You may or may not remember about my wife's uncle Clarence. I would like to say it's not really important if you do or you don't, but because my wife is so enamored with her 'favorite uncle', it gets real important for me, if you know what I mean. He lives here in our town and owns the Dairy Queen, Laundro-Mat (Sud's Your Duds), and the used car dealership (Clarence's Used Car Emporium). This makes him 1/3 of our local Chamber of Commerce, and a know-it-all when it comes to anything to do with business. The real annoying thing with uncle Clarence is he is usually right, and he knows it.
Uncle Clarence came over for dinner on Friday night and got to pokin' at me about the alpaca business. You see, he never has understood the business and loves to chide me about it. After dinner and two desserts, he started in on me about how he could help alpaca breeders improve their business. I tried to change the subject by talking about the Super Bowl. To that he said "Saints 'll win. Success is all about exposure." If you didn't catch that, it was a smack-down of what I wanted to talk about and a return to what he wanted to talk about.
"Exposure is everything!" he said. "That's why I have the three prime spots on the paper placemats at the diner." And, indeed he does, including the prime center location for Suds Your Duds.
He then plopped himself down at my computer and started looking at alpaca websites. At this point I looked outside to notice some pretty significant snow coming down and suggested he might think about heading home before it gets too bad. He just grunted. Now, I wasn't all that thrilled to have him hanging around all night and especially tieing up my computer. But as usual, I lost this battle so I went in to watch Monk re-runs with the kids.
Around 10:00 pm, Uncle Clarence comes swaggering into the family room with his "Get down to Business" look on his face. He said, "We gotta talk."
I said "You gotta go home! Do you see the snow falling out there?"
And of course, my words didn't phase him a bit. He handed my a piece of paper and said "Here's 3 problems I see with many of the alpaca breeders I checked out on the internet. You need to come up with ways to address each of these problems to help breeders become more successful" Actually, it was more like "Heyas 3 stupid things I see people doing. You need to hep them fix em so they can sell mo 'pacas."
I don't want to give you the impression Uncle Clarence isn't smart, because he is. He really is. It's more that he knows he is smart and tends to be really annoying. But, given that he put so much effort into his research, I thought I would share his findings with you as to the 3 problems Uncle Clarence picked up on while looking at alpaca websites.
Problem #1
When visiting farm websites, too many breeders have out of date information on their price list. Worse yet, instead of having their own price list on their farm website, they send visitors to their site off to another website to see their alpacas along with the alpacas of hundreds of other breeders. That's like having your potential customer into your living room and then when it is time to talk turkey (or alpaca) you send them off to the town square where they can meet up with anyone and everyone.
Solution: PacaSync is a free feature on AlpacaStreet.com that enables you to display your AlpacaStreet.com price list on your farm website. It makes no reference to AlpacaStreet, but gives a professional looking price list that is updated automatically everytime you update your AlpacaStreet.com price list.
Problem #2
When you go to the large marketing sites, you can get lost. <A certain unnamed site>is like a big warehouse full of alpaca pages to rummage through. Buyers need as much opportunity to interact with sellers as possible. This gives sellers the opportunity to better tell their story and differentiate themselves from everyone else.
Solution: AlpacaStreet.com provides Buyers and Sellers with the greatest information and opportunity to interact found anywhere on the internet. AlpacaStreet.com originated the direct inquiry ability from each alpaca page; provides additional no-charge exposure on Breeder Marketing Groups, Stud Club, Lovers Lane and others; and the 1 Hour Auction provides a unique opportunity to showcase your herd, be a part of national email advertising, and possibly sell an alpaca, all for less than the cost of most ads ($200/lot).
Problem #3
Too many hit-or-miss ads. Too many breeders shoot out a splashy ad for a month and then nothing the next month. Advertising needs to present a consistent message and have a consistent presence to be effective. It's better to do a small ad every-other month than 1 splashy ad for one month and never again.
Solution: For a limited time, AlpacaStreet.com is offering anyone purchasing 4 months of any type of ad, 8 additional months of the same type of ad at no additional charge. This enables you to have 12 months of advertising for the price of 4!
I have to hand it to Clarence. It didn't take him long to figure out some key problems with marketing in our industry. It also didn't take him long to figure out that he was snowed in at our house and had to spend the night. Oh well.
If you are still reading this story about Uncle Clarence and his marketing observations, then I have a couple specials for you:
1.. If you join the Breeder Program (only $150/yr) we will create your site for you for no additional charge and give you one month of a a logo ad for free! Free site creation requires that your info currently be accessible on the internet.
2.. Now through Feb 12th, you can enter an alpaca in the Feb 24th 1 Hour Auction for HALF PRICE! Only $100 to draw a lot of attetnion toyour farm, and maybe just sell an alpaca!
Something Uncle Clarence told me a long time ago..."Your results wont change until you do something to change them." Like I said, he really is smart.
Dan Coulter
AlpacaStreet.com
dan@alpacastreet.com
330.727.5334
