From: Mark Rae <barefoot@bekkers.com.au>
Subject: Sucess Story

Hello Adland Subscribers.

This isn't quite THE success story, however, to start at the beginning... I
am physically disabled and as a result, I am receiving a pension. Through
family, I met a local pharmacist who had invented creams from food, which
aid in healing and skin maintenance. He required a website to get his
products out into the global market. We came to the agreement that I would
set up and maintain his Internet presence, for as long as necessary. To
begin with my services would be free, until his business expanded, and then
I would have a full time position with his company. With a fair amount of
poetic licence and a host of Internet skills, I set about constructing a
website for 6 products. Being amongst my first attempts at web site creation
and design... this site was clumsy and reeked of over-formatting. The order
form wasn't secure, and the server, based in Perth Western Australia, was
intolerably slow. However I had effectively used meta tags, and manually
submitted to as many search engines as possible, starting with a list
compiled by Beaucoup

My next attempt, this time with a little financial backing, went a bit
smoother. Taking into consideration many aspects of marketing on the net, I
decided that speed, and security would be the primary focus. We opted for a
store with ViaWeb, who then got bought out by Yahoo. Although we had less
control over some of the html, the security, tracking, and management
functions offered a nice compromise. Albeit expensive and sterile, the
website does it's job until we can afford a team of professional designers.
What we find important is the dissemination of information from our site.
Most of our customers are already sold on 4 of the products. We offer a
secure environment for them to purchase them, and an opportunity to
investigate our full catalogue. I'm not saying our site was an instant
success... we had traffic and sales, but not enough to justify my
employment.

Using IRC (Internet Relay Chat), Newsgroups, and Trade Websites, I looked
for people and business that import our type of products. Utilising free
online services regularly, such as Olav Hellese-Knutsen's Free URL
Submission Script I managed to get our website ranked fairly high on most of
the popular search engines. I used the query terms from my customer trails,
to tailor the meta tags for the website, and for defining keywords for
submissions. At the same time I was seeking editorial support of  trade
journals, and general magazines in the beauty and cosmetic industries. One
magazine that had published a news article in the past about this inventor,
responded by asking for an article on his discoveries. Upon publishing in
this magazine, our hit rate increased tenfold, and my daily emails rose from
2 - 3 per day to over 30 a day. The orders too have increased, so much in
fact that we have been able to lower all our prices, to obviously enhance
more sales. We have repeat customers within days of receiving their orders,
The store is finally paying for itself, and, as originally intended,
functioning as an effective office tool. So where's the success you say?

With the combination of new products, positive editorials in various
magazines, and a functional website that acts as a virtual employee 24hrs a
day. From home, I have managed to make contact with consumers, retailers,
and wholesalers from all corners of the globe. I have been instrumental in
moving a company into the global market, and out of it all,... I have
secured myself a fulltime job that is suited to my disability, my wife and
children are always close by, and I don't have the pressure of traffic or
working to the clock.

In a way, I have achieved that "Work at home in your underwear" dream.

Thank you for your time
Mark Rae
Czarniak Pharmaceuticals