How We Can Help You

Your Business can have Unmatched Presence

• A responsive, well-designed, interactive Website (web pages), tailored precisely to your business.
• Your own (multiple) mail accounts, for mailing programs, mail robots, and newsgroup response campaigns. No volume limits or charges beyond the flat monthly fee, no matter how many mail addresses you use.

And What Does "Presence" Cost?

It depends.

First of all, there are two types of costs: Startup and Monthly.

Startup

Startup Costs include:

• Web page strategy and design (zero if you do it yourself, more if we do it). If we do it, then the price depends on the length and complexity of the pages. Of course, I don't expect you to believe that our pages are good just because I say so. I want you to test them. I'll show you how you can do that, below.
• Physical Webpage creation (done with an editing program). Preparation of a simple page with one picture and text you provide on disk will cost you $65 (plus the items in #2). A good site may involve up to thirty pages or more. (The idea, of course, is to involve the visitor in your company -- so much so that he cannot help but do business with you. The more pictures, etc., however, the more the cost to develop it until it is pleasing. One must also optimize the attractiveness of multiplie illustrations with the lag time it takes for them to display. "Slow" pages are the number-one complaint. There is a battery of techniques to maximize attractiveness with performance, and I think we're quite adept with it. (Notice how these pages display faster than many others, beginning-to-end.)
• If you use photographs or have custom artwork done, of course, there would be a fee from the photographer or artist, and possibly a small amount (about $7) for scanning each photo into the computer.
• "Startup fee" charged by some providers (varies from $20 to $200, none by us).
• A "Maintenance Account" you must have on the system to make updates (with us, you can use an e-mail account from anywhere, and we'll post changes for you; or you can get your own Unlimited-Access account (above) and make updates yourself. (Unless you've done this before, it is not recommended.)
• If you want to look like a substantial company, your own domain name (as in http://www.yourcompany.com), will cost you $50 or more. (Monthly costs will also be higher.) We do the processing to get the domain name for you, and pass on the filing fee. We do not charge any fee for ourselves.

  The alternative to having your own domain name is to attach to ours, which is the most common way. Your name would then be something like http://www.donohue.com/yourcompany.

Monthly

• You pay a monthly "rental" for space on a webserver somewhere in the world. (Unlike your personal access provider, which MUST have a local phone number, this webserver does not have to be local to you; it could even be on the other side of the world. All access to it is via your local access number.) The cost may vary from $20 to $2000 a month, depending on a variety of factors: how many pages, "forms", and pictures you have, the quality (i.e., speed) of the server hardware, how much traffic occurs at your site, the degree of personalization each time a page is accessed, the size and character of the graphics, etc.

  Some places charge according to how many times your site is accessed, and how many pictures it has, etc. This is not unreasonable, since the more pictures that are downloaded each time someone looks at your page, the more work, wear and tear there is on the webserver hardware, and the more likely that it will slow down performance for everyone else who is using it. (This is an important performance issue for you, too! Please make a note to discuss it with us.)

  We charge a simple flat monthly fee, whether you have 1 or up to 30 printed pages of material, with any combination of pictures, etc., up to two full megabytes. (The one-time creation of thirty pages, of course, would cost more than the creation of only one page.) The reason we do this is because we don't want you to present the wrong message because you're counting words. This is a considerable benefit.

  Imagine a newspaper giving you "all the space you need" for your advertisement!)

  We do reserve the right to make financial adjustments quarterly if your page is using up all the time on the server, however. That's only reasonable.

  If you have your own domain name, our base rate is $55 per month, minus discounts.

  If you do NOT require your own domain name, our base rate is $49 per month, minus discounts. (Virtually everyone will get at least the first two discounts, reducing this amount to $39 per month; some will go beyond that.)

  For non-domain accounts, the discounts may total as much as the rent, allowing you a full, lush, robust website up to two megabytes, pictures, forms, and e-mail windows, at zero cost.

  Discounts are described below.

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  I will automatically make you eligible for Discounts 1 and 2 (simply by adding a few words and an icon to one of your pages), with respective discounts of $5 and $5, bringing your first year's monthly rent

  down to just $39 per month!

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  How We Set You Up With Multiple Mail Accounts

  This information is not as well known. Frankly, we're not anxious to share it with our competition. But here's a glimmer:

  Even if you are a one-person business, you should have a dozen or more mailboxes. Now the way most people get a mailbox is by buying an Internet Access account, with America Online, CompuServe, Delphi, or a local provider. At a typical $20/month rate for a full Unlimited-Access account (even though you don't need the entire account, just the mailbox address), a dozen mailboxes would cost you $240 a month!

  For a business of virtually any size, this would likely be unjustified (if not ridiculous). For that reason, most website providers simply don't suggest that you have more than one mailbox. Or they don't know why you should.

  We can give you twice as many mailboxes, for only $70 a month -- less than one-eighth the cost per box. There is a one-time setup fee, however. If your business is on a network, this will, incidentally, give a separate email address to every employee who can log onto the network -- free into the bargain!

  And what if you're a bigger company? This can save youup to $12,000!

  The way most providers set up most businesses costs between $5,000 and $12,000 (primarily for two software products: the Microsoft Mail Site Software and the Novell Mail product). After that you normally have to pay for as many separate Unlimited-Access accounts as you need mailboxes. If you have 20 employees plus 10 mail robots plus a dozen "business-reply" boxes (oops, we told some of the secret), that's 42 mailboxes, times $20 per month is over $1000 per month -- on top of the $12,000!

  But with Donohue&Co., instead of

  $12,000	startup, and	$1000	per month,
  our charges for equivalent services would be just
  $600	startup, and	$70	per month.

  If you are a candidate for this type of service, and our rates seem agreeable, drop us a line:

  Name and address:

  
  E-mail address:
  

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  ,

  Phone:

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  Why Do Business With Us, Not Someone Else?

  We can help you more than you can imagine. Relative pricing of providers and How to set up web pages (home pages) are just the beginning. We don't force you to choose a local (read "expensive") website provider. We don't just create pages, we make Internet work for you. The thousands of dollars of savings on mailboxes is just one example. What to do with those mailboxes (as described in the information you just sent for) is another.

  Since you've read this far, even if you don't do business with us, we're going to be bold enough to give you some free advice:

  • Avoid incredibly foolish design on your web pages. Look around. You'll see what we mean.
  • Get unlimited e-mail accounts for everyone in your business for a flat fee.
  • Use multiple mail accounts! They are more important than your web page!
  • Actively double, triple, quadruple your exposure to customers using the Internet and other media, and
  • Make it incredibly easy for them to do business with you!

  You can do all that with the Internet.

  Look, there's a problem out there. The problem is: you have people coming from an army of other disciplines, all saying they know how to set up web pages. Most of them are from programming and advertising, and (with some admitted exceptions I don't want to tar with too broad a brush), they don't know diddly.

  It's like a [possibly very talented] carpenter telling you he can build you a beautiful store, and then building it in the woods. Unfortunately, nobody knows it's there, so it does you absolutely no good, and costs you money every month besides.)

  Or a computer jockey making a technically sophisticated website, with interactive forms and cgi-scripts, but so repugnant to look at that no one will get through it.

  Or a marketing type selling the daylights out of what you have, but not bothering to learn the culture of this new country, and offending everyone who just wants to look, without being sold.

  Do business with a firm that is technically and artistically and promotionally adept. One honest enough to create measurements of success, not simply puff. One that doesn't try to convince you that a pretty web page is the essence of the project. Now, regardless of who you do business with,...

  Why should you put your web site at donohue.com?

  First, the temporary reason: Money

  Just so we understand each other: WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT A LITTLE FIVE-LINE CLASSIFIED, like we saw one large agency offering locally. (Their price was $10 a month for five lines.) And we're not talking about "one page, no pix, no links." We're talking about long, fast, beautiful, picture-rich, form-filled, multi-page, multi-linked web sites --
  
  

  for $49.00 per month for a full year.
  or even at $39, assuming you take the discounts.

  The nominal rent is $49/mo, but you can cut it down with these discounts:
  

  • $5 to place our small icon at the bottom of each of your pages ("Exit to Donohue home page")
  • $5 to place a separate link to our site, with at least 20 approved words, somewhere in one of your pages.
    Everybody can get the first two discounts just by deciding to, so NOBODY should pay more than $39. But there's more.
    Email us with your phone number. We'll tell you about them.

  The offer may be withdrawn from new applicants at any time. Existing client agreements will be honored for the remainder of their contract year. Eventually, we'll raise the price. If you miss the cutoff, PLEASE don't ask for this arrangement again. A deal's a deal. At the end of any month, you can continue, or cancel, if you want, and no hard feelings.

  Hopefully, you've noticed that we are conscious of your success as well as our own here.

  The Catch

  At these prices, there's only ONE (very reasonable) condition: You cannot use your page to compete directly with us. No setting up your own sub-sites.

  But you can refer them here and collect a discount for yourself in the following month! (Oops! Gave away another one.)

  That's it.

  Details...

  On page design:

  • You can design your page yourself, if you want to, and send the files (we won't charge you any setup charge), or
    
    
  • we'll create a simple one for you (about two printed pages) for $65, or
    
    
  • we'll create a really terrific one for you for -- well, more than $65, depending on how terrific.

    If our design services are used, it must include a one-year contract, with an initial three-month payment. After that, payments can be made monthly. But we'll give a discount for quarterly, semi-annual, or annual payments. The pages designed for you become your property upon payment.

  You must have an e-mail address SOMEWHERE. This will likely cost you about $20 per month for Unlimited Access. Training will be charged if we need to train you, but it's frequently not required. An excellent alternative is the Central New York PC Users Group, if you're local, or another users group if you're not.

  Regardless of the particulars,...

  All during your association with us, we're going to play on your emotions and offer you bribes and try very hard to persuade you to stay.
  
  

  • We'll help you advertise -- everywhere -- virtually free.
    
    
  • We'll give you discounts to seminars, if you want to learn more about Internet marketing. All seminars currently are in New York State.
    
    
  • We'll send you information to help promote yourself in a variety of ways -- information that will not be available to anyone else.
    
    

  I hope you're getting interested by now, because we're almost done with the offer. Almost.

  Please Tell Me You Have Seminars!

  You bet. The best, most rip-roaring, USEFUL things you've been to in a long time. If you're paying rent on one of our websites, you get discounts on all our seminars. And I mean BIG discounts. See the Seminars page for course descriptions, information, and schedule. (If you're a Non-profit, there's a special surprise.)

  Do you have something to sell?

  Something that could be sold online? We can help, but I'm not about to reveal all the ways here in public. Yes, we can help you take orders right on your website. Yes, of course the user can bill it to a credit card.

  But there's something ... else. Something very special. Something NO ONE else can offer you. The only thing I will say now is, clients will be considered for it IN THE ORDER IN WHICH THEY BECOME CLIENTS. So. Do what you will.

  Are you a performing artist? Or in fine arts?

  We have a very special attachment to local artists. Not only will we help promote you, but we will also sell your wares. Spectacularly. Just tell us what you do. Let us help.

  Compare Our Pages

  I said above that "I don't expect you to believe that our pages are good just because I say so. I want you to test them." Remember?

  Here's how you can do that. Bounce all over this site. Check out the Bayside Historical Society. Note that we do simple and intricate pages, according to the need.

  One of our pages is for a law firm. (I happen to think it's the best law firm in Central New York, but maybe you don't know that.) Here's what I want you to do:

  Look for law firms' home pages all around the Internet. Anywhere. Look in other states, this state, wherever. Get a picture of what law firm sites are like. (You can almost imagine, can't you? Duller than toast.) And I mean ALL of them.

  Just to give you an idea: Some of them don't even have phone numbers in the text! What were these people thinking of? (Would you have thought of it?) Why didn't their provider think of it? What kind of advertiser publishes an ad without giving the client a way to contact the business? Quite a few, apparently. Websites aren't just about art. We nail down the craft, too.

  Now, how do you FEEL when you try to load these pages? How long do they take to load? Why? -- what "important information" do they have in the huge graphic that you are forced to load? (Hint: a picture of their building, or their front door, which takes 30 seconds to load.)

  Now look at Melvin & Melvin's site. You'll notice it's not just a big puff piece about how the firm is seventy-five years old, and "venerable" (though it is). In fact, on the entire main page, there's not a word about the firm itself!

  It's about you.

  Don't get me wrong -- this isn't the most beautiful page on the Internet. But it's jammed full of value for anyone in New York State -- and especially Central New York -- who runs a business or needs legal services.

  I'll bet you make it the new "Main Menu" for your business -- no matter WHAT kind of business you're in. Now if we can do that for a law firm, imagine what we can do for you. Then come back here, and let us do YOUR page. The way it SHOULD be done: to get people EXCITED about YOU.
  

  If you've read this far, doesn't that tell you something?

  Action Time

  By now, either you've realized our package is what you need, with more megabytes, more expertise, more comfort, or -- you have a question.

  Just click on the envelope below, and ask it.
  Or call, so we can begin.