Hey, This is actually a situation I am in right now. I am putting $7000 towards the development of one of my sites, www.DeuceAce.com The site is a poker forum mainly with a few extra things, articles, reviews, directory etc. but nothing else major. The forum isn't exactly new, there are 200+ members and just under 3000 posts, but I would still consider it as very new and will be working on it as if I just launched it. I am starting to budget what I will use the $7000 on. I just sent off a payment of $800 to vbulletinskinz.com for a new custom design - I think they are one of the best in the forum design industry. So..you have just over $6000 to build up a poker forum, it’s a highly competitive industry but I feel there is still space for another, quality forum. The money can be spent on development, content advertising/marketing or anything you think would help improve and develop the community. So...what are your first steps and what do you use the money for?
IMO, getting your poker ad noticed online is a big uphill battle. I would consider magazine advertisements showcasing the free community aspect.
Just curious, have you given any thought on how long it might take you to make that money back from the forum? Especially if the only revenue is ad sales?
Yep I think that might be one of the harder things, but I think I can do it. I have built up a lot of forums in saturated markets, the last was a webmaster forum which I just sold. I did magazine advertising before for a hosting forum but the ROI wasn't worth it at all. I don't think getting a return on my money will be any problem to be honest, the forum is making ok money right now and its tiny - I know how valuable the poker market is and there's no shortage of advertisers/affiliates. There's a lot of revenue sources for poker, once its built up a bit affiliating would work well too
Hmmm. . . . . Try a different subject matter with less competition? Seriously, I would invest in content, content, more content, and links. You will have to do some serious work to differentiate yourself and to pull ahead. A forum is not enough. Strategy Articles Poker Room Reviews Interviews with Poker Players Player Profiles Schedules Take all the usual stuff and give it a twist.
I just looked at overture terms...doesn't seem like you're going to get any SE traffic...I would focus on generating more content (paid forum posting) then small advertisements wherever you can... I would try adwords, overture, msn beta, 7search, etc for every poker related term at $.10
The obvious thing you could do is offer a bunch of freeroll tournaments and promote them on other sites/forums. Nothing people like more than free money...
try to come up with ways which help you to promote word of mouth. I think you need to be imaginative as far as marketing is concerned. To me all poker sites looks same
I would recommend you to invest some money on paid posting (to make your site look more active) and then start a contest with a very good prize (let's say 1000$ in cash) That will bring traffic alone (people are promoting contests like this for free) and then you will have a great clue for your cpc/cpm campaigns.
Just wanted to bump this back up, new custom design is finished so I am starting most work now. Anyone have any other ideas/suggestions? Thanks
You might want to look at doing an opt-in list for subscribers. In your newsletters send out poker tips and reviews for online poker rooms (include your aff link). If you PM your email I'll forward you a few that I get from Roy Rounder. He tries to sell his 'poker ebook' or whatever but he sends out poker advice to get you to look at his site. Seems like a good idea also check out the other forums like 2+2 and pocketfives since they would be your main competition.
I would invest in vbseo, spend $1000 on paid forum postings, spend $4000 on high pr links on poker related websites. Let the search engines do the rest, probably 6 months to a year before it takes off properly though.
I think Pokerroom.com has the ability to host a custom freeroll tourny and you can set up a private password for the users of your forum you could probably do a weekly $20 freeroll to help build your customer base and loyalty at relatively cheap costs.