Advice on building your website..

I recently received the following as part of an email trying to sell me a course on learning about marketing your magic business!! I would not normally bother with such things, but their advice was so wrong that I just had to comment:

-- All of the same direct response marketing rules apply. Don't try for fancy graphics or image-advertising
nonsense: no one cares!

The web is ALL about user experience. Creating captivating and compelling sites is EXACTLY what it is all about. So firstly everyone cares and you have to understand the rules of marketing as they apply to new media.

-- You need a headline, you need compelling copy, you need testimonials, you need multiple calls to action,
and you need to offer free reports that require folks to opt-in to your email address book.

Almost right you do need compelling copy. But a magicians website is a transaction generating environment so having free reports to download is a waste of time. They are clearly applying a mixture of print based direct mail principles and the cheese that is normally associated with Internet marketing scams.. but then that is what they know.

-- Your goal is to capture the name and e-mail address of everyone who visits your website. You can email
folks your online newsletter once they've opted in.

No it isn't - your goal on a magicians website is for them to make a direct enquiry about a gig. If you are just list building then you are probably wasting your time!!

-- Once someone opts-out, get them OFF your list immediately! You NEVER NEVER NEVER want to SPAM
anyone!

Well you can make your own mind up about this. Personally I don't care about spamming people! It has a place in the mix. However I do care about having a grip on reality and by keeping people on your list that don't want to be there you are deluding yourself about just how big your pipeline is!

-- Remember that the ultimate outcome of your web site should be to get people to call or email you.

At last something that I agree with totally - well at least in the context of a magicians website. However, I would fee a bit nervous investing more that 20 dollars with "marketing" guru's if this is the most insightful bit of advice they can come up with!!