Archive for Richard Hoy

39 articles
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Sales Strategies for Small-Site Owners
This is the final article in Richard's four-part series on creating an advertising program for small sites. Today's focus is your sales strategy: presenting your value proposition, determining pricing, making the pitch, and identifying prospects. Dec 29, 2000
Creating an Ad Program for Small Sites
How does one technically implement a directory-based or sponsorship-based advertising program? A few easy tips from Richard can show you how. Dec 22, 2000
Site Design With Advertisers in Mind
So your site has an audience advertisers want to reach. Now you're deciding on an ad model. Whatever you choose, remember: Your site should be designed so that advertising enhances a visitor's experience, not detracts from it. Dec 15, 2000
Which Advertising Model Will You Choose?
Last week Richard launched into a series about creating an advertising program on a small web site. Today he's tackling a major issue: What will you offer advertisers? Dec 8, 2000
Ad Sales Options for Small-Site Owners
You're a small-site owner with ad inventory to sell. But you don't have much money or time. Is using an ad network your only choice? No. Here's a do-it-yourself solution that can win you bucks AND save you time. Dec 1, 2000
Level It Ain't
So the Internet levels the playing field for small businesses, right? Sounds good -- until you consider that successful selling online is tightly tied to effective technical execution, and this is hard to find cheap. So what's a small biz to do? Richard's here to help you find flexible e-commerce solutions within budget. Nov 24, 2000
Putting Together a Sound Business Plan
Entrepreneurially inclined? Great. But in your enthusiasm, don't forget that while the Internet changes a lot of the rules, it doesn't change this one: Sound business practices are sound business practices. Nov 17, 2000
Best Practices for Delivering Email Newsletters
Nothing can take the air out of an email marketer's tires like landing on the Realtime Blackhole List. If you end up there, your email newsletter won't be delivered to the inboxes of people who signed up for it. Richard's here with some sound advice to steer you in the right direction. Nov 10, 2000
Build an Email Newsletter to Build Relationships
So you think email marketing means sending advertisements to a list of email addresses? Blech! No wonder you're being left out in the cold. The power of email marketing lies in its ability to develop relationships. And one of the best ways to do this is the email newsletter. Nov 3, 2000
Use Third-Party Lists With Caution
Richard is a man with a mission. And that mission is to spare other small-business owners some of the hard lessons he's learned over the past five years. Email marketing is a great tool for the small-business owner -- he's not knocking it. But just how effective are third-party lists for an email advertising campaign? Oct 27, 2000
Find Your Niche and Grow
The bigger and more diversified Amazon.com gets, the more Richard's convinced that finding a niche and staying in it is the way to go. Especially if you're a small business trying to grow online. Just to start with, you've got greater branding potential and lower overheads. And there's another benefit: You're harder to kill. Oct 20, 2000
One Way to Fight Credit Card Fraud
If you're a small-business owner, you know that credit card fraud is rife... and what a bite chargeback penalties can take out of your revenues. What steps can you take to reduce chargebacks and make sure fewer fraudulent orders come through? Richard outlines one method: Adding a "deny from" command to your .htaccess file. Oct 13, 2000
How Credit Card Companies Aid and Abet Criminals
Richard's learned a lot about using and abusing credit cards to rip off small businesses. Did you know that "approved" doesn't mean a card's A-OK? Neither did he. But he's learning. Fast. And one conclusion he's already come to: Rampant credit card fraud has the potential to kill e- commerce faster than anything else. Where's Janet Reno when you need her? Oct 6, 2000
Tracking Prospects Beyond the Click
Tracking prospects beyond the click on banner-ad creative is useful because you can see the actions prospects take when they respond to your banner. You can determine response rates and compare different elements of a campaign. While such tracking is commonplace today, it's cost-prohibitive for small businesses. Richard tells you how to use Hitometer to conduct analyses of your online ad campaigns for free. Sep 29, 2000
Organizing Your Submission Campaign
Last week, Richard gave you pointers on submitting your site the old-fashioned way. This week, he tells you specifically how to find places to register your site. Then he shows you how to organize the information to make executing the actual work of filling out the forms easier. Sep 22, 2000
Personalizing Your Site Offerings
Have you ever thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool if when someone is looking at any product in my online store, I could offer a list of related products"? In fact, such personalization is not hard to achieve with use of a flat-file database that you edit and retrieve information from in PERL. "But wait!" you say. "I don't understand PERL, much less how to write PERL code!" Richard's got a solution to this quandary - and it won't break your budget. Sep 15, 2000
Executing Your Submission Campaign the Old-Fashioned Way
Most people think that a submission campaign is just about registering your main URL. If you do that, you are shortchanging yourself. A submission campaign, when done properly, is about registering all the content in your site that can stand on its own. Sep 15, 2000
Search Engine Autosubmissions Run Amok
Like most small-business managers, Richard is interested in getting listed in search engines. So he decided to purchase a product claiming to submit a given site to 3,600-plus search engines. It was a ZDNet Editor's Pick - the Pro version, no less. Being open-minded, he thought it was time to give autosubmissions another look. So did he get listed in 3,600 search engines and directories? You betcha. And all the FFA (free-for-all) sites are still spamming him. Sep 8, 2000
Selecting a Web Development Firm: Part 2
Last week, Richard started giving you his top-five criteria for selecting a web development firm. He continues this week with the last two: the depth of skills you want your development firm to have and the organizational compatibility between your company and the development firm. He concludes this two-parter with tips for negotiating the contract. Sep 1, 2000
Selecting a Web Development Firm: Part 1
After spelling out our needs in enough detail that we have a starting point for negotiations with a web development firm, the next big question is: How do we pick one? There are really five criteria to determine which developer is best for you: size of firm, location, client list, depth of skill, and organizational compatibility. Richard goes over the first three and continues this series next week. Aug 25, 2000