After years of experience with on-line marketing, I cannot stress enough how ineffective much of it is. Banner
ads, pay-per-impression links, affiliate programs, etc. all have an extremely poor return on investment. The pay-per-click (PPC) model is
far superior these alternatives, but can still be quite costly. The SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink takes PPC to the next level by pre-qualifying
customers BEFORE they click on your links.
Daiv Freeman
Introduction
This page is a detailed explanation of the SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink application as it relates to you, the supplier. I will
explain how this feature can benefit a mail-order cactus nursery. I made a point to be especially straight-forward
herein as I want you to make the best decision for your nursery as possible. I understand that most nurserymen are stretched very thin and
don't have the luxury to play around with lots of marketing ideas. If you have already decided to use the NurseryLink, but
need instructions on using the features, see the How to Use NurseryLink page.
Is NurseryLink for you?
This page is directed at cactus growers/suppliers who currently sell or wish to sell plants via mail-order. If you don't fit that
description, this application isn't for you. It is also helpful if you have your own web site, but this isn't a strict requirement. We can work
around that in a couple different ways. See note 1 at the bottom of the page for more info.
Lots of Traffic
As explained on the NurseryLink About page, my goal is to connect SucculentGuide.com
visitors to qualified suppliers. SucculentGuide.com gets a high number of visitors and it is getting more popular all the time as more
information is added. I am quite positive that you also were already familiar with SucculentGuide.com if you are a cactus grower. To further the
point I will not quote some statistics that will quickly become outdated or give you numbers that you cannot verify. Instead, I
encourage you to perform a couple of search engine searches using cactus-related keywords. Go to
Google or Bing
and search for terms like "cactus", "cacti", "buy cactus", "buy cactus online", etc. or search some
cactus genus names like "Ariocarpus", "Carnegiea", "Turbinicarpus" and see where SucculentGuide.com shows up. From there
you can get an idea of the exposure that SucculentGuide.com gets. It is this exposure that you can be a part of when you use the NurseryLink
application.
Not Just Any Traffic
The NurseryLink application works on a pay-per-click (PPC) basis. That is, if a visitor sees one of your listings, but does not click on
it, you pay nothing. If they do click, that action is recorded along with the price of the click. Unlike other PPC models,
the NurseryLink is designed to pre-qualify the visitor by answering some key questions up-front. This dramatically reduces the
number of clicks you get, but does not affect the number of orders you get. In this way the amount you pay to get the sales
doesn't exceed the amount you sell!
Limiting the unwanted clicks may sound simple enough, but it is NOT the way that other PPC campaigns are designed. To prove my claim, you
can easily test it for yourself. Pick any other Pay-Per-Click advertising (such as Google Adwords or even another gardening web site) and
set you maximum spending budget for the week at different amounts - anywhere from $10 to $1000. You will find that the amount of sales you
generate per dollar you spend hits a peak as you increase dollars and sharply drops off thereafter. This is because other PPC models
are only concerned with sending clicks. The more money you spend, the more clicks you'll get.
But aren't more clicks a good thing? If the clicks are free, then yes, get all the clicks you can. You can play the odds and
the more clicks you get, the more sales you will get. Be warned! This idealistic picture quickly becomes anything but ideal as soon as you
start paying for the clicks. When that happens, the quality of the clicks suddenly becomes extremely important! This is what
sets SucculentGuide.com's NurseryLink apart. While I can't guarantee that every click will translate into a sale, I can assure you that
the ratio spent on clicks vs. sales will be higher with SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink than any other PPC campaign you try.
Pay More But Not Too Much
The average cost per click on a Google Adwords campaign for a cactus nursery is around $0.30 per click. You'll notice that, depending
on the type of link, the price per click on NurseryLink is between $0.50 and $1.00 per click. Don't let that alarm you. Remember, the
clicks you get through the NurseryLink are largely pre-qualified so you will get less of them, but the ones you do get are more
likely to make a purchase. Let me explain this using round numbers to make it clear, you spend $100 for 200 clicks on NurseryLink,
but sell 20% of them = 40 sales. On another PPC campaign, you spend $100 on 333 clicks and sell 10% of them = 33 sales. Again, these
are just round numbers, but the principle is true.
Now that I've made the claim, however, you can test this for yourself. Other PPC models give you a spending limit per given
time period and they will calculate as best they can how they can spend all your money in that time period. Try it if you dare!
On the other hand, the SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink doesn't have budgets that work to spend everything you've got. Even if
you wanted to spend $1000 per week with NurseryLink, you actually couldn't do it. Why? Again, the system isn't designed to keep
taking your money until it's gone. It is built to send you customers that are interested in buying what you sell. Don't just
take my word for it, check into it yourself!
Nice Story, Why Should I Believe It?
OK, if you followed my recommendations and checked into PPC yourself, you will see that what I am saying is true. Still,
you might be thinking, "What's the catch?". There actually is one - sort of. I will not pretend that making money is not one of
my own goals with the NurseryLink feature. But you already knew that! I am smart enough to realize that the cactus market is a niche market and therefore
relatively small. I am not like Google or even a garden forum that covers all different plants with practically unlimited
options. If the NurseryLink is going to be successful for me, it has to be successful for you.
While I probably would make more money by just selling banner ads or similar traffic-centered ads, I know that eventually each
supplier would realize that the sales do not justify the expense and slowly drop off. With the relatively small number of
suppliers available, the initial success of this sort of plan would quickly drop off to nothing. In this sense, I'd much rather
partner with you and make sure that the money you spend on NurseryLink increases your profits, not just your gross sales. I
want the NurseryLink application to be something that returns so well that you can't afford not to be using it.
See note 2 for info about ad-tracking.
Not Advertising
Advertisements call out to consumers to spend money on a product or service. The more the ad grabs your attention, the more
effective it is - at least on paper. The SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink is setup in an unobtrusive manner, more like a directory.
There are not flashing images or half-naked girls to try to get people to click on your link. You've seen plenty of these ads on
the internet, haven't you? When is the last time you clicked on one and bought something? Instead, with NurseryLink a simple
note of availability is listed and enough information to satisfy most visitor's curiosity. (Price is the biggest curiosity -
why pay for clicks so people can just check your price? NurseryLink gives the price up front!) If and when visitors are ready
to purchase, they can simply look up your link in the "directory" and make the purchase. As a cactus grower, I
know that we always want to get new plants. We do not need coaxing. We just need you
(the supplier) to be there when we're ready to spend some more money on plants!
Conclusion
The SucculentGuide.com NurseryLink is a great opportunity for everyone - the cactus enthusiast, the suppliers, and even me. It is
not a feature driven by necessity. SucculentGuide.com started 8 years ago and has been advertising-free and non-commercial in
every way the entire time. The NurseryLink feature marks the first revenue that SucculentGuide.com will generate, but trust me, I'm not looking
to get rich off this. It only makes sense that a web site which promotes the cactus hobby should refer the site
visitors to suppliers that can help supply that hobby. And it is only fair that some of the money spent comes back to
SucculentGuide.com in return. As a result, I hope to be able to accelerate the improvements on the site with more features for
visitors and more information about cactus for everyone.
Daiv Freeman
Note 1:
If you do not have a web site, I can make one for you. For more information on my web site services, visit
www.CactusSpine.com. I can build a complete e-commerce site for you,
or simply set you up with an information site that you manage with a pre-packaged editor, or just offer helpful advice. Contact
me at the e-mail below and I will be glad to answer any questions you might have about this.
Note 2:
If you do not have the ability to track how well your advertising is working, I can help. Knowing the return you get on each
dollar you spend on marketing is essential not just with the NurseryLink, but with all of your marketing strategies!
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