INTRODUCTION
I'm sure everyone would agree that the two most important components in any marketing plan are CONSISTENCY and LONGEVITY. The saying goes; "It's perseverance not pressure that makes the sale". This axiom is never so true than as with the Community Association Industry. The end-user, the association board member, is usually an unpaid volunteer with little or no experience, asked to make decisions with budgets exceeding tens of thousands of dollars and in the not so rare case, several million dollars. No wonder then that boards tend to do the safe thing and stick with the incumbent vendor; UNTIL THERE IS A PROBLEM!
EVENT DRIVEN
When that "event" occurs, you better be "Johnny on the spot" if you want any chance of getting in on that deal. The problem is, you don't have a crystal ball so, just like Burger King, you need to have your name in front of your entire marketplace, all of the time! Expensive to say the least! The internet, with all its drawbacks, is still by far the least expensive way of doing just that. After an initial cost of from $1,000 and up for a professionally designed website you can maintain your website for as little as $50 - $100 per month (or less). Any magazine advertising would be 5 to 25 times that much.
MARKETING
This may sound crazy but you wouldn't spend a thousand dollars on a beautiful color brochure and just set it outside your door so why create a company website and then not market it? If your firm does have a website, then you know that getting the right people to visit your site can be difficult. Obviously a link from a recognized HOA industry vendor source book is going to be one of the best way to drive qualified traffic to your site.
MAXIMIZE YOUR VISIBILITY
QUALIFIED VISITORSIn addition to your free listing, Condo Biz On-Line offers an opportunity to gain an advantage over your competition as a site sponsor, in the form of a Banner Ad and Link to your website. These banners appear at the top of your specific Category page, on a Regional Front page and on the Category Index or Association Management page in a specific region. Call 800.350.8333 for pricing. Special pricing for multiple banners.
Condo Biz On-Line has been on-line since 1997 and currently receives over 35,000 hits and 5,500 individual visitors every month (fully documented). The majority of those visited are "self-directed"; they did not come from another websites links page or from a search engine. Why that's important to you is that a self-directed visitor tend to be more qualified than one who "just finds" the site.
As you probably already know, the purpose of any banner is to act as a window onto your website. The trick is not to pay for any unqualified referrals. My advise is to someone who says to me; "How do I get 10 thousand hits a month?"; post just 3 keywords for the search engines to match; "free", "sex" and "marijuana" - you'll get thousands of "hits" but it (probably) won't do you any good (as far as HOA business goes, that is). For the same reason, a banner ad on a general interest type website could produce a lot more "hits "but what good are they if these referrals are looking for "cheap airline tickets"? Say you're a painting contractor; it seems remote that anyone would click on your banner while on the Painting Page in Condo Biz that [1] was in anything else but the HOA industry, and [2] was looking for anything other than a painting contractor. You couldn't ask for a more qualified referral.
CONCLUSION
The real measure of any advertising campaign is "cost per sales" not "cost per lead". If I were to ask you what you expected from your banner you'd probably tell me; "leads, I need leads!" - I would disagree. Leads are work; sales are revenue. I know this sounds obvious but I'd bet that you could use more revenue, not more work. The more qualified the prospect (in the HOA industry, AND with an immediate need) the better chance you have of turning them into a new client, at least in the immediate future. When you take all of this in mind Condo Biz On-Line is the real value if you want to make your website work for you.