As we all wait for PR update (which might happen or might not)- I am thinking of changing the Advertising rates (Site-wides/Banner Ads) on my Premiere site based on Traffic. I feel that it is offering more value to the advertisers by way of increase in traffic by a a big margin. It has been consistently increasing over the last 3 months or so. My question is -- 1) What is the better way to deal with my current advertisers? How can I inform them about the change of rates without looking Greedy? 2) - I certainly care a lot about my existing advertisers. But how can I deal if they are not happy with the change in advertising rates? I'll be really glad to read you advices as I feel the situation is quite embarassing for me as I know most of my advertisers
The consensus on advertising was keep prices the same for current advertisers unless they cancel. All new advertisers come in at new prices.
I cannot agree with this, if we are talking about monthly subscription. What if you have PR4 directory that goes up to 7 and traffic increases 10 fold? You cannot continue charging $10 per month, right?
I would say that allready existing advertises keep the old pricess, but new ones will have to pay more. This also goes for the advertisers that cancels their subscription now and comes back later.
current advertizers should have the priority if they want to keep their subscription other than that, it is a monthly contract not permanent. both parties can cancel it. However you should give them 1 or 2 month notice for the price changes.
What I think is fair is this: Contact all of your subscribers and notify them of a change in price. You don't need to give new prices immediately but notify them that in say 4-6 months time at a certain date prices will be changing. As a current subscriber they will have priority if they wish to keep there spot or not. Changing it on the fly is not fair however if you give your customers proper notification of a change coming that gives them the ability to say ok do I want to pay more or look elsewhere? I don't expect the sites I advertise with to keep there current prices forever; I know they will go up however I do expect them to give me time to consider my options. Best Regards, Rob
It may also depend of your terms and agreements. If we take a look at iWebTool - there was little bit ADO, but in the end all forgot ... I know people still can be mad about canceling subscription or changing prices - but rules are rules. If it says it can be changed or canceled - this is what advertisers agreed. Reasons for cancellation or changing prices can be different. Sometimes we need to limit number of ads, sometimes it concerns boost in PR or traffic. We can't be outside of it all. I understand AnOn as he's one of TOP advertisers. However everytime it has 2 sides. If changing prices or canceling it is of course your duty to inform current advertisers much earlier. Even if your terms say it clear. And don't forget to be polite BTW. Good luck with your ads Rob. Wishing you prices not changed
haha... this was the same thing happened with me ... i decided and i was trashed here at DP called QBC because some fellows think that Subscription can only be cancelled by the Buyer not the seller !! Do what you think is the best man ... i think you have a choice to do w.e u want to do with your site and i agree that you are right... When you start in the beginning you have not that much to offer but as the site grows your value increases. But some people have a hard time understanding so do not be surprised if you are harshly attacked here.
Wow --thanks for the great feedbacks. Please keep them coming So far I understood -- *** the current advertisers should get all the preferences till they do not want to advertise anymore. *** They should be charged at old rates. *** They should be notified well in advance --and given around 3-6 months time. I believe --this discussion will help many of us who are in dilemna. On the one hand - increased promotions also increases your maintenance cost. So you too want to get good returns for the hard work you put in. At the same time you do not want to look greedy -- very precarious position indeed. Let me share one of my experience -- I have been having advertising on this site for last few months now --it sends me good traffic thatis commensurate to the rates. Recently I have been informed -of change in their advertising plans-well in advance of more than 2 weeks. Never gave it a serious thought. But I understand - our industry is different. Although most of us have not seen each other in real life-- we have a strong bond among us. ( I spend more time -on DP than anywhere else). So friends --lets express our mind on it and try to reach a consensus (though Rob has already given the generally accepted consensus -)
whats a proper notification a YEAR ???? Each individual have different definition of Proper .... I think 3 weeks is a good enough notice heck add 1 more week and its a MONTH ???? If i give them a 1 month notice their next payment has already arrived ... Than thats another month of wait ?? so i should just hold on my advertisement for another month because i am out of funds ??? I think not
Very True Smub. Remember you do have TOTAL CONTROL over what you do with your site. However you have almost NO CONTROL over your reputation and what other members think of you on the board. Therefor always say is this good for my customer? Is this good for me? Always try and find a middle ground. And as Dargre said; always be polite; these people are paying customers and deserve to be treated with respect. Respect is alot easier to maintain then gain back.
Since you know most of them, I think the best way is talk to them directly about the change of advertising rate. I am sure they would understand. I would probably offer my long term advertisers a discount rate.
@john We've already spoke about this little while ago. You're right in saying us webmasters who stick around DP and even yahoo messenger do have a diff. kind of bond. One thing I question is, when a directory owner says traffic has increased and they want to raise the current prices, should they also justify what that 'increase in traffic is'? Being on so many sites and advertising everywhere, I can pretty much justify a price easily, and either say yay or nay. Question: Do you think it would be beneficial to the advertiser to be able to know such stats being claim, since they have been there all along? In my eyes: If i see an increase from 4-5000 uniques to say 20,000, sure, that's justifiable. seeing 4-5000 uniques to say 6-7000 and an increase of 50% of the original cost is most definitely not worth it. Another thing is what type of visitors are they getting? Are they just coming from word of mouth? Are they coming from DP signature links just to browse? Are they coming from (most important to me personally)Search Engines? While advertising elsewhere we may not get this type of info, but webmaster to webmaster, we do have this type of info. So should it be presentable in any type of price justification and/or increase? I see people asking insane prices but never any justifiable means of stats. Only the 'I have this', 'I do that', yadda yadda blah blah stuff. (if fellow DPers decide to hijack the thread on us here, we can always chat on yahoo as per norm ) @smub reread it.
I don't see a problem with increasing the rate of your monthly subscribers unless there is an agreement for a set term. If no agreement exists then month-to-month is just that. That said, to try and keep a good relationship going and not too appear too 'greedy' I would offer existing advertisers a discount off the new rates and maybe an opportunity to 'lock-in' for a longer period to avoid future price increases. The real lesson here is that if you can 'lock-in' at low 6-month and yearly rates grab them. I made a post a while back on the advantage of this and I will probably make an in-depth blog post on this topic next month. Chris is very good at doing this and because of that he ends up with some great links at very low-cost (I know this because he has recieved some good value from buying links on my new sites that get PR3 and PR4 just a few months later). Oh, and as far as notice I think one full month at least is best.
Totally agree on this. If the value of your service has increased then you should act accordingly. However it would be good to inform your clients before you do this. One month is enough I think.
Give people lots of notice and an honest explanation and you should be fine. You can also offer existing advertisers a bonus for signing up to the new rate.
If we have not made any agreement prior subscribing, then I think the seller can change the price if he needs. - But better to keep the link till the next PR/backlink update. - Also previous email/PM discussion would be fine too.
I keep the old rates because the buyers agreed with it. New changes only apply to new buyers. I think that's the best. If you want to charge a new rate for existing customers, you should inform it before they agree to buy a link. Otherwise, you may lose your costumer. Notification may be good, but that may give them rather a negative impression especially about raising the price to keep their links.
That is something I can't compromise at any cost. I don't want to look greedy --as I am not. have to agree with ya. And thanks to you I could verify my site with Google Analytics. I'll show you the stats tomorrow which is not great though. It just increased from 600 uniques per month to (at the time of Ad sell) 4500 uniques in the first 20 days of August I am aiming for 10K uniques in 3/4 months time. Thanks to all my friends and collegues for your super feedbacks. I think these discussions will help me solve my dilemna.