In Europe since their economy is not based on gluttonous consumption like ours, there are fewer advertising vehicles. Few outdoor boards, few ads on the bustops, very restricted commercial signage, and far less catalogs and direct mail than we have here.

 

So how does a European company drive traffic to their website? They treat the domain name like their brand. It is on shirts, hats, vehicles, and even employee nametags. My sense was that some European companies (we were mostly in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) have figured out that if they had to choose between getting a customer to remember the company name or getting the customer to remember the company’s website address, they are going to pick the latter.

 

And why not? If you can get a prospect to go to your website what happens? The prospect is exposed to selling and marketing language (if the site is developed the SGG way). If you get the prospect to remember your company name, what happens? You’re not sure — a whole bunch of things could happen.

 

There are many ways I think the Germans specifically are way ahead of us (like Solar power, but don’t get me started on that) and this internet strategy is one of them. Make sure your URL is everywhere. Not just on your business cards, but everything you print. On our standard business envelopes, it says “Visit our web site www.salesgrowthgroup.com.” Who knows who might see that envelope and how much extra did it cost us? Nothing.

 

Well that’s part of what I learned in Europe. I also learned that eating large amounts of Swiss and German chocolate for nine consecutive days really changes the affection you have for your bathroom scale…