I run a new video game forum that is only 4 months old and has a very small user base and little traffic. I've been working hard to increase the traffic and memberships and it is slowly picking up now. I decided that I am going to run a promotion for the month of May. I'm going to give away a 1600 Microsoft Points Card to one lucky member of the forum. To be eligible you would have to make at least “X amount†of posts during the month of May. (Final number not determined yet, but it’s going to be something like a 30 or 40 post requirement) Anyways, I just need some help coming up with ideas on how I can get the word out to the most people possible without having to pay any more money. Any ideas?
Posting on other forums is a good start. Also join groups that are related to your forum. Do blogging with your website link included.
Maybe find a Video-Gamer Forum or a few and start promoting it there if you want to go the Free route. Go to some major PR Game sites and write to their webmasters and see if you can exchange banners with them. But if I were you I wouldn't rely on Free methods to bring you quality traffic with minimal work. You would have to work your butt off to get targeted traffic with free methods, it's not that easy. If you want targeted traffic that will convert for you, master Adwords and go with PPC.
I'm just getting banned everywhere I post it... and my posts do not sound like advertisements or crazy promos or spam or anything like that They either ban me, or delete my post within minutes... or seconds... *sigh*
Well, it sounds like Pay Per Click is in your future (looking through my crystal ball) Did you try any link-exchanges with any other gamer sites? This might be your other option.
I havent tried link-exchanges with other video game sites because I'm new to this and really dont know what I'm doing #1. I dont know where I would put their link (on my site). #2. I dont know who to ask... there are the huge video game sites like IGN who would probably never link-exchange with me and all the small video game sites I find are really small and, well... junky. I signed up for Google Adwords a few weeks ago, but my budget is set at $10.00 so it almost never runs my Ads. When I first signed up about 3 weeks ago it ran my text Ad or whatever it is, I got 7 click, it charged me $1.37 and it hasnt ran again since... LOL *sigh*
Yeah, with Adwords, it's recommended that you set your daily budget at at least 5 times your actual budget. So if you're planning on spending $10/day you should at least go for $50 (that way your ads will display evenly throughout the day) And it's highly unlikely that Google will actually use all $50 of it. Just to be sure though, you might want to keep an eye on your ads throughout the day and adjust in accordingly...
HAHA when I said my budget was set to $10.00 that was $10.00 a month, not daily!! I'm a little guy... I cant afford to spend $10.00 a day on advertising! Not yet anyways... Edit: So I increased it from $10 to $60 - I'll see what happens. The Ad says: The "May Giveaway" Promo - Get 1600 Microsoft Points for FREE! Visit us
You might try to run a classified ad on Ebay. Craigslist is also maybe a good place to start for something like that.
Try posting your links on blogs saying the same thing. It's a numbers game, but you'll get some visitors. Then word of mouth will keep the fire going.
But it's so hard to find a good blog to post comments on! I found a couple, but i dont want to risk getting banned from any of them!! The promo doesnt start until May 1st so I still have almost 3 weeks to come up with ideas, but time is running out fast!
I have use linkconector beside adwords ,for me with there anti fraud tools your ads will not be charge twice from the same IP,I think so far only that what I know about them
Don't worry so much, that'll keep you from getting the word out. There's bound to be plenty of good microsoft related blogs that gets a ton of traffic and comments. They even ask you upfront for your url, so put a direct link in there if you're worried about being banned. If that doesn't work, try some social networking sites. I've gotten plenty off reddit/stumbleupon alone. Try that route if you're still not sure going through blogging.
I think you need a good gimmick, something to get people to post. Really, I do not know that providing things in return is the best way to go about it. You need to give them a reason to post that is something you create from within your forum. That does not necessarily take money, though throwing some money in the way of a great promotion can speed up the results in your favor.