Dex is a descendent of the old Yellow Pages company, and is apparently reinventing itself. Apparently it is, or has been, doing a series of well-executed promotional events around the country. I attended one a few weeks ago in Seattle. I went uncertain just what Dex is about.
Now, I was vaguely aware that they are now internet based. I went because the topic was SEO, SER, SEM etc, something I assiduously follow to test my position that website development is largely a scam, when calculating the money spent, the time cost, and return on the investment.
Nothing I learned at the conference told me any different. Amazon agrees, they have done webinars on this problem, and offering advice on how to perhaps get ones money's worth.
I did learn some heartening facts, such as 67% of small businesses in USA have no web presence. I am glad to hear of such widespread native intelligence among small business owners.
This year mobile searches will surpass desktop searches.
Google analyses search down to the relevancy of time... a midnight search from a car for pizza needs to serve up the closest pizzeria, a six pm search from a home needs a delivery pizzeria. Cool.
Dex has a panel discussion with a google top dog, a yahoo top dog, and some local luminaries. Sitting on this all-star panel was one Dex salesperson. The only person who had anything interesting to say was the Dex salesperson. He knew what was what, and obviously had a handle on reality. The google guy was content free, no surprise there, the yahoo lady mentioned that yahoo still gets 56 million ad clicks a day and the average price paid for things bought is something like 40% higher. My guess is more money oldsters who never left yahoo are their base. Who knows.
I presented myself to the Dex salesman, he was out of cards, I gave him mine, and said I wanted to talk. I wanted to confirm what I could to that point only guess at, and that Dex must be a reseller of google and yahoo ads. That is to say, Dex buys a billion in google ads each week from google at 50% off, $500 million say, and resells them to their clients for 750 million... and everyone cleans up. Google movs ads, Dex makes a profits, Dex clients get a discount.
These promos must be doing well for Dex, for I have not heard back. I did look at the Dex website, and it seems to be offering each element necessary for a state of the art website and online marketing. You need youtubes, they sell a film crew to come out and make yours. You need web design? Done! You want an ad program, let's do it. I think I have that right, and if so, I wonder how that is working.
For my part, I watch closely for efficacy of online advertising. My test is courses. Schools gain an enrollment at $7 average cost when they promote through paper catalogs delivered to homes. Schools gain an enrollment at $95 average cost when they promote through targeted ads over the internet. That is the problem with internet advertising: it costs too much to get a customer.
Someday Dex may show me how to get an enrollment for $47.50.... if so, I will be their customer.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Now, I was vaguely aware that they are now internet based. I went because the topic was SEO, SER, SEM etc, something I assiduously follow to test my position that website development is largely a scam, when calculating the money spent, the time cost, and return on the investment.
Nothing I learned at the conference told me any different. Amazon agrees, they have done webinars on this problem, and offering advice on how to perhaps get ones money's worth.
I did learn some heartening facts, such as 67% of small businesses in USA have no web presence. I am glad to hear of such widespread native intelligence among small business owners.
This year mobile searches will surpass desktop searches.
Google analyses search down to the relevancy of time... a midnight search from a car for pizza needs to serve up the closest pizzeria, a six pm search from a home needs a delivery pizzeria. Cool.
Dex has a panel discussion with a google top dog, a yahoo top dog, and some local luminaries. Sitting on this all-star panel was one Dex salesperson. The only person who had anything interesting to say was the Dex salesperson. He knew what was what, and obviously had a handle on reality. The google guy was content free, no surprise there, the yahoo lady mentioned that yahoo still gets 56 million ad clicks a day and the average price paid for things bought is something like 40% higher. My guess is more money oldsters who never left yahoo are their base. Who knows.
I presented myself to the Dex salesman, he was out of cards, I gave him mine, and said I wanted to talk. I wanted to confirm what I could to that point only guess at, and that Dex must be a reseller of google and yahoo ads. That is to say, Dex buys a billion in google ads each week from google at 50% off, $500 million say, and resells them to their clients for 750 million... and everyone cleans up. Google movs ads, Dex makes a profits, Dex clients get a discount.
These promos must be doing well for Dex, for I have not heard back. I did look at the Dex website, and it seems to be offering each element necessary for a state of the art website and online marketing. You need youtubes, they sell a film crew to come out and make yours. You need web design? Done! You want an ad program, let's do it. I think I have that right, and if so, I wonder how that is working.
For my part, I watch closely for efficacy of online advertising. My test is courses. Schools gain an enrollment at $7 average cost when they promote through paper catalogs delivered to homes. Schools gain an enrollment at $95 average cost when they promote through targeted ads over the internet. That is the problem with internet advertising: it costs too much to get a customer.
Someday Dex may show me how to get an enrollment for $47.50.... if so, I will be their customer.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
4 comments:
I think a small business should have a website, even a minimal, cheap website - especially for a business selling very specialized products that you cannot find in a big mass conservator store like Walmart. Whenever I think of buying something that is a specialty item, I either do a google search or search on Amazon first before going to the mall.
Indeed, as a catalog and a kind of modern version of the yellow pages listing. But what is necessary and sufficient to the task can be banged out in about an hour with one of the website building tools, at no cost. it will be as productive as anything you'd spend $100,000 on...
John
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324906304579039101568397122.html
Aha... that WSJ is a radio report that outlines how the SEC is cracking down on businesses that claim a big jump in online sales, but from what base? Well, from infinitesimal to tiny, in most cases.
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