What do y'all think of this biz. idea?

market that thrives in a poor economy, you should investigate promotional advertising.

I've been home-bound for the past week with bronchitis, yet, my business is thriving. Customers in my local market as well existing and new online customers have been calling or emailing me orders on a daily basis.

I had over $2600 in sales last week, and did another $1600 today. I know I have a dozen more orders pending without me leaving the house this week, as well as a couple more dozen when I am able to get out and about.

With an average order of just $400, that is $13,000 pending at present. I also have a state fish and wildlife agency looking to order 2 million tyvek sleeves for their new licensing program.

In tough markets, promotional advertising booms while the mass media generally suffers. In good times and bad the promotional industry has done well in the last two decades, and has recently grown to over $18 Billion in annual sales in the US market.

You only have to get a niche in this market to do well.

As for the food sales during a crisis, this market was saturated during the Y2K scare, and some people still have long-term storage groceries and/or a bad taste left in their mouth from that one.

Consequently, many of those who did a good volume in food business during that crisis, have since left the industry.

Similarly, those who sold flags and other patriotic items in the aftermath of the 9/11 atrocities may have suffered from the negative perception of "Capitalism by Crisis". Somewhat like the pirateers who try jacking up the price of gasoline after a disaster.

I personally choose to seek positive marketing options. I had a number of orders for red, white, and blue or flag imprints after 9/11, but that was based on the clients request, not my marketing.

Dennis Bevers


Marketing products for good and bad times!

Dennis,

It's morning now, and I've woken up thinking, "Why in the heck would I want to get involved in a business that isn't a 'passion'?"

Doh!

As for the ad specialties, no doubt it's a good business. I'm curious about two aspects of your biz:

#1: It's not an autopilot business, is it? What I mean is, it requires customer interaction, right?

#2: It seems to be highly competitive. How are you getting visitors to your site?

Thanks,
Adam.


Get your dog to listen to you.... click here....

Adam,

#1, yes it's a competitive business, when you are trying to get your foot in the door. However, with Kaeser and Blair, Inc, being one of the 20 largest distributors in the industry (out of 17,000+ members in the Advertising Specialty Institute + thousands of non-members), they are one of the most competitive companies in the industry.

Example: Bic Clic Stic list price is 83 cents for 300 imprinted - See www.bicgraphic.com.

K & B's everyday price with the same bic quality and imprint is 43 cents. The first quarter K & B has them on sale for 33 cents each.

Many other examples of 20% to 50% off factory list price.

Once you have the customers buying from you, it becomes less competitive in many cases. I have loyal clients who have been buying from me for 12 to 18 years.

As for traffic, you have the usual choices of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get high placements, paying for review/inclusion in Yahoo, Google, Looksmart, etc, as well as the PayPerClick traffic generators.

Slower version - get lots of other sites linking to yours, and posting on various forums and boards to attract visitors.

I get a couple new customers most every week, but the primary business is for customers locally and across the US who want to use my site for research, etc.

A lot of my current traffic appears to be people who are searching the dealership opportunity, which most competitors can't touch as to the value to either rookies or existing distributors who want to work it a smarter way.

Several K & B dealers are selling strictly online, and a couple are doing over $250,000 annualy via the internet.

Dennis Bevers