Guys, I need some advice. I recently launched my new site (see sig), but my startup company has pretty much no capital for marketing. I've been manually talking to people one on one through PM, but it's hard to do that without sending unsolicited PMs, plus it takes a long time. In a nutshell, my site is a place where you can buy and sell textads, just like AdBrite. I have both advertisers and publishers signed up, but it is a slow start. In regards to expanding my Ad Network and getting publishers interested in trying TextAdMarket over Adsense or AdBright, does anyone have any unique suggestions on ways I can market this? Forums like DP, WHT, and SitePoint have an AMAZING collection of talented webmasters and business owners, but you can't just go posting threads talking about your business idea. I need a marketing guru.
Are these seo friendly text links? The market is in extreme need for seo friendly text link brokers like your site. I don't think you need much promotion it will spread by word of mouth if you are setting it up like text-link-ads.com
Nope, it is banner based like AdBrite and Adsense. Major differences, my site uses a "cost per day" approach rather than CPC, prices are based off of supply & demand, prices update every midnight CDT, and publishers keep a heck of a lot more of their site's total revenue (we have a very low commission rate). Overall, I think my business concept is a pretty unique idea, and I've received a barrel of positive feedback. But still, the concept of marketing a new site is slow going at best. Are there any forums, threads, or places on sites like DigitalPoint where I could explain my business to a listening audience and recruit publishers to try my system out?
I think you picked the wrong way to do it. A service like text-link-ads.com with a 80% profit cut is desperately needed. instead your picking a saturated type of advertising, which is hard to overcome with little marketing budget.
Ya, you are probably right. That would be some tough code to pull off though. You'd have to have a set of code available for all types of website languages. Let's say, for fun, I had this sort of system made already. What would be the best way to announce my site to the world? (assume 80% payout for publishers, and natural text links like what text-link-ads does)
Just an affiliate program should be good. Id promote a site like that at my site dollarsblog.com cause Im desperately looking for better options than the current ones (TNX and text-link-ads.com), which are ok, but we need more choices than just two.
Agreed, I use TLA, but they keep 50% of my profits. I built TextAdMarket to be like Adsense/AdBright, but, it honestly wouldn't be that difficult for me to turn my site into something like TLA and serve up natural text links instead of text banners. I'll consider it, but I still think TextAdMarket beats the pants off of the other text banner providers. I can code like you won't believe, but marketing...not my thing.
I don't doubt you have a worthy product. But the problem you have is a low budget and lack of marketing skills. In that case, I recommend you compete with text-link-ads.com. If you do, ill be the first to sign up.
I'm pretty determined to get the word out though. Good product + determination to succeed. Affiliate sales might also work for my business, but, there comes the problem with our low commissions. We hardly make anything to begin with, so, that leaves no advertising money. I was hoping to advertise it free at first, and then it would just 'catch-on' because our rates were so low. Why would someone go with Adsense, when they could keep 30% more profits through TextAdMarket. <= My reasoning behind why my site "should" succeed as long as I am determined to get it off the ground. Snowball effect is what I'm hoping for.
I think your "if I make a similar service for better value, surely everyone will use it" philosophy is misguided. The problem is, you are a no-name site, while adsense etc are massive, and everyone relates them to what they do. You are only a competitor to them...and while your service is different in the details, it's still competing with the giants in the position that it would have in the average persons mind. If I made a cola that tasted exactly like Coca Cola, and sold it for cheaper, dyou think I would suddenly cripple Coca Cola and take a big chunk of their market share? No...because people don't buy the taste of Coca Cola, they buy it because it is Coca Cola. I know it's not a very good example, but I've just woken up! What I'm trying to say is that you have to give the prospect something they can relate you to in you having a unique position. If your position is 'owned' by a giant, then you're going to have a hard time finding people interested in wat you do, even if it is cheaper/better.
Good suggestions. While similar, my services are actually much much different from what google does. I should probably focus on my unique aspects more than the lower price pitch.
Definitely...the lower price pitch should be a reassurance that they are getting value for money...it should not be the main focus because at this stage people are sceptical of messages shouting out about "Low price guaranteed", "Save now!", "Why pay more?" etc
Okay, I'll change my pitch around a bit when I'm talking to people. But, back to my original question, where can I find people who I can talk to? Unsolicited PMs are not allowed, so, what are some other approaches I can take to get the word out that my service exists?
Looks nice, I'll keep this bookmarked and come back to it latter. But I would also suggest you try to make it diffrent from the others.
Thanks for the support guys! I've been getting a lot of publisher signups in the past week, but I still need to grow the network a lot to be taken seriously. Anyone have advice on recruiting publishers to try out my site's system?