We are no longer seeking consulting engagements in this area.
A number of years ago a book, The Attention Economy, was published. It described a coming time when the coin of the realm would be getting noticed. For a business, you have to be noticed by a whole lot of people who love what you are selling in order to make money.
Our first experience in opening an online store several years ago is familiar to any first-timer in the online business arena...NO VISITORS. With the experience of opening several of our own online stores (and lots of research), as well as numerous business websites and blogs (our sites are usually a combination of website and blog...there are reasons for this) behind us, we have become accidental experts in the fine art of getting noticed on the web.
Getting noticed translates to lots of visits to your sites. If you have the right product or products, visits translate to business, provided you build your site to make it easy for people to do business with you. It should be noted that determining the right product or products is difficult in a Recession...but there is a big difference between difficult and impossible.
People have asked us what we do to generate the high levels of traffic to our business sites and online stores, which we have been able to do. In good times, these high traffic levels translate to lots of sales for the kind of products we sell online (high-end consulting services and expensive musical instruments and accessories). We have sold about 100 specialty violins designed by our studio over a two-year period, and that entire period has been a Recession in the luxury goods market. The normal annual output for a small lutherie (violin-making workshop) is in the low 20s. In other words, our output has been several hundred % greater than the norm.
In addition to our musical instrument endeavors, we have also obtained several lucrative design consulting contracts during the same period. Selling of design consulting is far different (and more dependent on personal contacts and reputation) than sale of tangible goods; therefore, Strategic Business Marketing On-Line focuses more on tangible goods and what we call essential services, such as catering, plumbing, and so forth.
