Advice on marketing a so far unsuccessful online venture

From: James Raposa <jraposa_at_risd.edu>
Date: Fri 17 Sep 2004 13:57:12 -0500

After trying for too long on my own to light a fire under this project,
I figured I'd open up the subject to suggestions from the esteemed
subscribers on this list.
 
About two years ago I became frustrated with editing pages on my
various sites by hand to update the affiliate links I was accumulating.
So, being a programmer by trade, I decided to make a tool for myself to
help automate the task as much as possible.
 
'Long story short... it ended up being a very nice, completely
web-based tool for doing exactly what I wanted it to do... that is allow
me to enter my affiliate link info. into an online database, along with
any scheduling information, and have it take care of rotating the "ads"
for me, across as many pages as I had inserted a tiny snippet of HTML
code into. As I used it and became familiar with it, I added all kinds
of neat features that I found I ended up needing. For instance, visitors
to sites using my system can purchase ad space right on-site, with 80%
of the proceeds going directly to the site's webmaster, and it's all
automatic! And now there's even a member directory that potential
advertisers can browse to find just the right site on which to
advertise.
 
Eventually I decided that with all the affiliates and web pages out
there in this great big online world, surely someone else would find
this hosted tool useful as well. So I added a "membership" front-end to
the whole thing and thus SponsorWorks.net was born.
 
There's an ad supported Free version that can be used along with a
couple of tiered subscriptions that can be purchased as well. All plans
however have the same powerful features enabled.
 
But despite marketing the product for over a year, I can't seem to even
give it away for free. I must admit I have used mostly free methods of
marketing because I just don't have the financial resources to do it any
other way.
 
Can anyone give me some advice for getting this thing going?
 
Jim Raposa
President/Founder
Millennium 3 Publishing
SponsorWorks.net
jraposa_at_sponsorworks.net






Received on Fri Sep 17 2004 - 13:57:12 CDT