I’m coining a new marketing Web metric here—Pay-Per-Ignore.

This summer we are selling the family house in a Great Lakes state. I live in Oregon, so I’ve been using the faithful search engines to contact painters, realtors, estate sale agents, dumpster haulers…the works.

I found plenty of listings and associated Web pages. They have lots of pictures, good text, mission statements, service descriptions, and, very important for me, "For more info, contact…" links and built-in email frames. But the results from my contacts have been dismal!

I contacted three estate sale agents. One never responded — Ignored. A second sent me an email in a couple days, asking for more info, and then nothing — Ignored. The third emailed me right back and followed up with a phone call the next morning. Guess which one is going to get my business?

I emailed two trash haulers about a dumpster. Neither responded — Ignored. One of two painters emailed me back. The other ignored me. The list goes on. Now, maybe these companies are in the enviable position of having so much business that they don’t need new customers, but I doubt it.

So here is the question: how much Internet marketing money are these businesses spending in Web design, hardware, infrastructure, search-engine optimization, etc., to attract me as a potential customer, only to ignore me? What is their Pay-Per-Ignore?

What do YOU spend on YOUR P-P-I?

Steve Lange