Part 4 : Paid advertising and the future

You had a bad experience with Goto.com, but what's your overall view of using paid Internet advertising - is it practical for a company like E.D. Foods?
I can't see the value of banners. The ROI - even for good banners - is terrible. Although I've heard it argued that even at 1% clickthru - if you have enough exposure - you are bound to do well. My numbers don't support this. Banner clickers rarely, if ever, turn into customers. I like newsletters, but while lots of newsletters will gleefully brag on the number of subscribers they have, the ROI bears very careful watching.

I generally tell people who approach me to advertise with them to run the first ad free. If the results are good - I'll be happy to sign up. That makes most of them go away pretty quickly. They aren't sure that the results are worth the money. On the other hand, people who do agree tend to have really hot sites - and we end up with very nice long term relationships!

As for pay per click search engines - I was terribly disappointed with my results from Goto.com. I'm probably going to try again in the fall - that seasonal nature of soup again, but it's probably not a good customer base for me. Right now I just put a tiny toe into win4win.com; nothing much to report yet.

What truly amazes me is the money I see people putting into paying for prime locations. I tried a couple of times, and got no results - a complete loss. I just noticed that there is a site paying US$30 a day to have a listing on the home page of zshops. Can that possibly pay off? I wish I knew them well enough to ask. This is not to say that selling on Amazon is bad. I did quite well with them last year around Christmas time - so I'm kinda keen to see how they do for me this year.

I basically really like the idea of affiliate programs. I'm happy because I'm making money - and you are happy 'cause you are making money too! But finding good affiliates - that is challenging.

And the long-term future for E.D.Foods on the web?
I'd like to see sales in the $US1 million or $US2 million range. Once we get that large, I think we'll have gotten local distribution going in lots of places - and that should reduce the number of net orders. I'd love to be able to tell people - you can buy our soup near you! But right now, it's mail order or nothing!

Of course 2 years ago - when my sales were in the range of US$3000 over 3 months - just breaking US$50,000 seemed impossible! And here we are confidently talking about over half a million!

Well, we wish you the best of luck with that. My final question - what's your personal favorite soup?
I adore our Creamy Potato Soup. I make it with jalapeno flavored cheese and a little bit of crushed chili - we call it Blanco Diablo at my house! It is awesome. I'm also a huge fan of our BBQ rub. I could use it every night! I particularly love it on chicken - seals in the juices, crisps the skin and flavors the meat! What's not to love! Oh, and then there is our chili. So easy, so fast - and so good. I make that up when I really don't have time to deal with dinner, but I don't want people to know I cheated!

Of course this is a very dangerous question, Mark. I personally approve every single item. So you have to figure I'm probably at least a little in love with them all!