Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

I can't stand the sarcasm....i just can't stand it. It's puerile.

Here's a person with a website that gets 7 MILLION hits a month and still you "experts" talk like the person's a moron--I'd kill to handle the Marketing for a site that big . . . you would too and I daresay it would be the lead on your website.

Alan/Ann...please . . . there has to be some kind of standard of civility.

Besides that, if you read the question, this person has already attracted the target market (remember the 7 million sites per month?). He's not trying to bring eyeballs to the site. He's trying to make money from the eyeballs already there by letting OTHER COMPANIES promote their stuff. Now, if I were some of these arrogant, mocking "experts" what I would say is:

"Since you can't even undestand a basic Marketing question, and apparently don't understand the difference between attracting advertisers and attracting the marketplace, your first step would be to go back and read the most basic Marketing book you can find. Pay special attention to the part about "advertisers" and "markets." Take notes. Do the quizzes. Absorb it. Become one with the knowledge until you finally understand the difference between a marketplace and an advertiser. When you complete that complex task, come back and try to answer some questions--but only the very basic ones because you're clearly not a Marketing Expert yet."

But I don't answer that way. And neither should you.

OK. To the question. I'd be interested in hearing why you don't want to allow advertising. It's a perfectly respectable way of communicating but perhaps you have good reasons--if it's just personal bias, I'd recommend reconsidering. Having said that, it's worth nothing that there are many many companies/organizations that don't advertise and yet still have effective promotions. And are very successful.

Coupons I understand, assuming you're doing sufficient business to not need to discount. But it may be a big draw for advertisers, so again I'd think a second thought on that might yield value.

There are multiple ways to generate corporate dollars without ads. Content sponsorship being a good place to start. Nutrition guidebooks sponsored by Yoplait, recipes sponsored by Safeway or Krogers or whatever, and so on. You can present the sponsor's original content, as long it meets your established guidelines. Contests/sweepstakes might be a good sponsorship opportuity. As would special events and video presentations. Or sponsored newsletters.

On top of that there's always a chance to handle it the way PBS does . . . just get the money and then thank them for their sponsorship.

As far as what to say to advertisers to get them to move. . . with that much traffic you are already attractive . . . clearly present the value proposition to them (have you made revenue models for them?) and you should be in good shape.

Dear mborges,

You are sitting on a gold mine.

Seven MILLION hits? Per month? Without marketing, without optimization, and without advertising? Bravo.

If I was to suggest how can you attract corporate sponsors in the healthy food and fitness market who would benefit through expose on your website WITHOUT blatantly advertising or bombarding people with coupons—I'd say ethics.

Before an advertiser can post ads on your site and put their message in front of your audience, ask them to answer a series of questions in a simple but effective screening process, or ask them to offer solid proof of the ways they do business.

Then, tally the results and ask yourself: would I want to subject my kids, my family, my mom or grandmother to this companies wares, products, offers, and services?

If the answer's yes, great. If the answer's no, they don't get on your site. It's as simple as that.

Now, no doubt this suggestions will have several contributors to this site rolling on the floor with laughter. My response to this feeling is as follows: tough. It's my opinion.

As contributors to this site it's not about us, it's about us offering solid, useful HELPFUL opinions to the people asking the questions.
There HAVE been times when my replies have, I'll admit, been a little sarcastic but it's never been my intention to offend anyone.

As I've said elsewhere on this forum, I cannot and will not speak for others, nor will I comment on what other people say if I don't agree with their opinion, but I will say this: marketing is about being helpful. When marketing, sponsorships, or ads appear on a site and they're NOT helpful, when they appear simply as revenue streams—as so much marketing does, suddenly, there's fine and foggy line between being an effective marketer and being seen as some kind of label or brand pimp.

This kind of approach: the pimp side of things doesn't ring true, it lacks credibility and as a result, consumers stop bloody well listening.

I don't post answers or opinions on this site to rack up points or to make myself look clever. I post answers on this site to HELP PEOPLE. Are ALL my answers accepted?

Hell no.

But a lot of them are and that's what keeps me coming back and contributing. It's my contention that with regard to mborges question, that the same reasoning will keep your audience coming back.

When you tell your readers you'll be accepting ads or sponsors from vendors that pass the grandmother/family test, you might at first see a drop off in numbers.

But as people get used to the idea, and as see that you're
actually telling the truth—that your sponsors DO pass the grandmother/family test, your numbers will go up again.

Can I prove this?

No. I can't. But as with anything that you're not sure of, the thing to do is to test it. Search for ethical food companies here:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=ethical+food+companies&aq=f...

Search for Fair trade food companies here:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fair+trade+food+companies&btnG=Search...

Search for healthy children's food companies here:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=healthy+children%27s+food+companies&b...

Search for family friendly food companies here:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=family+friendly+food+companies&btnG=S...

When you create a desire on the part of your audience for specific messages from companies they want to hear from you'll create an audience of advertisers. As you've already GOT the audience, your main challenge is to create a desire to place relevant messages IN FRONT of that audience.

One way figure out what companies your site visitors actually WANT to be exposed to is to AKS THEM.

Don't mention advertising.

Instead, ask what goods, products, and services they, as your audience, would find most useful, relevant, or compelling. The idea here is to create the proposition of value in the minds of your audience in terms of the goods they're looking for so that you can then deliver it to them.

What are parents looking for? I'm not a parent so I don't know.
But a list of things that springs to mind are: educational material; facts; comparisons; testimonials from other, like minded moms-and-dads; educational resources; recipes; information on health, well being, and day care; managing a busy schedule; age-appropriate movie, book, and game reviews; school-related and class appropriate supplemental information; information on vitamins, minerals, vacations, traveling, discipline, ADD, autism, sports, academic achievement, and so on.

That's what I'd say if I were going to suggest you attract advertisers.

But let's have some fun.

If your intention is to remain true to your core but to STILL create revenue streams, you don't HAVE to advertise OR offer coupons. You could raise money from exclusive, premium-rate, paid for content.

Now, before you tell me no one will pay for exclusive content, stop.
Yes, as a matter of fact, they will:

IF the content's good enough,
IF the content's RELEVANT ENOUGH, and
IF your offer is STRONG enough.

As with everything in business, it's all about positioning. But specifically online, it's about content, quality, desire, need, and an overall perception of regular value for money. When the perception of value received outweighs the loss of payment incurred, a strange thing happens: cost becomes elastic to such a degree that it becomes invisible. And when cost becomes invisible it is no longer a primary reason to reject the offer on the table.

In any transaction, our perception of "value" gained is driven by the the skills, status, position, knowledge etc., we acquire weighed against the direct amount of money we fork over. More status, knowledge, skills and we think screw the expense in a positive way. Less status, knowledge, skills and we think screw the expense in a negative way.

Offer people what they want, make it too tempting to pass on, and then add more value with a free or limited time, reduced cost offer which is then continued for a monthly fee and suddenly, risk is reversed and you are on your way to the bank with a hefty sum every month.

Don't believe me?

If we take just 1 percent of your total monthly visitation (7 million people) and we divide that figure again and take just 1 percent (700 people) of the original 1 percent (70,000) and we charge the group of 700 just $14.95 each, per month, for exclusive, members only content, your monthly revenue from that tiny group is $10,465.

That's $10,465 PER MONTH. Every month. That's a six figure per year business model. Even if you assume a monthly drop off rate of between 10 and 20 percent, as long as people are still joining at the other end (brought in by your stunning offer and amazing value), every month your revenue rate increases. And the average length of time people remain members of continuity schemes varies from 3 to 5 months, up to two years or more.

After a month or two, most people ignore nominal recurring credit card charges, and as long as the pain of disconnect—the risk of losing out and of going WITHOUT your information—is stronger than the urge to save a few bucks per month, the desire to remain an active member is maintained and even increased.

With recurring billing the decision to remain as part of your inner circle is then taken OUT of the picture. The easier it is to remain in the payment cycle the less chance there is that people will leave. And the more the quality of the content outweighs the pain of real or imagined "loss" through disconnect, the easier it is to remain as part of the inner circle.

And as long as this is all done without any underhand stuff, there's nothing to make it unethical or objectionable. Just keep the good content on your site FREE as always (to keep people coming back), but position the really GREAT stuff in a a positive, not to be missed light that's fun for all the family, and people will enroll BECAUSE THEY WANT TO.

You then reduce the risk of buyer's remorse setting in by offering
post sale free bonuses to engage the rule of reciprocity (you do a little something for them and you then surprise them with a bigger something) and people feel more inclined to remain as part of your plan. It's not deception. It's a simple "Thank you for doing business with us—here's a great gift for you to keep with out compliments, simply for trying "KID NUTRITION MONTHLY".

As the months go by, the more you offer free stuff, the higher the value needle swings in your favour and the longer you retain your audience.

And all without an ad in sight!

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA
Follow me on www.twitter.com @GaryBloomer

I posted a question on this forum concerning a web development project and was amazed by all of the self rightious responces. I was flat out told that my site was a stupid idea. I am now at 400,000 page views/month and am growing at 50-70 K per month.

Since then I stop by from time to time, but have not posted or replied since the rude behavior by some of the members of this exchange. Ok I have vented...

I just wanted to point out that "hits" is not an accurate way to measure traffic to a site. If a person visits a web page that has no pictures on it, that is one hit. If the page has 5 pictures on it, that is six hits. Hits mean little. I have seen people put 30-40 1 pxl X 1 pxl picures on every page on their site just to blow the number of "hits" sky high.

A much better metric is the number of page views (also available from your server log). Every time a person looks at a page on your site - it is another page view.

Back to your original question... one way to make some $$$ from your site would be to accept articles from advertisers on nutrition related topics. The content provider could be charged a fee for each page view to their article or for each time a visitor clicks on a link to the content providers site. This would require that the advertiser trusts you, but it is an option. Another option would be to provide a password that the visitors could use to get a discount on the content providers site.