Hello to dp community as i am in process of opening my own online sports betting company the marketing issue is biggest and most important issue for starting my business right with enuough amount of newcomers. so this days i research about forum posting advertising. It could be great and cheap way to promote my new betting site as on those betting forums are very much targeted related. So as we all know it is not allowed spamming there and i don't want to do it, i want to do forum posting marketing in legimit and proper way without getting banned from forum and mark my site as spam to betting community. So my conclusions are: - i would advertise with my signatures which would be visible to every post i have and in my signature will put link on my site (which i will not promote directly on forum, i would only post normally and give my participation there) - so forum participation is important, to have as much valuable posts there, so many people will spot my signature when participating in hot topics. - i also considered maybe paying anothers very active forum members which participate and have lot of daily posts who would like to sell their signatures BUT, in most of online sports betting forums SIGNATURES ARE NOT ALLOWED, and if they are allowed they don't allow putting there any links! Betting forums are very rigorous about that or any kind of advertising, direct or indirect! So, as i figured out, i can't write posts about my company as administrators of those forums will ban me, and can't put my site in my signature How to promote my new bookmaker web site on forums while they are so much strict with their regulations about indirect forum adverts? Do you have any good idea and know-how experience how to do it without getting banned there? links of 2 biggest sports betting forums to see what i am talking about: 1.) http://www.punterslounge.com/forum/ 2.) http://forum.bettingadvice.com/index.php
any of all you forum posting experts on dp, even those who are selling their forum posting services don't have nothing to add on this matter?
I wouldn't call it Mission Impossible, but I would call it Mission Difficult... There are literally thousands of forums out there and many are willing to let you advertise in the signature, AFTER you have proven your willingness to contribute to the community in a positive way... The biggest challenge you are going to find is that any website that relies on Google Adsense already knows that Google Adsense prohibits the placement of Adsense on a page encouraging or advertising gambling... What it comes down to is this: In the U.S. it is against the law to advertise gambling online... If you are doing it effectively, the Feds might notice and trouble your world... The looophole is that you are allowed to talk about the rules of the games, as long as you are not directly promoting the gambling itself... Another way around this is to only seek out forums in foreign countries that are not troubled by American Laws...
I have done a fair bit of work in this industry(although mostly poker related) and I can confirm that this is indeed a "Mission Difficult" as stated previously. A really good way for sites like yours to get exposure, assuming you offer some type of incentive system, is to hook up with sites that promote free bankrolls or "free bets". Also, you should add an affiliate system comparable to most of the major sites(checkout bodog). Otherwise people like my self have no reason to refer people. Here are some ideas to help get you some initial traffic: offer sports 'picks' to users that sign up to your mailing list if your picks are good offer a wider range of picks to people who bet on your site offer nice signup bonuses or "free bets" get decent support that do not respond with bs canned responses Also, you could start a 'review' competition on a large site like 2+2. Basically I thinking that you could offer x number of free bets to new signups and then give the person with the best 'review' of your site x more free bets. If you managed to keep all of the communication(the actual review and determining the winner) within a thread on 2+2 you could potentially get thousands of views and therefore a fair amount of quality leads.
LinksAndTraffic and tommason, thanks for your observations, they are really helpful you are right, it is mission difficulte, but later while searchng and investigating more i realized that some forums allow signatures althought they are not those most popular and biggest but that is also something. Some of them are not directly related to betting, but example, only soccer, or some money making opportunity forum where have betting section which could be also to some point ok to participate there. i think i will contact some of those big forums administartors to ask how much is advertising there on theirs topics, but suppose it is very expensive. I know about U.S. and my target country wouldn't be USA and i don't even want to have customers from USA. So basically need to search for forums mainly in UK, Europe, Australia ... and other countries which are my tartgeted ones. And after all, as you say, i don't want to advertise talking directly about my business - my major plan is only when someone asks some question about my business i will answer and participate there with explanations off course - otherwise i will contribute to those forums as any regular active member there hoping that my signature will give me enough exposure and get me visitors to my site. I hope i am not thinking about this wrong. Not sure how much really this will give me quality traffic but hoping the best. tommason, can you explain more about review competition? i can't find 2+2 site and don't understand how exactly is that working? give me some links on those sites which are related to review competition? i googled now and can't find nothing like this. It sounds very interesting and would like to investigate that!
It is going to be very hard to get a decent amount of traffic with forum posting if the big forums don't allow links. I would look at different methods of advertising.
In most forums, you can create a profile. In your profile, provide a link to your website. Then in your signature, you can post something like this: If you thought that was useful, check out my website (Link located in profile) Go to Google and search for forums related gambling or betting, or sports betting. Then join these forums and post valuable content. People you are targeting will read this, and if it is useful information they will check out your profile and your links. However, this should just be a part of your marketing efforts, and not your sole marketing tactic.
kwyser and vndnbrgj, Yes, off course i plan to have forum posting just as part of my marketing efforts. I just wanted to discuss this part of my marketing campaign here in this thread to see am i missing something. Beside that I am receiving some interesting ideas here. I see that you are all confirming my thoughts about forum posting, just not sure should I stick to it more and spend more time for forum posting issue or leave it away for all times. What i had in mind with my sole marketing techniques which i need to investigate this days more and make plan for them are: - email marketing campaign - social marketing (facebook, twitter) - video marketing (youtube) - article writing Do you think should this be enough to get a large number of visitors daily on my site or you have more good ideas? Every aspect of this marketing ways are complex disciplines for themselves to use them in proper way, so if you have some quality instructions i will be happy to hear them
In the US it is illegal to advertising an online gambling website however, there is a simple way around the law. You create a .Net that offers a related service for free then advertise your .Com (which charges money) on the .Net website. Because all advertisements first lead to the .Net, you are within the law. All the top online poker companies do it, that is how they are able to have their logos featured on TV, music videos, ETC. and get in trouble with the law. You can also focus your attention to alternative forums of advertising. You will often see online gambling companies in the news. Some examples: A sports betting company sent a group of climbers to the top of mount everest in order to prove they can 'Bet online from Anywhere". A sports betting company recently offered Spenser and Heidi a job. They don't want their job skills, they knew by doing this they would get their name all over the media. Whenever a strange item goes up on eBay (ex. piece of toast with jesus on it), there is an online gaming company that will try win the auction. There are countless examples of companies doing this and I think this would be your best approach to advertising. Even if it is on a much smaller scale. Hope this helps. Bretton
You could open a blog in foreign country. Then use a sig that advertises that blog. The blog itself would contain an "objective" article about your site. Any thoughts on this one?