Webster’s Web Site
TV and the internet are powerful mediums. Effective on their own, combine the two and the results can be spectacular.
In the space of 10 months, Pig Tits and Parsley Sauce has metamorphosed from a weekly column in a provincial newspaper to a national media event. I say this because I have been on TV nine times this year and my website has received over 100,000 page downloads since being launched in early July. A recent appearance on Campbell Live resulted in 14,000 hits in about two minutes. My Tuesday and Thursday night classes are booked in advance, I have eight franchisees teaching my recipes in communities across the country and have delivered nearly 50 presentations/demonstrations/ fundraisers, mainly in Taranaki, and have about the same number booked in.
This is how it happened. The Taranaki Daily News is featured on the Fairfax media website, www.stuff.co.nz, and so my column is available to people far beyond the regional readership. It somehow drew the attention of Campbell Live and my class, recipes, book, budget and subsequent super savings were shown on TV3 for five minutes in early July. That resulted in around 800 emails directed to me, requesting more information – books, recipes, etc.
That show attracted the producer of TV1’s Good Morning, who flew me to Wellington and taped two segments. These were so popular with viewers that I was flown in again to make three further segments, this time demonstrating the cost-effective cleaning and cosmetic products I have leaned to make. These have just been to air over the last three weeks.
Fearing another deluge of electronic mail, I quickly had a website built that people can refer to – www.pigtits andparsleysauce.co.nz. That way, people can find out all about it and only contact me if they wish to purchase books and recipes, or book in a class or presentation. In less than four months, the website has been visited by nearly 30,000 people, 3000 of whom return to the site again and again. They mainly come from New Zealand, but also from Malaysia, Australia, United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Most visitors look at the site for 5 minutes to 20 minutes and 30 per cent of hits are from returning visitors who have looked at the site five to 10 times before.
People ask me how I manage this business as well as run a 170 cow farm singlehandedly . . . rest assured, the power of the internet with email and electronic banking, makes Make quickly and easily manageable. If it weren’t for the world wide web, this would be impossible.
Next week: For women only.
