How to attract site sponsors

[TreeLife]

I sent my friend Bobby the link to this thread, he is a stihl, husky, echo dealer and runs himself a very nice business. Hopefully he will make contact and get in on this site!

 

[Bilge Rat]

Philbert has a good point.

I go on a boat forum mainly for the owners of their boats .
A few companies are on there that make things for boats have a tech monitoring the site.
Anyone that has a problem, question about their product gets a public reply from the tech that helps resolve the issue.

One company will ask for a shipping address and send a repair replacement part to you usually overnight.
This is a good company in it's own right that does the same thing if you call them direct during business hours.
With the tech monitoring the site i have posted an issue at night and had a reply before daylight the next day with a part shipment already in the works.
In short we buy from this company 10 to 1 over the competing brand.

OPE is the place for information, advice, knowledge anyway so this type of product support with some sort of low key advertizing could be a good fit here.

The money part of the equation is for someone else, i just spend it without a clue how to make it.

 

[Mastermind]

I've sent Bruce a link to this thread. Great ideas guys......

Remember.....I just moderate the place. Bruce is the Big Boss Jefe.

 

[Stump Shot]

I've sent Bruce a link to this thread. Great ideas guys......

Remember.....I just moderate the place. Bruce is the Big Boss Jefe.

... and for the love of decency, if an ad has a picture of a girl with a set of big hootyhoo's, it should lead you to said girl, not something else entirely. It's just the humane thing to do.

 

[MG porting]

... and for the love of decency, if an ad has a picture of a girl with a set of big hootyhoo's, it should lead you to said girl, not something else entirely. It's just the humane thing to do.

 

[drf256]

McMaster would be a good company to add. Many of us frequently purchase from them already. I can’t see how they could resist, especially if we complied a group of members that already have known accounts to show them the business bump they could get.

 

[Clemsonfor]

Grainger?

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[Mastermind]

McMaster would be a good company to add. Many of us frequently purchase from them already. I can’t see how they could resist, especially if we complied a group of members that already have known accounts to show them the business bump they could get.

True.

 

[USMC615]

... and for the love of decency, if an ad has a picture of a girl with a set of big hootyhoo's, it should lead you to said girl, not something else entirely. It's just the humane thing to do.

Audience chants...'Steve for Site President, Steve for Site President, etc, etc, etc'

 

[RedGas]

Former ad/pr guy here. Don't know a whole lot about Internet advertising specifically, but I suspect any potential sponsor is going to want to know numbers like # of members, how often they visit, how long they browse the forum, % of visitors who are in business or who would otherwise buy their products/services, etc. You want to show them you have as large an audience as possible, as affluent an audience as possible, with lots of sales prospects. I get the feeling the site is fairly new, so if you can show the (I suspect) explosive growth in # of members since site inception, that would probably help. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't know already, but throwing it out there, anyway.

Anything you can do to get more eyes on the site, the better – including flame wars, etc. More reader engagement (polls, questionaires, promo giveaways, buy/sell/trade, etc) is always good.

I bet a Google search of "how to sell internet advertising" or something like that would yield a lot of good info...

 

[Hinerman]

Yeah.....I know. It's not chainsaw related, but it is important to the site owner. I posted here because this forum has the most traffic.

I'm sure we have people in our membership that are in the advertising business....and in other occupations that depend on attracting advertisers.

So....let's do some brainstorming guys.

I suggested reaching out to arborist suppliers and offering a discounted rate on banner ads for a trial period.

Of course, we as members would need to try to do some business with those companies to show our support.

Thoughts?

I have to ask. Has the site owner tried to get companies to advertise without success? Sometimes all you have to do is ask.

If businesses do not want to advertise with OPE, then you have to ask yourself why. If something is preventing companies from advertising, that is in our control, then we may have a better idea of what we need to do.

 

[Clemsonfor]

With this forum being run by a company (huge advertisement for them) and with all the sponsors and ads that are here I would think that this place would be on auto pilot financially as long as it continues to be as it is now and grow larger everyday.

I know randy said it's not like the doors are about to close up, but is this just a quest for ever increasing revenues or is there a legit need for more funds/profit?



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[RedGas]

is this just a quest for ever increasing revenues or is there a legit need for more funds/profit?

What, exactly, determines what's a "legit need" and what's not a "legit need" – and who decides?

I want to make more money. Who doesn't? So whom do I ask to decide whether my desire to make more money is "legit" or not?

Is there a "Financial Affairs Legitimacy Bureau" or "Income Legitimacy Court" I need to petition?

Thoreau said all anyone legitimately "needs" is six feet to be buried upon.

 

[Marshy]

True.

Even Amazon. Another big name that I'm sure everyone uses. I dont even know how to go about asking some of these big guys if they want to sponsor an add... Grainger was a good suggestion though. I think online retail catered to things we purchase online often are going to be a good target sponsor. How about Ebay in general? Who doesnt use Ebay? Or paypal.

 

[Clemsonfor]

What, exactly, determines what's a "legit need" and what's not a "legit need" – and who decides?

I want to make more money. Who doesn't? So whom do I ask to decide whether my desire to make more money is "legit" or not?

Is there a "Financial Affairs Legitimacy Bureau" or "Income Legitimacy Court" I need to petition?

Thoreau said all anyone legitimately "needs" is six feet to be buried upon.

Good point.

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[Clemsonfor]

Even Amazon. Another big name that I'm sure everyone uses. I dont even know how to go about asking some of these big guys if they want to sponsor an add... Grainger was a good suggestion though. I think online retail catered to things we purchase online often are going to be a good target sponsor. How about Ebay in general? Who doesnt use Ebay? Or paypal.

Excellent ideas. It may come down to what the guy said yeterday with them. Traffic through the site. But you never know. They may want larger audiences? But I know if they ran specials with those coupons they run like 5% off everything or 5% off autoparts etc, for forum members for a limited time, type coupons, they would be used.

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[angelo c]

By my logic (or lack there of) a Rope first company would be an ideal "type" of advertiser. Does not directly compete with Owner and still offers a product line many of us use and could benefit from supporting. like Samson.com or Tueffelburger.com . Seems to be a natural fit for a "partner". I would suggest offering them a "sponsored" forum so that we could all discuss their particular product lines without fear of competition as they use retailers for sales.

 

[Marshy]

@Mastermind, I'd be happy to ask some companies if they would like to be sponsors. Just dont know the specific info to provide then if they have interest. If we as members wanted to ask a company if they have interest and they say yes, who should we funnel them to?

I bought some tire chain parts from a US company in the mid west and they were helpful. I'd have no shame asking them if they were interested in sponsoring an ad on the site.

 

[Mastermind]

@Mastermind, I'd be happy to ask some companies if they would like to be sponsors. Just dont know the specific info to provide then if they have interest. If we as members wanted to ask a company if they have interest and they say yes, who should we funnel them to?

I bought some tire chain parts from a US company in the mid west and they were helpful. I'd have no shame asking them if they were interested in sponsoring an ad on the site.

I'm not seeing any interest from the higher ups here.....so.

 

[Teemore]

The Site managers may wish to consider setting up a PayPal link for "Contributors" to the forum. Give folk the option of chipping in a donation. IF they donate to the forum, something to that effect can be flagged on their Site avatar. If you are a contributor (sponsor/donor whatever terminology you want) you get access to ALL the elements of the site. Non contributors dont get access to the full site. I'm thinking that the for sale section would only be open to contributors/sponsors.