Manufacturers USE the internet/Websites better!

[glangfur]

there are enough free resources out there so that you could make a clean looking website without it costing you anything.

Man-hours are expensive, and this always costs man-hours. Which most small manufacturers would much rather see be used getting tubas out of the factory to the dealers. It's a matter of priorities.

[cctubaneeds]

I can understand small manufacturers having some troubles affording things like that. BUT, MW, miraphone, B&S, Besson, & Conn(canadain brass model?) are not small comanies and can easily afford the man power to at least collect the info, take some pictures(multiple) and update it.
In website you can get content management system. Add the pictures and info. Put the info in the right places and the format takes care of the rest.

Why is that so hard and expensive? It just takes effort.

[kanstulbrass]

Having been employed in the sales and marketing part of the brass instrument manufacturing business, I can attest to a few facts:

1. It's EXTREMELY difficult to make money in brass instrument manufacturing. Small to medium-sized shops in particular are always operating very close to the margins.

2. Launching a high-quality professional website is not a small endeavor. It takes a lot of man-hours from the sales staff, which is usually very busy chasing down cash flow for payroll. It also costs money, real money, to get a skilled, knowledgeable web designer to do the work.

3. Photographing a brass instrument is not at all simple. Curved, reflective surfaces are very tricky, and it's very easy to lose the outer edges of the instrument in the images. How many ebay ads do you see with a reflection of the photographer in them? That's completely unacceptable on a professional website.

4. Keeping a website updated takes more man-hours. See 2. regarding chasing down cash for payroll.

5. Brass instrument manufacturers don't care how much you like looking at pictures of new tubas, they care that you are willing to open your wallet and buy a new tuba. And they know that virtually nobody buys a tuba without trying it. The way they sell instruments is through dealers, and the number of viable dealers of professional tubas is so small that the best way to deal with them is personally, usually on the phone. The website is pretty much meaningless for these transactions.

Agreed on the first four points (and partial agreement on point no. 5). I can't speak for the other companies, but for Kanstul, we are a very small company with only 32 employees. The majority of our people are engaged in making horns. We have only a handful of office staff: Carrie (reception, accounting, HR), Laura (engraving, order entry, inspection, polishing, shipping), Zig (runs the company, builds trombones and French horns, R&D), Mark Kanstul (operations, including permits, materials, chemicals), Jim New (CNC, inventory levels, making mouthpieces - catalog and custom, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something) and myself (sales - including parts sales, outside sales, marketing, company tours, trade shows, web, social networking, customer relations, product photography, graphic / brochure design, building / updating / distributing price lists, I think you get the idea by now).

In the current economy we must all wear more hats than ever before. All traditional activities must still be covered while adapting to or incorporating the new ones, such as social networking and maintaining the website. Hopefully we'll get to a point where we can add to our staff.

Naturally, we do place importance on marketing activities. But our resources are limited. We do what we can do.

"It just takes effort". With diminished profits and marketing budget cuts, sometimes effort is all I have left to work with =)

[Alex C]

My pet peeve is pictures of a tuba with the bell on the ground taken from above the horn's bottom bow at close range. ...

DITTO! That kind of picture is totally useless. The person who takes that picture does not play the instrument.

A website with up-to-date information is not prohibitively expensive. It is a royal pain for the company to communicate to a webmaster but should be a high priority.

A website with bells and whistles can be expensive and can be prohibitive in cost as well. Those 360 degree photos are nice but take time which equals money. Lots of interactive stuff or building a flash or swish site, also expensive.

But I see no reason why a site with up-to-date information can't be managed at a reasonable cost. An average of $100 a month for minimal upkeep is not uncommon in the industry.

Years ago a friend tried to get a website built with a shopping cart for a small business. When designers responded, and they often didn't, the bid was always close to $10,000. Finally, another friend with some html skills built the site for her for under $1000. The downside is that they got married and now he works for free.

[cjk]

Since the subject has been raised (and I completely agree) I'll just add a rant; not to insult anyone, but is anyone else totally bewildered by Baltimore Brass' photos? These weird, bell first, almost coy pictures of tubas where you can't see anything but the bell and leadpipe? They used to be nice, but now...?!?

End rant.

Agree. I've thought the same thing. The BBC pictures of used instruments used to be better than they are now.

[J.c. Sherman]

Not exactly an appropriate venue for "creativity". Just the facts, ma'am!

J.c.S.