Here at Highland Titles, weekend leave has been cancelled. We came into the office on Wednesday morning to find twice as many orders as usual; unusually these extra orders were mainly from the UK. Odd. August is usually a quiet month. We encourage staff to take their main holiday in August. Yesterday sales continued to be up and this morning again, we have a bumper bundle of orders. We have no advertising starting this week, no special offers, no affiliates advertising us.
The penny dropped when we compared the start time with the publication of a blog which was far from complimentary about us. We had to smile. The blog was being advertised far and wide by social media, to a new and untapped market. A percentage of all advertising converts to sales. We love all publicity, good or bad and we seem to be getting better at persuading people to get the message out there. A Highland Titles pack makes a great gift, even if sent tongue in cheek.
The main barrier to sales of souvenir plots of land is simply that most people have no idea that they can purchase a tiny bit of land, for themselves or as a gift. When they discover this simple fact many people simply file the information away. Some rabid nationalists may be outraged that foreigners are able to buy a bit of “their” country. Others are offended by the idea of private enterprise doing things that they believe should be in the public arena. Some love the idea of gifting land, supporting conservation, becoming part of a community. But the odd thing is that any and all of these people are potential customers. When we track where our sales come from, we get sales from hate-sites as well as from sites that love what we do.
At the end of the day, we are pleased to make a sale to anyone, whether they love us or loath us. Nature does not care.