by Arnold Aosved
arnold3a@halcyon.com
The Basics
What does Ultimate Solutions need to place your ad correctly? Include your name as it appeared on your application, Please Include Your U.S. ID# and indicate that the enclosed camera ready copy is for your ad on the Web. We get a lot of mail! :-) Make sure we know who it's from. If you have a preferred phrase to use as a heading, please include it as well.
Camera ready? Clean, clear and shipped flat to avoid creases. When material is scanned it takes a photographic quality image, even folds in a page will show as a shadow. Use color where you can, it does make for a more interesting display and a helpful hint is to realize that the upper left hand corner of your material will almost always be the first part of your display seen on any monitor.
The World Wide Web is interactive TV for all intents and purposes. EntertainmentÑor at least being interestingÑis a definite component of success. Part of why color is better, it feels better to the eye.
The objective is to get the viewer interested enough to act, by contacting you. It's non-intrusive. Each viewer chooses to view your material and is not receiving it in the mail box with a stack getting sorted into the A, B or J pile. The best way to plan a "home" page for the web is to think of it as a display ad in a popular magazine. Use color, photos, graphics as well as black and white. What works well to attract attention on the newstand works well here too. The difference is that instead of turning pages, each 'page' of information is displayed on a monitor instead.
It only begins with a home page. After this initial presence is established the work isn't done by any means. If you're online you need to add your specific home page address to a signature line at the end of your Email communicatiions, as an option to get more information about what you do in your advertising both online and off.
Neither the internet nor web pages can be a replacement for your current marketing or advertising plan. It rarely generates a thousand phone calls overnight but it is part of a plan that is low cost, effective over time and gives your product or service an advantage in worldwide (and local) communities. It is the most innovative and prestigious media to use.
It's wise to have your information available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Web does that for you in more than 80 countries connected to the Internet and all the major metropolitan areas in North America as well as around the Globe. There are literally millions of people that can access Your Home Page with just a single click on a keyboard. The web itself is growing at a rate of 33% per month!
Can I prepare my own html document and send that to U.S. via Email? Yes. There are a variety of html text editors available on the net and major online services. You'll be sending straight ascii text and marking it up to indicate headings, italics, bold text, etc with hyper text markup language (html). Your document can be sent as an attached file to Ultimate3@aol.com - an image you wish placed in your ad can be sent in .gif format, also as an attached file. The average size of each home page should be no more than 200K.
I don't have a computer or access to one to create an ad or flyer, can someone there do that for me? Our Desk Top Publishing charges are $35. per hour, but we do have someone in the office who has volunteered to write your material up in html and scan a logo or small color graphic/photo you wish included in your ad. The charge on that would be $10 for a 3x5 graphic/photo scan and 2-3 paragraphs of text. Send your material, $10 and a layout of what you would like said/done to create your ad to the "attention of Ari" at the home office. If your material takes more DTP time than allowed for in the base charge, Ari will call and discuss your needs in greater detail.
Bonus Pages
There has been so much positive response to the Ultimate Solutions project we have been trying to create some additional benefits for all those that have been actively supporting the company. A couple of contests have been presented. Contests are fun. It's always good to have something everyone can win too......so, over the course of the summer for each member personally referring 5 new people purchasing adspace within a calendar month we will place an additional page of information. Either on your orignal page or with a link from it to your new second page. Yes, you can qualify each month for a new page until the end of August. But you are responsible for tracking who you referred and sending their name and ID# along with the material for your new information for display.