In-response-to: Untitled
In-response-to: Re: How to get eyeballs? (Evan Schuman)
In-response-to: Advertise (Peter)
In-response-to: Advertising on line (Bill)
In-response-to: Re: Advertising on line (Evan Schuman)
In-response-to: "A Cat Lovers Delight." (Al Zampieri Jr.)
Date: Mon, 15 Apr 1996 18:27:54 GMT
From: eschuman@nj.com (Evan Schuman)

Your problem is not at all unique. Your service is 
a sound one, but the audience you need to reach 
doesn't know you're there.
     A few thoughts. First, what is your site 
address? I went into Yahoo and the other search 
engine you mentioned and found a few pet gift 
locations, but I wasn't certain which was yours.
 (It's not a bad idea to mention your web address
 in every piece of E-mail you send to anyone. The 
easiest way to do that is to just create a 
.signature file for the end of your messages. If 
you need help doing that, just send me a private 
E-mail message with your phone number and I can 
try and walk you through that.)
     A good step is to try and create information
 that you think would be of value to pet owners 
(or cat owners, if you want to be that specific) 
and post it. And then try and create publicity 
around THAT. (As a journalist, I can say that 
getting free publicity around free information is 
going to be much easier than getting it around a 
sales office.)
     What kinds of information? Perhaps there are 
organizations that accredit veterinarians. If you
 posted a national list of veterinarians, with 
their specialties, hours, locations, etc.,that 
could prove to be EXTREMELY popular with pet 
owners, especially when they relocate and need to 
find pet doctors quickly. (Just a thought. You 
could even charge vets for being included in the 
listing, although the list would be regarded as 
more reputable if you didn't.) 
     Perhaps you could post stories about animal 
diseases or objective data comparing pet food or 
anything else that you think pet owners would want
to read.
     Once you do that, you can market your 
informational service and offer the gifts as a 
way of paying for it. (If you did this well,your 
publicity efforts could be extensive, including 
radio and other forms of electronic media that 
constantly need pet experts.) 
     Another possibility: Have you posted notices
in pet food stores, with your web address? Vet 
offices? Obedience schools? Pet supply stores? 

1. Search Engine Strategy (Mike Nicholls)