Hi, My question is ' How can I get Online Parteners for my Forum' Like Contest 100 posts = this free ebook Best post award = Ipod etc. Please advice in detail, Advice from senior forumers will be highly preferred.
You have to convince them that it will be worth your time. Clearly, the reason businesses sponsor contests is for the exposure. The smaller your forums are, the harder it is going to be for you to find sponsors, and vice-versa. If your forums are large and you do have a targeted audience (businesses are more likely to sponsor a contest for the direct audience, not a general audience), then you just need to contact those businesses in private. Explain your contest to them, what you would like for them to offer, and "what's in it for them"
GTAce is exactly right. I recently partnered with an online business (relative to my forum niche), and they donated a $10 gift card to their shop for me to give away on my forum. They even offered to do it on a monthly basis. All I had to do in return was place one of their banner ads somewhere on my forum... and it ended up being above the thread list on forumdisplay.php. I needed the gift card for a certain raffle/event I had going on for the month of February. So I sent the owner an e-mail, explained what I was doing, asked if he'd be interested in sponsoring and hinted as to why it would benefit both of us. He was very generous and willing to sponsor my forum. In the end he was very happy with the deal, and I obviously was too. Some places will simply tell you "no"... and you're gonna have to live with that and try somewhere else. Don't come off as too greedy or "wanting"; simply ask if they would like to take it as a chance to market their store or whatever.
Advertisers like Traffic. On my new email forum I'm getting over 1000 visitors/day and I had an advertiser that came along, bought my top center leaderboard spot, and is doing a contest to give away a free month of online backups for my members/visitors. They get visitors going to their site, I get more registrations and a prize to give away! -Raymond
Ok, we all understand that advertisers like traffic, and that they will like to advertise on high traffic sites. Say you have a dead/new forum and need to FIND advertisers.Where can you find them, what is the best way to find advertisers that would want to sponsor a forum? I am also curious about this, thanks.