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The OLD school $ 1,000.00 morning.

by GordonJ
13 replies
And speaking of OLD school,

It's 2018 and the biggest eCommerce retailer in the world is using direct mail to sell their products online.

Amazon, PRINTED and MAILED millions of TOY catalogs. Seems like a waste of money in these modern times when all the toys can be had online. Why go to all that expense?

Maybe, the biggest eCom retailer in the world is just TESTING, they can afford it, eh?

Washington Post article: https://wapo.st/2DCfR4b

GordonJ
#morning #school
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  • Profile picture of the author OptedIn
    Thank you, for this. I have never considered myself an Internet marketer, since I started long before the Internet was even a gleam in Al Gore's eye.

    I'm a marketer, period. I happen to employ some online techniques and systems to broaden my reach and while not for me, personally, I have always encouraged my clients to use those that would be most beneficial to their business.

    If the Internet disappeared, tomorrow, I'd be fine. I'd be able to pick up a phone and make a good living. If my business completely disappeared, tomorrow, I do know how to squeegee windshields. It's an honorable profession and is more noble than pushing potions in the weight-loss niche. :-)
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    "He not busy being born, is busy dying." - Bob Dylan • "I vibe with the light-dark point. Heavy." - Words that Bob Dylan wishes he had written.

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  • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
    Meanwhile...downtown Auckland is a Thai restaurant.

    It's lunch time Monday.

    Outside on the footpath is a queue of office workers
    waiting in line to get their lunch.

    Meanwhile on the Internet there are "Internet Marketers"
    crying out...

    Social Media Consultant:
    "They have no Instagram, I could totally help them make
    that place rock with imagery of cool people with food and drinks"

    Funnel Builder:
    "I could build them a totally effective lead gen machine that would spit out
    diners like they have never seen!"

    Website Builder: "It's criminal that they don't have a website...are they crazy?
    Just another dead statistic waiting to happen!"

    Reputation Builder: "What, they have no Yelp, Google or Facebook accounts
    so that their diners can leave reviews? Don't they know most diners will check
    a restaurant's reviews before they decide on where they will eat?
    Easy fix...I'll go in and offer..."

    ...........

    And on it goes.

    Fortunately for my client he never listened to those online marketers.

    All he did was put his menu in the hands of office workers in the office towers close by.

    No discount offers.
    No come-back rewards.

    He has another restaurant plus 2 members of family that had worked there
    have now their own restaurants.

    Street smarts not dumb arts.

    Best,
    Ewen
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  • Profile picture of the author OptedIn
    The Internet is extremely overrated. :-)
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    • Profile picture of the author animal44
      Originally Posted by OptedIn View Post

      The Internet is extremely overrated. :-)
      Sounds like ya'all trying to convince yourselves...
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      • Profile picture of the author OptedIn
        Originally Posted by animal44 View Post

        Sounds like ya'all trying to convince yourselves...
        Not really. My mind has been made-up for a very long time.
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    • Profile picture of the author Odahh
      Originally Posted by OptedIn View Post

      The Internet is extremely overrated. :-)
      come on the online thing .. think happy law of attraction thoughts about abundence ..and limit the avenue of success to "online" follow a path the people promoting it didn't use to make money.. they make money promoting the path ..

      Marketing and business ..offline, local , craigslist, Facebook marketplace ..and the ever increasing list of ways to market or connect with customers .. and deliver products ..

      when i here read online business it always seems limited to " used add words to drive people to a website .. and try to capture email addresses ..and build a list to sell people products on how to get peoples emails to try and sell digital products ..

      and all it takes to be a success is try to build that kind of business with 12 hours a day in front of the computer .. getting rid of friends family and anyone who thinks the dream is a silly fantasy ..

      and never give up .. quitting is for losers .. go for greatness ..
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      • Profile picture of the author animal44
        Originally Posted by Odahh View Post

        and all it takes to be a success is try to build that kind of business with 12 hours a day in front of the computer ..
        As opposed to spending 12 hours a day on the phone "making more calls"..,

        Edited to say:
        The guy in New York will still be spending all day walking into restaurants years later. An email to all the restaurants in the area with a compelling offer would save time and shoe leather. Or maybe an offer to the list of the restaurant owners association or the customer list of suppliers to restaurants in the area.

        If the guy in Wooster made an offer to the client list of all the 3500 carpet fitters in Ohio, he'd sell more vacuum cleaners in four days than he would in four years of selling off the shop floor...

        I guess you can't deliver a wedding cake via email, but you sure as hell could approach wedding photographers and make an offer their customers via email. Or maybe a list of pending weddings from the registrar?

        Cleaning headlights? Why not offer a DIY kit? Via website and/or email. Or the customer list of car accessories dealers in the area.

        Restaurant? Well, my 18 year old adopted neice made over $9000 in one month, using email to bring in customers to a restaurant - there was an offer, but not a discount offer.

        Me, I spend maybe half an hour editing up an email sequence, which I then load into an autoresponder. Then I go do something else.
        And the money just rolls on in. Likely more money than the "old school" marketers make in a year
        No cold calling.
        No worn out shoe leather.
        Virtually no overheads.

        There's no old school marketing, just good and bad marketing... and maybe 50 million shades of gray in between...

        And I think the guy who's failing to make money online, will also fail to make money offline, unless it's working at McDonalds...
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        • Profile picture of the author eccj
          Originally Posted by animal44 View Post

          As opposed to spending 12 hours a day on the phone "making more calls"..,

          Edited to say:
          The guy in New York will still be spending all day walking into restaurants years later. An email to all the restaurants in the area with a compelling offer would save time and shoe leather. Or maybe an offer to the list of the restaurant owners association or the customer list of suppliers to restaurants in the area.

          If the guy in Wooster made an offer to the client list of all the 3500 carpet fitters in Ohio, he'd sell more vacuum cleaners in four days than he would in four years of selling off the shop floor...

          I guess you can't deliver a wedding cake via email, but you sure as hell could approach wedding photographers and make an offer their customers via email. Or maybe a list of pending weddings from the registrar?

          Cleaning headlights? Why not offer a DIY kit? Via website and/or email. Or the customer list of car accessories dealers in the area.

          Restaurant? Well, my 18 year old adopted neice made over $9000 in one month, using email to bring in customers to a restaurant - there was an offer, but not a discount offer.

          Me, I spend maybe half an hour editing up an email sequence, which I then load into an autoresponder. Then I go do something else.
          And the money just rolls on in. Likely more money than the "old school" marketers make in a year
          No cold calling.
          No worn out shoe leather.
          Virtually no overheads.

          There's no old school marketing, just good and bad marketing... and maybe 50 million shades of gray in between...

          And I think the guy who's failing to make money online, will also fail to make money offline, unless it's working at McDonalds...
          I'm not sure how you adopt a Niece but that is impressive. I've always had a terrible time with restaurants.

          In the US we have two major food suppliers to restaurants, US Foods and Sysco. I've been chewing on ways to get to these owners in mass and have been talking to some of the reps for these companies.

          They have around 20-30 restaurants each where they have a relationship with the owner/manager. 20 to 30 a clip isn't bad but it isn't huge either.
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          • Profile picture of the author Oziboomer
            Originally Posted by eccj View Post

            they have a relationship with the owner/manager. 20 to 30 a clip isn't bad but it isn't huge either.
            Relationships is the key whether offline or online.

            The beauty of online is you can scale the relationships somewhat faster than offline.

            We do both if anyone is thinking I'm swayed one way or the other.

            Every time we receive an online order I dwell on the thought some local business has lost a customer to our online efforts but at the same time I realise the same thing is happening in reverse.

            Someone thousands of miles away is rating a service they received from a competitor and we are receiving reviews from across the country but does that actually help with local survival.

            Every offline business is highly engaged in maintaining their local base but the gradual erosion of "weekend shoppers" has been replaced by "online shoppers".

            All offline businesses need to do a variety of marketing to survive.

            The local Thai restaurant has to consider Uber eats along with facebook etc.

            They may survive with good offline approaches as Ewen suggests but I know I have several great Thai (insert any type) restaurants close enough to me but when running late or desperate you know Uber is going to deliver pretty reliably.

            The flip side is the local Thai restaurant to my business has a newly wed co-owner who also happens to have a wife who wants big photos framed and they have aunties and uncles, cousins etc who all need my services.

            Am I going to use Uber eats all the time?

            NO.

            I'm going to support my local hardworking business owner because they are going to support me as long as i "Look after them".

            Looking after people is important.

            We do it ONLINE via live chat.

            We do it ONLINE by employing good systems

            We do it OFFLINE by employing good people.

            We do it OFFLINE by teaching good people good systems.

            Good business is not online or offline.

            It is plain and simple.

            Deliver good service and good products via good systems to good customers.

            BTW...if you get bad enquiries make sure you quickly refer them to the wild world of bad competitors.

            Best regards,

            Ozi
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          • Profile picture of the author animal44
            Originally Posted by eccj View Post

            I'm not sure how you adopt a Niece
            I think it's more she adopted me
            She's actually the granddaughter of an ex girlfriend from the dim and distant past. She refers to me as uncle, which I prefer to granddad!
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  • Profile picture of the author lambertson
    It reminded me of the story about one famous Italian restaurant in my city. It used to struggle a lot 2 years ago. They are located at the very heart of the business area with lots of offices around and their target audience are mainly managers and top-managers. So theoretically they should have had lots of customers at lunchtime. But things were different irl. The restaurant was half empty. They had a website, mobile app, even commercials. Nothing helped. Once the owner was loudly blowing up the marketing officer at the street near the restaurant. And an old caretaker who heard their beef approached and said: "Of course those bloody clerks will never go to your restaurants". Both CEO and CMO asked - why? And he replied: "because they are too afraid to dirty their white shirts with your pasta, these f*ckers need a bib like little babies". You know what? Now it's the most popular restaurant in that area and their key feature is that they provide every visitor with the branded bib.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alex Cohen
    When I started as a computer programmer (1975), the organization I worked for kept its source files on punch cards.

    When they transitioned to 9-track tape, there was quite a bit of resistance from the old timers. They preferred to house their files on media they could see and touch instead of magnetic images on large tapes.

    We see this same facet of human nature at work in this thread.

    Sure, the punch cards continued to work, but the 9-track tape (and later the various disk databases) were much more efficient. (And now, of course, we have the "cloud".)

    As they say, "Different strokes for different folks." lol

    Alex
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  • Profile picture of the author ryanbiddulph
    Hi Gordon,

    Funny thing; when I read an avatar name, see a human being - 100% real - and treat them as such....all online....I have success too

    Warrior Forum and the internet in general make it really, really really easy to mindlessly dehumanize folks. I did it. For like years LOL. But if you feel humans engaging - I see you playing old JC now - then the experience becomes enhanced and yep, you begin lapping all those struggling folks who believe bots and numbers, not humans and hearts, rule the online world.

    Totally gotta get offline guys and meet people; listen to Gordon. Gets you back into human being helping mode, critical to succeeding online.

    Rocking post.
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