Sunday, November 11, 2012

Controversial Statements

Thought I'd make a couple of controversial statements and see how they are taken.

But first let me give you a link and tell you NOT to click on it --> Group Medical Insurance

Instead Google "Group Medical Insurance in Memphis" (I work in Memphis). The above link should be at or near the top of Google's generic unpaid listing.

FIRST CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT:

People with something to sell don't need websites !

I have been designing and hosting websites since Al Gore invented the Internet - so even reading the above statement, much less writing it, makes me nervous.

Websites can, of course, be very beneficial. But they can cost sales. A visitor to your site has to see only one thing he doesn't like and you will never hear from him.

We have decided to develop one page "web ads" custom designed to be found on Google when a prospect is looking for a service or product and custom designed to get the prospect to contact the seller (in the above  case, an Insurance Agent).

SECOND CONTROVERSIAL STATEMENT:

Be willing to tell a prospect they shouldn't want what they say the want !

I am not sure about this one, but I started thinking about it after recently talking to a prospect. She said she wanted search to work with SIRI (Apple's Voice Recognition Search Software) - in the above case, you would say "Group Medical Insurance in Memphis" and SIRI would respond with her name and address.

I didn't have a good answer for her - I knew we could do it, but the real question was it worth the time and cost to her to do it. My initial reaction was "No". Later, after I thought about it, I was even more negative. A couple of many reasons - (1) Google's Android system has a similar product and they have a larger market share;  (2) I can see people using their phone to find a restaurant, not so much to find an insurance agent.

My point is everyone has limited funds for sales and marketing - you have to carefully choose where you invest those funds.