you in Minnesota and, if I knew what the heck your business did I could have found stuff in your industry too!
Happy Surfing!
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Contributing Editor: Mary Ray
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