The (big) problem with traditional marketing:
Poll after poll shows that up to 80% of buyers use the Internet to research products and services and then choose a company to contact. Most people dispose of telephone books within days of receiving them. In fact, two years ago I was told by a former manager at Dex that Dex has a five year plan to move all listings and services onto the Web and get out of the paper telephone book business. What’s that tell you? Newspaper readership is at an all time low making the ads you buy much less effective (but not less expensive.) Radio? Nope. Not without major investment and testing.

The Web has what you need to move your business forward.
To keep your business healthy and growing in the most cost effective and profitable way, you need to use the web to better serve your customers, add value, and increase profits. Not having a web-based marketing strategy can actually have a negative effect with client perceptions about your company and gives your competition the edge.

I understand that you’re very busy (I am too) and the idea of marketing your business online may seem daunting. I promise you it doesn’t have to be the case. Read on!

Here’s an outline of a very basic, affordable web-based marketing strategy:

- Build an email list for your new newsletter. (Contact me for easy ways to produce good newsletter content.) Collect email addresses from customers and from the business cards you’ve collected over the course of operating your business. Feel free to contact me for ways to successfully build your email list.

- Deliver a message and offer that is of столове real value. Make your subject line compelling enough for your mail to be opened. It doesn’t have to be fancy, just of value. Be your personable self and ask everyone for permission to continue emailing your newsletter.

- Ask the recipients of your emails to share them with friends, co-workers, and family.

- If you have a good web site direct them there for more information. If you don’t have a good website, take it down, redo it, or don’t give out your web address.

- Rinse and repeat every 2-3 weeks or longer depending on the nature of your product or services

This one strategy alone will produce more quality leads and sales for you once you build your customer list and use it wisely (and a good list makes your business worth more as well…) There are manyoptical communications more ways to further profit from your list…

For additional marketing strategies that will produce more sales and profits for your business, email me at Michael@GoldfishNetwork.com

I just don’t know about “the recession” we’re supposed to be in. Business has been very good and we’re hiring. Our current clients all seem to be doing well and optimistic.

I do know that sometimes (at least with me) a recession can be in my mindset. How I perceive business to be for us Goldfish can change at times but I find that I’m the one that decides, based on the short term and that’s a mistake (for a few reasons).

If I buy into the recession mentality I’m really doing a number on myself and my business. It’s not fair to either one of us (especially the business). So when I get the feeling there’s more room in the fish bowl, I ask myself…

Pipeline not as full as you would like it? Well then, let’s “2 more” the problem.

2 more phone calls per day to potential clients.
2 more emails per day to potential clients.
2 more hours per day of brainstorming better solutions for my clients.
2 more current hosting clients I can ask for referrals.

Just thinking about things “by the numbers” helps me.
And…I know this sounds like I’m all wet to some of you….actually doing the things on my “2 more” list helps even more.

Here’s to you and 2 more!

The Times
US and World News provided by Reuters

GoldfishNetwork.com Owners Lisa and Michael Thayer Have a Passion For Marketing

By Jennifer Clampet
The Times, Jan 24, 2008

“BIG FISH, BIG POND” Michael and Lisa Thayer, owners of GoldfishNetwork.com, hold in their hands their own marketing plan for their Web site design and marketing business.

TUALATIN, OR. Through muffled crunching, a woman began to speak on the other end of the phone.

The woman caller was unmistakably munching on something as she began to talk, remembered Lisa Thayer, co-owner of GoldfishNetwork.com.

The caller admitted she had found Lisa’s business card attached to the front of a bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers. The crackers had quieted her hunger, and the card had piqued her interest.

“What exactly can you do for me?” the woman caller asked.

In a sense, Michael and Lisa Thayer’s company, GoldfishNetwork.com, works to get the word out.

“We take a client’s vision and make it a web site that represents them out in the world. That’s our goal,” Michael said. But the GoldfishNetwork also works to help clients, mostly small business owners, learn to market themselves.

As a 15-year-old dishwasher at a restaurant, Michael learned early on that marketing pays off. And at the age of 27, he set a record as designer and distributor of a Lake Tahoe calendar that sold 65,000 copies, still a record today.

Now at the age of 50, Michael said, “I learned to sell myself and what I was doing, because if I didn’t, no one else would.”

“Every business has a story,” noted Michael as he leaned forward in a swivel chair at the GoldfishNetwork offices off SW Boones Ferry Road in Tualatin. The blue walls and jazz music playing in the background give the office a soothing atmosphere.

Life hasn’t always been this calm. Being married to an entrepreneur, Lisa said, is like riding a roller coaster but, after 14 years of marriage, the couple has been able to find a perfect venue for each of their talents. Michael, the creative one who loves to hear people’s stories, and Lisa, the numbers-driven one with a business degree, both share a love for marketing.

The couple owns shelves filled with books on the subject. Michael calls marketing their hobby. But as GoldfishNetwork approaches its three year anniversary, marketing is proving to be more than just a pastime.

This month the company was recognized as one of 14 businesses in Oregon and Southern Washington to be in the running for the 2007 Better Business Bureau Business of the Year Torch Award.

The winners of the 2007 Business of the Year Torch Award will be announced at an awards ceremony and luncheon Jan. 24 at the Multnomah Athletic Club in Portland.

Other businesses nominated for the award include Ron Tonkin Toyota, Hawthorne Auto Clinic and Bridge City Legal Inc. in Portland and Paintegrity in Forest Grove.

The public nominated the businesses for demonstrating excellence in customer service, innovative business practices and community involvement.

The Thayers believe they were nominated for the award because of their community involvement. The couple is actively involved in the Love Box for Troops program, which encourages people to pack up boxes of goodies and send them off to deployed troops, and both are active in the Tualatin Chamber of Commerce. Michael is serving as a chamber board member this year, and Lisa is the chair of the technology committee.

“There is no end to the help they’ve given to us,” said chamber Executive Director Carla Thaler.

The Thayers and their contract employees designed and implemented the TualatinCrawfishFestival.com web site within two weeks as the crawfish festival drew near.

“They came back with something better than we ever expected,” Thaler said of the web site.

The Thayers would like to be known in the community for the business-building work they do for their clients. But for now most people know the couple for their marketing idea, the goldfish.

Cabinets above desk top computers in the company’s office hold bags of goldfish crackers ready to be handed out as part of the company’s own marketing plan.

Lisa noted that it’s pretty common for the office to get calls from people snacking on the crackers as they chat away about their business needs.

Copyright 2008 Pamplin Media Group, 6605 S.E. Lake Road, Portland, OR 97222 • 503-226-6397

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1) Your business is very important to you. Ours is very important to us. We have a reputation for going “above and beyond” for clients like you and for delivering top quality websites and website development. Besides, if we don’t pay attention, we won’t be able to pay anything else.

2) You’ll find that we’re “people people.” We actually enjoy the interaction we have with our clients and the satisfaction that comes with a successful project and happy people who give us checks.

3) When you work with us, you will appreciate the fact that we are business people running a media arts and marketing company, not artists trying to run a business. That means we understand budgets, project deadlines and other factors necessary for a business to succeed.

4) Most web design companies won’t take projects under $5K. They have high overhead and can’t make smaller projects profitable for their company. We actually specialize in redesign. Why pay for more work than you really need?

5) We offer unique “Time Block” billing. This allows you, the client, complete control of your project scope and budget. Unheard of in the web design world!

6) You’ll find that we communicate well. Telephone messages, faxes, emails, whistling, and hand signals all get a prompt response from our team.

7) You can actually walk in and visit. We love meeting our clients face to face and sitting down with them to understand and deliver the online image they want. We offer a FREE initial consultation of up to 1 hour. Besides, we also have a vast tea selection, great coffee, and bags of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish snacks.

Contact us at www.GoldfishNetwork.com and we’ll be glad to be of service to you.
And you’ll have new friends in the web design and marketing business!

Thanks!
Michael and Lisa Thayer