It's the SALES, Stupid!

Morning folks!

The Internet is about sales socializing, news, information etc. But it is SALES that drives everything. Sales!

Sales. Nothing matters more than sales. Not a worker works. Not an assembly line moves. Not a truck rolls down the highway. The world as you can see comes to a grinding halt when sales stop.

So when we go through economic downturns like this, folks realize it is SALES that drives the world NOT BRANDING! Branding is a bi-product of sales. Madison Ave FAILED to get that. Now they are forced to learn or be washed away.

GM won't have a Superbowl ad. Lots of people won't make the $$$ they were expecting. No commissions. No bonuses. No nothing. Branding DIED this year. Not all branding. Just the stupid branding that never led to any additional sales!

Sales, sales, sales. Nothing else matters. THAT is why this Google change has the potential to be so significant. When sales are the measuring stick you will see 10 cent visitors turn into $10 visitors and even $100 visitors. When they pay for sales and not smoke and mirrors the rush will take a turn and type in traffic will be the biggest beneficiaries of the next phase of all this. When the universe sees that pure natural traffic can close at higher rates, big changes will happen. Google may provide the tools to make those changes a reality.

 

My favorite example is my CubicZirconia.com. Can you imagine how much general traffic has to be filtered out to get 10 buyers? 10 actual people looking to buy a cubic zirconia right now? We are talking millions. Maybe tens of millions. Filtering millions to have 10 or 20 buyers. That could get to be an expensive and difficult task if you don't target well or buy worthless traffic.

Sales is the measuring stick. Branding comes with more sales. You don't grow "Orange Juice" you grow ORANGES! You don't go out to "Brand" you just sell more product and the JUICE is branding. Madison Ave has it ass backwards and they are too smart to learn.

All I can say is the Internet is littered with the caucuses of great branding strategies that drove THOUSANDS of companies out of business. Way to go Madison Avenue! Just realize that the next guy that hires you is looking to increase sales or he would not be talking to you to begin with.

Have a GREAT day!

Rick Schwartz

Comments

[Terence Chan]

Now I'm totally confused.... Sounds like a chicken and egg situation.....

Agree that making money is the final objective of any marketing activity, and "natural branding" a means to that objective.

[UFO.ORG]

Profitable sales are what's required and not simply sales.

Branding helps direct buyers preferences and can improve/maintain margins. It differentiates from competition based on cost.

Branding is not everything, but its more important that you probably think.

.com is a brand....

[BullS]

Dudh!!!

Any monkey can create a website , it is MONETIZATION=$$$$$$$$$$$

99% of the websites are BS anyway.

[Steve M]

Thanks Rick.

Reminds me of that old saw:

"Nothing happens until someone sells something."

[Dave]

Commercials, infomercials, print ads and miscellaneous other mass marketing strategies wield considerable weight and compel end users to buy billions of dollars in products and services they didn’t know existed, didn’t want and don’t need. Imagine what these same marketers could do if unleashed on the end user masses with something really valuable like domain names.

I hate to be the one to break it to my fellow domainers, but blogging, wishing and wondering have never been adequate substitutes for a meticulously planned, well-executed advertising campaign. One day, the domain industry will wake-up to the fact that despite Madison Avenue's inability to immediately grasp the potential of domain space, it has nonetheless spent more than a century firmly establishing itself as the undisputed champion for creating unrelenting demand where none existed before. When that day comes, end users will be clambering for their very own domain DOT Du Jour simply because a bunch of advertising executives sitting around a conference table with their domainer clients decided to make it so.

In the meantime, we'll blog, wish and wonder as we continue leaving end user domain buying decisions to the fates.

[Playfull]

I have a 5 year plan to build my business into a 'Brand' and then sell it. The problem is that i am on my third five year plan......

[Oscar]

I think branding is very important if you want to succeed in your business. You need your own brand, your own domain name to create a business around it.

Also, we as humans tend to buy trademarks , Cocacola over Quenchi Cola, NIKE over Wsport, .com over .info , etc.

Now for advertising , you need to advertise to sell, but if you do it the wrong way, it's like Rick said: No sales.

[BadGimp]

SELL IT BROTHER!

:)

Ron S

[Kevin Davis]

I have notice alot more call to action names lately.Its like catch phrase branding.

[Rick Schwartz]

It IS very important that the sales are profitable. A sale without a profit is no sale at all. Any moron can sell $100 bills for $90.

[Danny Pryor]

Of course Madison Ave. got it backwards! And you told us that after the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. East '06 show, when they smart Mad. Ave. guys said Westin and Hilton and Marriott didn't by hotels.com because "it wasn't in the budget that year". Do you REALLY think they're going to learn - or just blame the economy and the consumer?