Site is now finished. How to market it? Looking for partner...

[Dale Hubbard]

Hi all,

As this is the home of the best internet marketing brains, has anyone any ideas as to how marketing $$$ can be best spent to promote:

aZooZa File and Image Hosting

Those of you with eBay accounts might be especially interested as we have realtime eBay feedback graphics, but that's just a bolt-on that we did for the real core business.

We spent VERY few $ selling it on eBay but not enough to get anyone's attention.

Maybe looking for a marketing partner here to share in profits if anyone's interested.

Also need help with marketing the business in my signature below. UPO has been very well accepted since it launched in December 2002, but I think we have the pricing model wrong somehow and free accounts are a REAL waste of space unless there's some type of return in plastering it with ads and taglines on outbound email

I have a LOT of investment in UPO as it's a commercial system that cost $5,500, and I have spent many more thousands in PHP and SQL coding to enhance it. Plus, of course, the hosting costs each month, and the domains (email aliases) I have bought over the years and am offering there.

All suggestions welcomed, and thanks for your time!

[insomnia]

My thoughts:

1) Azooza's design is very unattractive, and doesn't do a good job of attracting a user's attention. Sites that sell online need to capture the attention of users in 10 seconds, otherwise those potential customers leave. I suggest redesigning your site so that its NOT a rectangle box crammed with text.

2) The title header of Azooza needs some work also. Maybe leave out the prices and put something more relative to the quality of your business. Afterall, you can always put prices as a coloured subtitle underneath.

Now, my thoughts on Universal Post Office is different. That site is very very nice. But some flaws I see are that you don't really include a strong call to action. Theres not persuasion. Why should users pay to use your service when they can get email addresses for free?
Perhaps you can add a short paragraph or list above the login section that highlights your service's usage benefits like:

Universal Post Office is a fast and easy way to manage your emailing. Choose your email address from some of the top domains that we carry! Accounts include:
- Easy to navigate inbox interface
- Top level domains to choose from
- Protect your inbox from spam
- etc. etc. etc.

[Dale Hubbard]

Insomnia, thank you very much for your kind input. I will chat with my people and start to address these issues.

Best regards,

Dale

[peter]

your logo looks an awful lot "inspired" by google's

[NamePopper.com]

The home page looks ok. It's not fancy or fantastic - but it has a nice clean look. It also depends on what resolution you are running. I would add a CSS (cascading style sheet) to keep the text the same size regardless of the user's browser settings (view > text size) - and that will also keep the main 'box' the same size.

The other pages are much too bland & plain though - and they DO need some dressing up!

I like that the price and specs are listed right up front. These days when people are browsing for services - they don't want to go digging for that info - and they just left 10 other sites - and have 10 more waiting to visit after yours.

So while the site won't win any design awards - it's certainly not bad in my opinion. Good luck.

[Dale Hubbard]

Icehole, yes, t is indeed like Google! But I like palindromes. I have aKooKa.com too but not doing anything with it.

Thanks NamePopper. All comments taken on board -- I'm assuming you're referring to the UPO site?

Dale