Re: Advice on marketing a so far unsuccessful online venture

From: David Hauslaib <david_at_jossip.com>
Date: Mon 20 Sep 2004 09:44:58 -0500

Jim Raposa said:

[
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.
]

I've come across your site before - though I don't recall how I was
referred - when researching automated ad sales systems for my own site.
There are two competing services out there that appear to be having
great success. The first is BlogAds [ http://www.blogads.com/ ],
primarily an ad vehicle for weblogs that allows web publishers to do
exactly what your service allows: sell ads directly from the site,
approve/reject ads, etc .. all with minimal effort and a simple line of
code. BlogAds takes a 20% cut - otherwise, it's free, and doesn't
require network ads to run on your site. Advertisers can also include
small images with their ad copy and click-thru URL. (The service is run
by Henry Copeland, an O-A member if I'm not mistaken.)

Then there's Market Banker [ http://www.marketbanker.com/ ], which is a
similar service but only deals in text ads. It takes a 25% fee from
publishers and, while it doesn't require publishers to run network ads,
they do have PPC text ads available as defaults when no paying ads are
scheduled.

So needless to say, you've got competition. Both of these services are
very easy to use, trusted among web publishers and effective (I just
started running BlogAds in addition to my other ad creatives and so far
am quite pleased). Your free service requires two house ads to run on a
publisher's site - not something too attractive to many smaller
publishers when they've got BlogAds or MB to turn to. And paying a
monthly fee for a service when they may not have any ads to deliver can
appear as throwing money into an open flame.

If you're going after independent web publishers, it's key to establish
a trusted base in the community - recognizable publishers you can "show
off" as using SponsorWorks.net. By seeing BlogAds on DailyKos.com and
Wonkette.com, I was more inclined to try them myself.

Cheers

David Hauslaib
Editor & Publisher
Jossip - Celebrity and media gossip and news
http://www.jossip.com






Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 09:44:58 CDT