|
"While big businesses have the money to put up wonderful, cosmetically beautiful, professional web sites, they're very automated and
cold and difficult to get a response from a human being," Daly says. Daly's clients are on the opposite end of the business spectrum. She says they are mostly stay-at-home-moms or retirees (and not necessarily seniors) who
are building new careers working out of their homes. She offers these businesses advice on how to be seen and heard on the World Wide Web. Daly writes press releases, drops her client's names in the right places and gives
media-savvy advice to increase visibility. And all without ever leaving home or actually meeting her clients. But if this type of business sounds impersonal, it's not.
"We develop a closeness that's hard to explain," she said. Daly helps Internet novices develop web pages, get listed on the big search engines and concoct strategies for generating publicity and attracting visitors to
their sites. Often, Daly says, the client will have a good product but no idea of how to market it. Creative Enterprises provides that guidance, doing everything from web design to cheerleading. And, Daly says, she does it
all without cramming the mailboxes of irritable consumers with much-detested spam. So exactly what does she do? That's a question with a multi-faceted answer, but it involves helping online businesses find their markets.
"The people I deal with, for the most part, work strictly online -- our correspondence is done by email," she said. She says she never meets her clients and rarely speaks to them on the telephone. So does this result in
impersonal relationships. Not in the least, according to Daly. "We get along and work together much better than we probably would face-to-face," she said, adding that networking online is a real equalizer since online
relationships are based on products and services, not personalities. And that has led Daly to work at establishing business communities, just like the one she conceived to act as a showcase for child-related shops to use in a
coop print advertising project.. Daly and twenty others went in together to conduct an experiment in cost-sharing for advertising purposes. They all paid $20 each to place a print ad in a family-oriented regional magazine
in the Cleveland area. With all the vendors having sites of their own, there was no way to include twenty URLs (Internet addresses) in one print ad. So Daly created one URL to incorporate all the sites in one online
shop called A Child's Mall.com
. The shop keepers are motivated by the spirit of
experimentation and the possibility of a means by which these small home-based businesses can compete with limited advertising dollars. Daly says they'll be doing a series of print ads, and will then assess whether that
approach is worth trying again. "This is a learn-as-you-go situation," she said. She first cut her online teeth three years ago in 1997 when she began to feel her way around the World Wide Web. Since then she's gone
from being an Internet novice to designing a 65-page website. But she's not a complete stranger to computers, having first entered the techno-age about 12 years ago. But those first computer "baby steps" were word processing
-- a far cry from where she is today. Today Daly's web-based business hums along with a life of its own. But even though she has plenty of clients, she'll tell you the hours she keeps can be exhausting. It's not unusual to
find her at her computer in the wee hours of the morning. But the long hours are offset by the convenience of working from home, sometimes in pajamas. But Daly says doing business over the Internet's similar to other business
efforts, despite its uniqueness. "It's no different than your average business dinner, but quiet and without the martini and the suits!" she said. She's also established a business club that acts as an interactive
element of her business. Daly says this site allows people to learn to work together, support one another, give advice and make suggestions. "It's working quite well," she says. Everything's working well in the
business end of Daly's life these days. But it's not something she's been handed on a silver platter. The wife and mother of four grown children has paid her dues, from working at various newspapers as a writer and editor, as a
small business owner and government employment with experience in both administration and public relations. With a resume crowded with rich personal experience and a laundry list of valuable skills, it's hard to find
something the Jacksonville resident doesn't do well. Versatility, she says, is the key. "I've been where these people are and I understand what it takes to work in strange surroundings and start-up situations," she said.
And in a follow-up conversation, Daly relates that she's also been bitten by the online retail bug, having opened two children's gift and toy shops this year: SunsationalKids.com and DaddysToyShop.com. She says there's
no going back now -- she'll be an online merchant and Internet promoter in love with her work, forever! |
