Is mail not effective anymore?

"He gets around 10 searches per month and converts 9 of those visits to sales."

Those numbers are really tiny and unimpressive, generally.....but comparatively I understand that depending on how "big ticket" the item is 9 sales a month could be outstanding. The 90% conversion however is awesome...imagine what his sales volume could be if he was "going to them" instead of just waiting around for them to come to him.

I'd wager his sales take a hit if a competitor moved in who had outside salespeople, or used direct mail, radio, and other aggressive systems.

"Now in your example yes, direct mail is a better medium for the message, however for my client, SEO is a much more effective solution as everybody who needs his service searches for it online."

...and what your forgetting is...that those people still needed his service all those days even before the day they went looking online for it.....which means, again he's vulnerable to a competitor who aggressively seeks to get to those people before they ever even go online.

"Even though I love ambiguous made up scenarios, I'd rather see some stats on this 500 looking for it offline for every 1 online, because to be honest you're talking absolute bullshit."

I said no such thing. I said 500 people that still need your service even though only 1 guy went looking for you.

...and that number I used "500" could be substituted for any number greater than 1 or whatever the number of total people that can use your service happens to be.

So in a town of 2306 businesses... all of which need business card design for example,...when the first guy goes to Google....there are still 2305 out there that need you.

or another examples, in a town of 42,063 people....there are 42,063 who need quality affordable shoes from "Uncle Bob's Shoe House" (...well according to Uncle Bob's Shoe House, anyway)...even though only 22 people found them via search last month.

My apologies for not making my point clearer at first.

In the end, no matter how you slice it or what industry your in....the SEO only factors into the game, once a prospect has decided to take action. until that point, Your balance sheet remains at $0 because your opportunity to convert a sale can't take place until the prospect decides to see you at the top of a search engine.

Mechanisms that are pro-active...that go out and get in front of people are ALWAYS going to be a stronger advantage, than anything where your sitting waiting for someone else to make their first move, before you can make your first move...and its going to be that way every day of the week in ever industry, in every city in every country in the world.

SEO is about as passive as you can get...(except for maybe the yellowpages)....and that's why statements like the OP made are monumentally obtuse.

I have all my customers engage in a website at one level or another...websites themselves are among the greatest marketing tools in existence...However, they only work when they get seen....so in addition to SEO, we also promote the sites by direct mail, salespeople, employees, TV and radio and events.

SEO alone takes way way to long to get local clients to "household name" status.