(see footnote 1)

…as the chart above demonstrates, we blew past that goal in November 2009, our first full month of operation, because you are not alone!

Some said, our traffic would go down in December…after all, it was ‘the holiday season’ and people would be too busy with Christmas parties, gift buying, travel plans, plus all their work and other worries to logon to and read a new Industry trade magazine. Well those who said that were wrong…

…because here, you are Not Alone!

In December 2009, as the chart above shows, we exceeded 30,000 PV! We grew almost 150% during the busy holiday season. Why? Thanks to our writers, thanks to our readers, thanks to new names, faces and new ideas to move the industry ahead, thanks to those who forward our emails…because here at www.MHMSM.com, you are not alone!

Almost giddy with the excitement of such a positive response from Industry Professionals like you, we set a new goal: to attain 50,000 page views by April 2010. After all, how could we keep up with nearly a 50% growth rate pace? Well, you proved US wrong, because…

You are not alone!

187.2% Growth

Let’s put this in context: How would YOU like to have 149.56% growth and then follow it up with 187.2% growth?! If you were a factory, how would you like to go from building 30 units in December 2009, to 55 before January 2010 was even done? Sure – you’d want to do more, but you’d be MOTIVATED by the growth.

Industry leaders, managers to rank and file are logging on and letting us know that they like what they get with www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com – or www.MHMSM.com for short. If you are new here, take 10 and tour our feature articles, our robust Industry News, the Photo Gallery and much, much more.

Online, people vote with their browsers, and Industry member browsers have helped make us the largest Industry Trade Journal less than 4 months after we’ve launched!

You’ll see below reasons why this IS – or can be – Important to YOU and YOUR organization.

The Hits Just keep on Coming…

So we are clear with those less web savvy, sometimes you hear about a ‘hit count’ on a website – a hit count can be a misleading figure, because a single page view often yields multiple hits on that one page view. In other words, we don’t use hits as a measure of traffic because hits ‘inflate’ the numbers. For an example, the hit count from January 1 to January 30 at 9:30 PM was 358,885 while the page views (shown above) for the same period was 55,160. See the chart below compared to the one above.

FYI – we also know that we’ve had a growing number of ‘unique visitors’ a week, so that each visitor sees an average of about 4.5 pages per visit before logging off. In the most recent week, we are averaging over 3,500 unique visitors per week, that’s over 15,000 monthly and growing. So we not only have the most content – we are far and away the largest INdustry trade journal – we also have more traffic from INdustry pros too…and are growing rapidly! Now all the factory built housing Industry trade journals – us included – could potentially reach thousands more than what we already do. There are those who still don’t know us, so this is just the start, but as the charts reveal, it is a FAST start with solid results!

Okay, impressive! But what does this mean for me and my enterprise?

Glad you asked…

We are going to address later items like retail lead generation for our registered users and other advances that www.MHMSM.com will provide exclusively to our readers/users.

But initially, we will take a few moments to explain in some detail why this rapid growth is important and potentially very good for you. There are many reasons, some or all may apply to you. Those that don’t apply to your may still apply to a friend or colleague of yours, so let’s start with an analogy.

If you are hungry, want to go out to eat and are looking for a good restaurant, one ‘clue’ that it is ‘good’ can be word of mouth. But another one is a simple test…is it busy? If the restaurant is open and is busy, that’s usually a pretty good clue that the food and service are good, or people wouldn’t be there in great numbers!

Similarly, if you are hungry for news and views, if you are hungry and looking for new ideas, proven concepts by successful pros, industry news reports, a way to get your message out to others in the industry – do you want to go where things are dead or dying, or where things are BUSY, and growing BUSIER!

INdustry News and Views You can Use
24/7/365

Don’t be an Industry outsider – be an INdustry INsider!

Here, YOU are Not Alone!

In the INternet age, people vote with their web browsers. Some experts say people who surf into a website decide in an average of 7 seconds if they’ll surf it or move on. Imagine, just 7 seconds to make a good impression, or you’ve blown it! So when people come by the THOUSANDs every week to www.MHMSM.com – Industry Pros like YOU – it means there is something worth coming for here…

• • MH Industry News – the most you’ll find anywhere, and it is updated daily 24/7/365.
  • National Associations News & Events – MHI and MHARR, updated shortly after they send it out, you’ll see it live on our website.
  • State Association News and Events. A growing number of states are sharing their news with your biggest and best source for Industry News, www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com or www.MHMSM.com for short. All states – all North American Industry Factory Built Housing Associations! – are invited. If your state isn’t shown – yet – please contact/remind them and ask them to send their news and events here to reach that wider audience. It is a fine way to let non-association members see the value of the meetings, training and education a good association offers! In other words, use www.MHMSM.com as your free Association-friendly marketing tool.
  • MH Finance and Housing Industry News.

‘Do it Yourselfer’ vs. ‘Hiring it Done’

Some of us are do-it-yourselfers. Give a do-it-yourselfer a ‘how to’ book or article, and they are off to the races to see if they can make it happen on their own.

Others want to hire a job done by someone that’s done it before – they have the resources and are willing to invest them to accelerate their growth process and/or to provide coaching for their team. At www.MHMSM.com, you’ll have the opportunity to hire many of the pros you are reading tips and ideas from, or you can take the do-it-yourself route. Either way, you and your associates are the winner.

Positive Team Input vs. Negative Team Input

It is a proven fact that people are surfing the web at work. Studies have suggested, for example, that people search online more for a new place to live during their work hours than during their off duty time. Be it during a coffee break, lunch break down time – or whatever time – you and your people are doing many things online from your office. Why not encourage your team to surf and read www.MHMSM.com articles or blog posts? If you read Tim Connor, Bob Stovall, Greg McClanahan, Zig Ziglar (Zig is joining our ranks for writers – starting in February!) Sue Frost, Tim Saville, Mike DuPure Suzanne Felber, Dave Reynolds, Beth Monicatti Blank, Rachael Biermann or any of our regular or periodic writers, you’ll see diversity of topics, but one very common thread… a ‘can do,’ positive, solution orientation! Positive in, positive out! That’s a whole lot better than GIGO – garbage in and garbage out.

Free Training, Motivation and Discussion Starters

Okay. You can formulate your policies about internet use. But how about attracting those team members to an INdustry website that teaches or reinforces sound basics, and/or shares with them new skills, and has a positive INdustry goal orientation! It is common sense that you want your team members surfing a site like this, and that is why some owners and managers have emailed us saying:

• • ‘I forward your messages out to our entire team’ or

• • ‘I print your articles, copy and pass them out to our office to read and discuss.’

Those are good ideas from our readers.

Why not use articles or blog posts as periodic meeting tools, and discussion starters! Encourage your team to read in advance, letting them know there will be a discussion. Over time, they’ll get ‘hooked’ on this themselves. Who is the winner? They are, for getting stronger in their jobs. Your company is, for having team members who are reading so they will be leading in their area and market!

Who is the winner? Everyone involved! “You are not Alone!”

The only ‘losers’ are those who don’t plug in and logon. They can fix that too, and it is free.

Writers, Advertisers, Sponsors and Marketers

Do you have a message or an idea that you want to share with the Industry at large, or with segments of the Industry? What is the faster, more powerful medium – print or online? We want to present this idea with some caution…because we have tremendous respect for the remaining print journals in our Industry. The two print leaders have been around for 30 or 40+ years. We believe they deserve your support!

At the same time, there is the old saying about:

“Don’t Put ALL your eggs into one basket.”

Print has certain fundamental limitations that the Internet doesn’t have. www.MHMSM.com has more than double the content then the largest industry print publication. There are reasons why newspapers and magazines have ‘gone digital’ over the years, even if they may not have quite figured out how to make both print and digital work together profitably. If you need facts, we’ll provide some below and then finish up with a roaring bang!

The chart above – courtesy of the Pew Center for People & the Press – tells us what we already know: more people get their news online than from print media. Many once powerful print media publications are in bankruptcy, and some will doubtlessly fail and cease to exist. In a phrase, print media is dying. In an even more recent study, in December of 2009, according to techcrunch.com

But Yahoo has been in the news business since 1996, Google since December 2008. So Google has roared ahead FAST. The moral of the story, or the message is that focused online publications and news sources can rapidly grab center stage. That is what has happened at www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com

In the Manufactured Housing Industry, Modern Homes and the Manufactured Home Merchandiser Magazines have sadly fallen by the wayside, along with a smaller industry publisher. Digital media is the wave of the future, so are you still placing all or the bulk of your industry professional focused advertising, PR and such with print media?

The solution?

It just make sense to go with the largest and fastest growing INdustry publication www.MHMSM.com If you want to write, advertise, promote a discussion or event, bring it here AND to your other outlets. You’ll find a warm reception here and if you need ideas on how to get your message out, you can’t come to a better place within the INdustry. Here YOU are Not Alone!

For advertisers and marketers, you’ll find many advantages here, lower rates (by a country mile) and much higher click through rates than even very tech savvy performers than Yahoo-the Chicago SunTimes Newsgroups offers! If you want to advertise or market, please contact one of our Zone Marketing Managers for more details, or go to our advertising page. If you want to write an article, please submit your articles via email to me at latonyk@gmail.com

• Growth Strategies

• Business Building Tools and Resources

• “How To”

• Training

• Motivation

• News & Views

• Instant Feedback available from Industry professionals via posted comments.

• Image building via Publication and/or via our Contests (photo gallery submissions, writing, etc.): Ever walk into a restaurant or store and seen an article about them posted? Ever seen an award framed? What does this do for that business? Create interest and add to their credibility! In some world, ‘publish or perish’ is the rule. Yes, being published or winning an award can over time yield business for you too!

Tools to boost your Retail Business.

Through the “How To” articles and resources already available here, readers can begin the process of using success strategies that have proven their worth ‘in the trenches’ of the INdustry. Those are here now, one big reason, You are Not Alone!

In the coming weeks, we will roll out a pair of NEW programs – NEW Initiatives! – that will have the power to increase sales for registered users. Yes, BOTTOM LINE PROFITS or added REVENUE for YOUR business or organization! These will be available only to registered users. Registration here is free. A real common sense reason why, you are not alone…

Frankly, the faster our growth, the sooner we can roll those programs out. We already share a sincere ‘thank you’ to all who are passing along our web address, printing out articles, forwarding our emails to others. But if we have more growth – faster – you’ll see strategies that we know can sell more new homes and other products, thus boosting
the sale of everything that goes along with home sales and services!

We will provide a new vehicle, a new set of resources – exclusively to those who are signed up – that will enhance our Industry’s Image with the home buying public. It will generate retail leads. You don’t want to open your doors to a quiet office; you want to have that busy restaurant effect – where retail client emails are coming in with phone calls and customers arriving at YOUR place of business or organization! Want more profits and revenues for your enterprise? You are not alone.

Want to work together to increase sales and industry growth?

You are not alone!

Thank you for being a part of the story for the rebirth of our Great INdustry. Thank you for sharing our web address, or forwarding our blog posts, articles or emails. If you haven’t already signed up, please do so, it is free and just takes a few moments. Your emails are not shared or sold to others. Thank you for helping us, help you. Together, we are not alone!

The investment is so basic, a little time well spent! Working together – INdustry readers, writers and sponsors – we can grow as an INdustry once again! Learning the lessons from the past, using new tools, resources and proven ideas, we can build a brighter future where…

…you are not Alone!##

Footnote 1. Website statistic charts above were generated by Urchin Report. Highlights and comments on charts have been added by www.MHMarketingSalesManagement.com team members.