Question for...The idea man...Don Alm

John,

If I am the "so called expert" that you are
referring to...I NEVER said that your site
would not work.

What I simply said was that its an uphill battle.

Do you know anybody that regularly goes online
to print off coupons? I don't.

What I told you is that you need to turn your
business model around and do email marketing
to get people to come to your site.

Other than that, you'll need to do what Don
Alm said...manual marketing. Selling
face-to-face. Even then, you'll find it
difficult to succeed because you need to
drive TRAFFIC and that can be prohibitively
expensive for a start up...unless you do what I
suggested (local email marketing).

The reason I'm so down on a coupon site is that
there are so many other types of web businesses
that you could be dedicating your time to that
are more profitable and that take less effort.

You might consider me a "so called expert" but
I've doing marketing consulting for over 9 years
and internet marketing for five of those 9 years.
So I do know a little bit about this stuff.

David Frey
Author, Small Business Marketing Bible

> I have been told by several of the so called
> experts in marketing that this type of
> website
> will not work... www.Coupons4Fremont.com
> Any ideas on how to prove these
> "experts" wrong??

> John




Small Business Marketing Bible

> John,

> If I am the "so called expert"
> that you are
> referring to...I NEVER said that your site
> would not work.

> What I simply said was that its an uphill
> battle.

> Do you know anybody that regularly goes
> online
> to print off coupons? I don't.

> What I told you is that you need to turn
> your
> business model around and do email marketing
> to get people to come to your site.

> Other than that, you'll need to do what Don
> Alm said...manual marketing. Selling
> face-to-face. Even then, you'll find it
> difficult to succeed because you need to
> drive TRAFFIC and that can be prohibitively
> expensive for a start up...unless you do
> what I
> suggested (local email marketing).

> The reason I'm so down on a coupon site is
> that
> there are so many other types of web
> businesses
> that you could be dedicating your time to
> that
> are more profitable and that take less
> effort.

> You might consider me a "so called
> expert" but
> I've doing marketing consulting for over 9
> years
> and internet marketing for five of those 9
> years.
> So I do know a little bit about this stuff.

> David Frey
> Author, Small Business Marketing Bible

David,

I was not directly referring to you. Other people that have been online for a while have told me the same thing.

I remember reading a post by Don Alm, sometime back that he was putting together a business type directory in his hometown in Oregon. So I asked for his opinion about the coupon website. I know that if people say something is hard to do Don will probably figure out a way to do it.

David, I value both your and Don's opion and have learned alot by your suggestions.

John