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View Poll Results: Would you pay to advertise your forum?
Yes 48 65.75%
No 25 34.25%
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Feb 13th, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

In our 4 years ScubaBoard has rarely done any direct advertising (ppcs, banners, magazine ads), however, we do a lot of indirect promotion using stickers, tshirts, banners at events and anything else that will build word of mouth. This has worked well enough and brought us to about 1,000,000 posts. Still, the bigger you get the more you seem to do to keep the growth rate increasing. Word of mouth, inbound links and search engine links keep us growing nicely but we have begun (or I should say, re-activated) some ppc and print ad campaigns. Right now we are spending a few dollars here and there for ppc terms but it's very specific stuff and not really high bidding. The goal os any campaign for a community should be to target those people who will join and participate as best possible. For example, if you run a forum like DaniWeb's which covers hosting advertising for the term "web hosting" would probably not be an ideal use of money, especially if you compete for a top spot. The more specific the term and the more informative your ad is, the more likely you will be to attract people who want a forum. Remember, the goal is quality... quantity means nothing if you have a 0.01% sign up rate (unless the advertising is dirt cheap). Don't forget to count stickers, shirts, cds or anything else you can use to brand your name as part of your advertising campaign. Many sites forget the power of word of mouth yet word of mouth is what makes most sites what they are. The more you can feed off of what you have the better your campaign will be -- it is always easier to have your users help promote you (even if they don't realize it) than try to "cold call" new users.
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Ted S is offline Offline
40 posts
since Aug 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

Not at all. My site makes $0 so the likelihood of me forking over cash to advertise isn't going to happen.

Sure advertising it gets it's noticed more but if you don't sell anything on your site at what point do you stop spending money on it for no $$ based returns?

Just wanted to add TedS you're my hero! I love your modern insider site
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nathanaus is offline Offline
31 posts
since Dec 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

While I previously mentioned I'm a relatively big PPC spender, I have never invested a cent in advertising out of pocket. Once I began to notice the forums growing, I, just like many other forum admins, put up AdSense and started earning a bit of revenue. Since then, I started investing a portion of revenue into AdWords.
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cscgal is online now Online
13,645 posts
since Feb 2002
Feb 22nd, 2005
0

Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

That makes sense. I have ad sense up but its well lets just say it's not so good.

Also I'm not sure but I think I'm technically not allowed to make money of my site. It's a fan site that is given "exclusive" things for it by the official site, that the official site doesn't show, but part of that agreement is it has to be non commercial.
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nathanaus is offline Offline
31 posts
since Dec 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

nathanaus - You're right, there is a big differance betweeen a for profit business that happens to be a website and a fan site or not-for-profit site. If you aren't making money you probably don't want to spend much if anything, but at the same time people may be more likely to link to you for free given the non-profit nature of the site.
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Ted S is offline Offline
40 posts
since Aug 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

I hadn't thought of that. The difficulty there is finding a site with the right potential target audience. It's one thing to have link everywhere, its another to have value links that attract visitors.
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nathanaus is offline Offline
31 posts
since Dec 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
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Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

I would, and have advertised my forum (including on DaniWeb ), and it has definately been worth it. I believe any serious board should consider advertising.
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YoungCoder is offline Offline
193 posts
since Aug 2004
Feb 22nd, 2005
0

Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

As csc gal said, I came out the pockets once and made it right back selling ads. I also reinvest a portion of my revenue into ppc (adwords) and banner/textlinks. I'm thinking about do something as TedS as far as promotion. Being I do stay in Daytona Beach. I think it would be great.
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shortd81 is offline Offline
23 posts
since Sep 2004
May 20th, 2005
0

Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

Hi I'm new here.
I'm sure I already posted this, but can't find it!
I have small not-for-profit site with a mssageboard too adn whave got it lsited in search engines, but was wanting to push it further by paying to advertise. This is because some of the content is not on any other websites and I wanna b the first to have it etc!
so what's adwords like? Expensive?
Anyone know of any other free ways to improve traffic?
x
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hakakahn is offline Offline
2 posts
since May 2005
May 22nd, 2005
0

Re: Would you pay to advertise your forum?

If I am not mistaken adwords can get pretty expensive, I advise starting out something a little smaller scale, like advertising on a local site, all depending on what kind of site your site is.
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bigcurt is offline Offline
33 posts
since Feb 2005

This thread is more than three months old

No one has posted to this discussion for at least three months. Please let old threads die and do not reply to them unless you feel you have something new and valuable to contribute that absolutely must be added to make the discussion complete. Otherwise, please start a new thread in this forum instead.
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