: Flat Tires, Slow Leaks, and Online Marketing by: Richard Kraneis Does your online marketing campaign have a flat tire? Or is it more like a slow leak? Today my 16 year old son Fritz called on the cell phone from high

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Flat Tires, Slow Leaks, and Online Marketing

by: Richard Kraneis

Does your online marketing campaign have a flat tire? Or is it more like a slow leak?
Today my 16 year old son Fritz called on the cell phone from high school. Mom took the call. â€œCould Dad fix my flat tire during the day?â€ Of course I would fix it.
And then it hit me. Knowing you have a flat tire is a lot better than not knowing. Unfortunately, when your online marketing campaign has a flat tire or a slow leak, it may take a while before you realize it or fix it.
My e-book website has had a few flat tires and a few slow leaks. Bad e-book cover, slow website loads, advertising to people who would never buy, and other problems. But I think Iâ€™ve repaired the flats and the slow leaks. I hope.
Hereâ€™s my first online flat tire. When I first published my e-book on the Internet in November of 2003, my e-book cover was running at a loss. As I remember, I was making a dollar for every 3 dollars I spent on advertising. What was the flat tire? Please take a look at my original e-book cover. Itâ€™s below. It was horrible.
www.theworldsshortestexcelbook.com/HorribleBookCover.jpg
Actually, my website didnâ€™t have a flat tire; it was more like a car wreck. But if you looked at my e-book cover on the link shown above, I definitely had an online flat tire. (Thereâ€™s a reason why I earned only passing grades in art classes). I went cheap on the e-book cover and built my own. I took a fishing photo of myself and put it on a book cover. Not only did I have a flat tire, I had slashed all my tires with a knife, to save pennies.
Then I found Vaughan Davidson at killercovers.com/covers and he did a professional e-book cover for me. Visit my new e-book cover shown below.
www.theworldsshortestexcelbook.com/BookC.gif
I think I changed the e-book cover in mid-December 2003, turned off my Google advertising, and took a holiday break. It was nice being away from email for a change. When I checked my email on January 2, 2004, I had sold 3 e-books.
Using Excel to measure my conversion rates, my conversion rate during late 2003 was about .003. I was selling 3 books for every 1000 visitors. That was selling at a loss. After my new e-book cover from killercovers.com/covers and a week of web page changes, my e-book conversion rate rocketed to .009. A 300% increase. A profit.
So keep a good lookout for the flat tires and slow leaks of online marketing. Using Excel to track your online marketing successes (or not so great successes) would be a great idea.
Copyright 2004 Richard Kraneis