How to monetize a forum with big traffic?

In the last few weeks, I've been in contact with an established artist in the US who told me he would launch a forum for his fans in the near future and that he would like me to moderate/monetize it. I accepted.

I'm here to ask you a couple questions. Here they are:
What kind of traffic would attract big advertisers?
How should are you supposed to approach advertisers (I have no experience)?
For how much money per month should I expect to sell the ad-banners?
How would you prepare yourself if you were in my situation?


PS: Getting traffic/activity in the beginning won't be a problem since this artist has between 500k-1.5M followers on Twitter. He will not only tweet the link to the forum frequently, but he will also try to post once a week to interact with the fans.

Is this the kind of once in a lifetime chance or am I having big expectations for no real reason?

Any insight would be appreciated!
Thank you!

 

Here are my answers.

1. All kinds of traffic can attract big advertisers, depend on niche. For example - If your visitors are kids and your forum is about cartoon, then your big advertiser could be "Walt Disney" "Pixar".

2. You may consider to place some text announcement or banner to let visitors know about the available space for advertising, with proven stats if available. Most of popular sites do not have to contact advertisers first but being contacted from them instead. If you are going to make an approach to advertisers yourself, make sure you have a miracle stats to show them. Advertisers need confident on the worth of their paid. They would like to be assured the budget spent to advertising with you are worth in every cents.

3. It is hard to say the exact price, and again it depends on niche and your site value. It could be vary from $xx - $x,xxx monthly upon agreement.

4. I would investigate to see if I have missed some potential on website or not first.

 

Im sure there will be sufficient interest from companies once you have this up and running but without evidence of the number of visitors and such figures you will be hard pushed to get a decent price from anyone.... it *can* be done before release but you will need to have an action plan and forecasts drawn up suitable to impress. It is easier to get big bucks from a site with at least 3 months traffic stats to show to clients interested in advertising there.

With that said, if the artist is that popular then you should surely set aside a small area of the forum to the artists own products?

 

why don't you try an ad network ? that would be the easiest way

 

You could try running different banner ads from the CPA networks advertising various niches and test what converts best. If you're more interested in selling straight to big advertisers, then I feel that you'd have to do a bit more digging. Find out the demographics of the traffic that comes to visit your artist's site, and then try to match that up with the prospective advertisers that you contact.

 

your can do advertisement through e-mail and through sms

 

I think there could be a few options open to you really: ad network, affiliate programs or individual sponsorship deals might all offer a starting point?

 

Thank you for all your answers. I have a few more:

1. Have any of you heard of Rep Agencies such as Gorilla Nation or Tribal Fusion?

2. Are they worth it or should I just approach potential advertisers by myself once I have big traffic?

3. Could anyone give me the links of forums raking big revenue from ads?

4. And do you think having a well-known artist backing the project facilitate finding top brand advertisers (once I have big traffic)?

Thank you very much.

 

If the guy is popular, sign up for an amazon associates account and make a commission off of sales of his shirts, hats,,, stuff like that.

Sign up for a google adsense account and put up some banners.

Those are the first two ideas that come to mind.

 

I am actually starting a forum soon that should go big, having to do with only marketing. It breaks marketing down into every category.

 

I was thinking of making a ''store'' in the forum where the fans will be able to buy shirts, hats, etc. with their points (they will gain points by posting/receiving positive rep). I think this will be a good way to get the fans to come back and contribute in the forums.

EDIT: I'd like to know if there is a thread somewhere in this forums about what kind of traffic would attract advertisers, etc. (I searched but didn't find anything). I'd like to see those numbers in order to set up some kind of specific goals in term of traffic. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Making a "store" in the forum for users to buy with points sounds workable, since the artist has such a huge base of fans.

 

Congratulations on this great opportunity! Sounds like a real winner.

I think the other DP members have offered great value in their suggestions but I just wanted to pipe in with one thought I think you should focus on...

You are asking the wrong question.

Don't ask "what kind of traffic would attract advertisers".

There are advertisers in every niche imaginable. For most websites the traffic is the hard part - and it sounds like your artist will take care of that.

Once the traffic starts coming then find ways to evaluate who is on the site (with polls, prizes, etc.).

You know it's "art" visitors. You know it's "fans of [artist name]".

But it would be awesome to know some additional demographics about them (age, location, interests, etc.)

Then use all the information you have about them to approach every advertiser you can find. Many will not be interested but you only need a select few to make this really profitable.

1.) Go to "art" websites and see who are advertising on their sites
2.) Find artists, museums, art supplies vendors, etc. and approach them
3.) Find affiliate managers at some of the top affiliate companies and pitch your site/visitor info at them and get their feedback

I would do a mix of CPM, CPA and straight "$xx - $x,xxx per month" ads. This way you can test and track and see where the most money comes from.

***Be sure to test and track your ads*** (this is how you are guaranteed to make the most money possible)


Congrats again and I wish you Wonderful Success!

Mike

 

I have contacts with several big online advertising companies. They might be interested in a partnership with you but right now it sounds like all that you have is the idea and not an actual product to show them with traffic figures and hard statistics. You may need to build the online brand first before you get a contract opportunity with an advertiser.

If you're interested in speaking about it further, contact me via private message.

 

I've worked with most of the world's major advertisers (Disney, Sony, Virgin, and loads more) and most aren't interested in forum traffic. The reason is that forum traffic is extremely poor at converting/clicking on ads.

I would definitely explore other options like getting them to spend money on items related to the artist.

Or even use the traffic/audience as a marketing engine for other artists/companies (that you charge for the service)