How Would You Monetize An Established Pet Forum W/O Ticking Off The Members?

15 years ago

Hi Allen,

the first thing I would do, is offer users a place to advertise their dogs for stud services, and/or puppies. Also, grooming, kennelling etc. Free listings, plus premium listings for a fee.

This will also be a good way to get some of the 'guests' to stick around.

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KarlWarren

15 years ago

Additionally, how about adsense revenue share? Most forums have a plugin for this... your members can sign up to AdSense and add their publisher id into their profile. This way, THEY, the members, can benefit from continual posting too.

=== EDIT ===

I've already hijacked this thread - so decided to add to the post instead of adding another...

Add a 'premium' area where users can get access to:

Guides and articles, and discuss things away from the prying eyes of guests (similar to The War Room). Charge a ONE OFF only fee, a small amount - and you'll no doubt get some takers. Even if it's populated with PLR stuff on dog breeding etc - make the value proposition good and they'll love you for it.

As a matter of fact, I'm jealous - lol, with all these ideas coming out of my head, I wish the forum was mine

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Dan C. Rinnert 15 years ago

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KarlWarren

15 years ago

Ah flip... there's more...

If you really want to convert guests to members, offer a benefit (guide or something) for signing up (again, this could include the adsense rev. share.) And a NAG, similar to the one WF has (log out and go to the main forum list and you'll see it) asking WHY they're not a member yet... because members receive x, y, z.

You could make the rev. share %age dependent on whether they join your 'war room.'

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Allen Graves

15 years ago

Thanks Karl,

These are great ideas. The bulk of them are pretty easy to get set up too!

I shot you a PM with the URL just so you could take a look if you want.

Allen

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KarlWarren 15 years ago

Cheers, impressive stats with regard to the amount of topics/replies. I hope it turns into a modest income generator.

Kindest regards,
Karl.
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Seattle Mike 15 years ago

I like the classified idea. You are adding to the forum and not trying to change the forum sections they love.

And if you add the classifieds section. That would be acceptable to most to have your own featured ad banner at the top of each ad page. Or sell that top spot. Or even offer 5 featured ads per page for only $5 each.
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Michael Maddocks

15 years ago

How about showing ads only to guests and not to logged in users? Easily done with phpBB and probably one of the easiest and fastest solutions if you don't want to spend too much time on it.

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Steve Ranger

15 years ago

I'd just keep it simple and put Google AdSense adverts
above the topic title. This was recently done on a forum
I frequent that isn't related to IM and nobody batted an
eyelid. Google always impresses me by showing fairly
relative adverts.

Perhaps make an announcement if anyone asks what the
deal is and throw in additional Inbox space etc..

Originally Posted by Michael Maddocks

How about showing ads only to guests and not to logged in users? Easily done with phpBB and probably one of the easiest and fastest solutions if you don't want to spend too much time on it.

That sounds about right. Easy to do on most forums

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Shannon Herod

15 years ago

hey Alan,

I'm currently programming my new Focused 2 Win membership site and I have used some programming language that will allow me to show ads to nonmembers, but not too members.

Now, I'm using a WordPress blog so I do not know how to do it with a forum. I am sure that the technology exists.

I would check into that.

Talk soon,

Shannon Herod

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Bev Clement

15 years ago

Allen, I was an original member of ediets which is a paid membership site. As the site grew they started to add in extra features (new private areas) which were paid. Some of the members then complained, but they ignored it.

They gave current members a discount for a short time, which seemed to help.

Over the years they have added in many different things which are paid. Paid books, paid clothing, paid diary with the logo of the site.

I would imagine some people will object, but like Karl said there are lots of different things you can do to make money there.

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Profit-smart

15 years ago

You could go the membership route, and get your hands on a few hundred PLR products on pet training etc.

Just release 2 or 3 every month. Set a low entry barrier, say $10 a month.

You could offer further incentive to your members with some gold stars or something next to their names.

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Steve Ranger

15 years ago

I don't think that idea is very viable. How many pet
training products does a pet owner need!

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Profit-smart 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve Ranger

I don't think that idea is very viable. How many pet
training products does a pet owner need!

Just planting seeds. Who says everything has to be a training product?
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Black Hat Cat Banned 15 years ago

Originally Posted by Steve Ranger

I don't think that idea is very viable. How many pet
training products does a pet owner need!

Rookie.

It's not about how many they need, it's about how many they will buy. How many weight loss products does a fat person need? How many make money products does an aspiring internet marketer need?
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Steve Ranger

15 years ago

I didn't see you put 'etc' sorry. Getting late here!

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JohnMcCabe 15 years ago

Allen, the idea of having ads for guests but not members is a good start. As is adding classified sections, etc.

At some point, you probably want to give members a chance to line your pockets, too. Right?

One way you could do it is with the frog-in-hot-water approach. I'f you drop a frog into hot water, it will immediately thrash around trying to get out. Put the same frog into a pot of water at room temperature, then raise the heat, and the frog will float contentedly until it cooks.

You could apply the same theory to your forum members by setting up a rotation that shows an ad only 1 out of 10 views, then 1 out of 9, and so on. Your members will become gradually acclimated to the presence of the ads.
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Audrey Harvey

15 years ago

Allen, I had a pet niche forum at one stage, and there was fairly constant income from adsense ads, and they weren't very obtrusive at all.

In the past I have worked with a webmaster who had a social site in the dog niche, and he offered premium services to members for an additional fee, just as Karl suggested, and that didn't bother the members either. They had the option to stay free members, or they could upgrade and have access to more content. That would increase your workload in the forum though, if you have to regularly find new content for your premium members.

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Cute Pet Gazette

15 years ago

Although new to this particular forum I have 20 years experience in marketing/advertising/sales and 6 years in pet products and pet media production. Here's exactly my 2 cents.

NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER think that someone may be pissed because you offered them a product or service that relates to a topic they LOVE. It is never if you may offer something or "monetize the site".....it's what offers/ads you are going to do it with! If you start offering products related to penis enlargement at a pet forum....someone may get pissed. If you offer them unique links to pet vacation getaways in North America or specials on 1000's of collars from a link for example. NEVER EVER feel upset by offering pet and animal loving people around the world ways to spend their hard earned money for their pets. They will THANK YOU for offering them "options" to help their pets. Remember....just keep the options for your ads fresh, related, and relevant. Also...some pet sites pay huge commissions for any sales generated from your link.

Who cares whether they are guests or members. ALL of them are people who love pets. Offer them something fun, unique, updateable and these same guests or members will GLADLY pay for those products and services. You can never please everyone....especially with regards to emotions that can run high with our pets. In other words.....you will ALWAYS piss someone off for something in this business.....though never feel bad for offering them ways to show their own pets they love and care for them. I currently travel the world promoting over 175,000 pet products. And guest what? Its not even close to being enough!!!!! Online pet buying is going to skyrocket over the next few years. Start offering options to buy something on your site NOW. Get in early. And yes you ARE leaving money all over the place. Pet buyers are the best in the world and they will spend every penny they have on those wonderful creatures. Make it fun and easy to buy specialty pet gifts and you will get even more forum writers, members, and visitors.

By keeping the "ads" relevant, updated, fresh, and unique you will NEVER piss anyone off. Never has a real pet owner ever been offended by seeing a very relevant ad for a topic they desperately love. Ever. Let the monetizing begin!

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KarlWarren

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Cute Pet Gazette

Although new to this particular forum I have 20 years experience in marketing/advertising/sales and 6 years in pet products and pet media production. Here's exactly my 2 cents.

What a GREAT first post... welcome to the forum.

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Emily Meeks

15 years ago

I think I saw a CPA offer for pet medicine, as well as a wallpaper... the latter pays less than the former, but I'm sure your pet lovers would love a free puppy wallpaper

Try adding a Paypal donate button... you probably won't rake it in with this, but a few generous people may buy you a beer

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DogScout

15 years ago

When you ad an advertisement for a pet product, if the 1st ad ad is accompanied by a post that says something to the effect that the poster uses that product and the ad is being added as a service so others can try the product that is so good too, how can anyone complain?
Of course if you haven't used the product or know of some respected member of the forum that does, you can always go the -we've added ads to this forum (that are non-invasive, child safe and do not contain any spyware...be sure that is true) and any money we raise, a percentage will go the the breed's rescue organizations, it is also hard to complain. (A few diehards may ask what percent and say it is not enough, but when presented with the argument that the reason the percent is so low is that the ads don't generate a ton of income and we want to also cover the domain, hosting and moderating costs so the forum wouldn't have to rely on one person's good will to survive.)

If you find an affiliate program you would like to promote (I know of a real good one if you PM me, covers several dog niches) that no one uses. You might ask if anyone wants to try it out and invest a small amount in testing it.

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Dan C. Rinnert 15 years ago

Interesting that this particular post was resurrected now...

Earlier this week (or maybe it was last week), I was checking into a forum I used to be a member of. The forum owner pays for everything out of pocket. It's quite expensive, but it appears to be tied into some proprietary software that was written by a prior co-owner, now long gone. And the current owner doesn't know how to move it, so it is stuck with their current host. Plus, the owner does not appear willing to move to a different platform, preferring the current look and feel of the site (which, frankly, isn't that special).

Another thing to point out is that older threads are cleared out from time to time, so it's not like this site has an archive or a history to maintain. If you regularly clear out old content, it makes a move to a new system that much easier, because old stuff would be deleted at some point anyway.

The only income that the site generates is from selling memberships, which doesn't offer a whole lot of value. Mainly, it's just a way for people to support the site. By my estimation, there are about 13 paying members, which just covers a little over 25% of the operating expenses of the site.

Not being a member, I am not privy to anything happening behind the scenes, so I can only offer my observations based on what I see. (And I could be wrong on key points too.) Each time I visit, there appear to be fewer and fewer users on the site. It seems to be an almost annual occurrence where the owner will make a plea for help, which includes an offer for someone to come in and buy out the current owner and take over the site.

Nothing ever seems to happen, aside from (what appears to me) to be a steady decline in users. The last time I remember such a plea, it was in about the same proportions (memberships covering only about 25% of expenses). It almost as if this is a cut-and-paste annual message.

From what I see, users are open to changes. They are open to ads. People are used to ads. This particular owner seems to think that there is not enough traffic to make something like Google AdSense worthwhile, and that may be a correct assumption. I don't know what, if any, promotion is done for the site. My guess would be little to none, but I really have no idea. All I can see is what appears to me to be a decline in usage. Several popular areas have since been deleted because no one was using them anymore, for example. If there was more traffic, any advertising could become more worthwhile.

I think a lot will depend upon the relationship you have with your users. From this example, and from others I've seen, I think that it's often the owners that are more resistant to making changes than the users. I think most reasonable people understand that some measures need to be taken to ensure that the things they enjoy will stick around. Maybe it's membership fees. Maybe it's advertising. Maybe it's selling your own product. Maybe it's a combination of those things. I think the two most important things to the users are that what they enjoy will stick around and whatever measures are implemented to help ensure its survival are not annoying or disruptive.

If the concern is that users who have been contributing value content through their posts will see the ads and think that you're making money off of their work and they're not getting anything in return, you could try to avoid that by being upfront with everyone. You're adding advertising to help pay for the site and, yes, maybe even earn a profit. Maybe you'll tuck away a certain percentage of the profits as a safety net to cover the site's future needs, such as a new server, new software, etc. Saving it for a rainy day, as it were. Maybe you can donate a percentage of the profits to a dog charity of some sort, perhaps voted on by the users. Maybe you could add monetary awards for the best or most useful post of the month. Maybe you could partner with top contributors to create an eBook, then market it and share in the profits.

I just think that too often owners worry more about these things than the users. You'll always have a certain percentage of people that vehemently oppose any advertising, but I doubt it's a significant percentage. Just don't go overboard and feature ads that negatively impact the user experience. For example, ads that popup and cover the content I'm trying to read are a major annoyance.

The end result of not doing something may be a steadily declining membership that eventually ends with the site closing down, and that's not a situation good for the members or the owner.
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- jasondinner 15 years ago
  
  I'm surprised no one else mentioned this. Or maybe they did and I missed it.
  
  Why not rotate super targeted banner ads at the top of the forum.
  
  You know the 720 x 90 size long rectangular banners.
  
  You can go anywhere from dog training courses from Clickbank like "Sit, Stay, Fetch"
  and find some really cool sites with affiliate programs that sell organic dog food, bones,
  and anything else someone with a dog may need at any time.
  
  I just checked and Petco has an affiliate program too.
  Affiliate Program available at PETCO.com
  
  But I wouldn't just limit it to them. Like I said, rotate different banners for different
  sites and track your results so you can narrow down which ones produce the most
  revenue and stick to them.
  
  Another thing you can do aside from banners is put a sticky thread (like Allen does here)
  asking people what they usually like to buy online for their dog.
  
  They WILL tell you. This will make it a lot easier for you to give it to them as if
  you are doing them a favor (and you are) without pissing people off.
  
  But as you know with forums, some people will get pissed, but most won't.
  
  And if they do, they can leave and find another forum.
  
  You know enough about traffic generation that you can replace those few whiners
  with a lot more winners that won't mind you generating some revenue to cover
  your "operating expenses" for that site.
  
  It does cost you money to run it. Both in time and actual expenses.
  
  Hope this helps
  
  - Jason
  
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  innocent07 Banned 15 years ago
  
  15 Ways to Monetize a Forum
  
  1. Offer Paid Subscriptions
  Examples of paid subscription models includes offering premium features and services, materials, content for members who are willing to pay monthly or one-time fees.
  SEOBlueFart Forum has been very successful with this format. Uniqueness of content and user loyalty are two important factors which determine how well subscriptions will work for you.
  
  2. Use Relevant Affiliate programs.
  Web Hosting Ads work well with Webmaster forums. Dating website ads such as Mate1.com are compatible with lifestyle forums. The trick is to find a affiliate program that fits perfectly with your target audience.
  
  3. Make Private Advertising arrangements.
  From what I've heard, this is one of the best earners for forum owners. Your ad selling power will depend on the strength of your traffic and user community. Be pro-active in approaching advertisers and businesses.
  
  4. Seek Donations from members.
  Success in seeking donations will depend on community loyalty, forum age and quality of interaction/resources offered. Offer permanent links on a donor page to encourage donations.
  An example: Digital Point will give you a permanent PR 7 link when you donate $500 or more to offset their server costs. Being a fan of the forum, I'll willingly donate even if I didn't get a link back. User loyalty and interest in the community is most important here.
  
  5. Use Forums for Cross-promotional marketing
  Forum traffic is very useful when you have your own affiliate program or a main money site. Forum members are potential customers. Don't neglect them and focus on placing on-site ads alone.
  
  6. Set up a Fee-based marketplace
  This allows members to buy, sell or trade products and services. SitePoint and Earners Forum offer marketplaces which charge you a small fee in order to make a listing to sell any websites.
  
  7. Sell Sponsored "Sticky" Threads.
  Every forum owner knows that sticky threads are the most viewed item in every forum. Getting a monthly sponsor for them is easy because you've have a lot of traffic leverage to negotiate pricing.
  
  8. Find Sponsors for Forum sub-sections.
  If you have dozens of subsections with different topics, this will allow you to offer relevant advertising opportunities for potential sponsors. E.G. Car Insurance ads for a subsection on Automobiles/Import Tuning.
  
  9. Sell Sponsored Text links or Messages
  This allows for a lot of flexibility and offers advertisers maximum SEO benefit by allowing them to have keywords within content. These are usually placed under the first post of each thread. Footer links can also apply if your forum has many indexed pages, each with internal PR.
  
  10. Develop and Promote a Forum newsletter
  A newsletter can be used to update members and promote affiliate products personally. Great for niche forums who offer troubleshooting on specific products/topics. Remember to include opt-in options during the registration process.
  
  11. Create a Blog for Your Forum
  A blog on the same domain as the forum is useful if your forum has a large user base or sees a lot of traffic. It also allows you to sell paid reviews while offering another ad option for advertisers who want more exposure and personal recommendations.
  
  12. Pick up some Adsense Optimization Tips
  Learning how to optimize Adsense for forums is fairly important when you've never used contextual advertising for forums before.
  The learning process also involves continual tweaking and experimentation once you have enough traffic to allow for accurate ad placement testing.
  
  13. Search Optimize your Forum
  To continuously increase the number of forum members requires you to develop strong organic or search traffic. Developing some basic understanding of Forum SEO can be very helpful.
  
  14. Create an Online Store
  This allows you to sell affiliate products or your own products/tools. This can be digital or physical products, tools and can include relevant feeds from affiliate websites.
  
  15. Create an Affiliate program to Attract Advertisers
  An affiliate program rewards users for bringing in advertisers. This is a good way to give back to your readers while making full use of your community to develop monetization opportunities. One of my favorite tactics.
  
  Let the brainstorming begin
  
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  deeross 15 years ago
  
  I really liked JasonDinner's post. Great idea!
  
  How about creating a free report on a pet topic of interest to many members and/or guests, and putting affiliate links in the report? If the report shows the way to solve a problem, most of the readers would appreciate it.
  
  Dee
  
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Dennis Gaskill

15 years ago

I've always found that people respond well to the truth. Just tell them the forum keeps growing and you need to add advertising to help defray the rising costs. You'll get a few ninnies that bark, but I think most people would be understanding.

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Allen Graves

15 years ago

Thanks everybody!

You've got my hampster running at full speed!

I like the honesty factor and simply letting them know that we need to do this to support costs - along with the donation to a charity of their choice.

Allen

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Jesus Perez

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

I like the honesty factor and simply letting them know that we need to do this to support costs - along with the donation to a charity of their choice.

Allen

That's the best way. Everyone is fighting the same fight...it's all about the approach.

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Floyd Fisher

15 years ago

Allen:

PM me. I've got an idea on how to do it. But don't want to share it here because part of it involves a product I sell.

-Floyd

Thanks

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Nicola Lane

15 years ago

Find some good affiliate stuff - probably commission junction for things like pet supplies etc - then preface your ads with -

"please take a look at our sponsors - because when you make a purchase we get a small commission which helps to pay for running this site. Please be assured we only allow sponsors that provide things we would want to buy (and in some cases do!) ourselves."

Or something like that - some people will buy things they were on the fence about just to help you out.

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Allen Graves

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Nicola Lane

Find some good affiliate stuff - probably commission junction for things like pet supplies etc - then preface your ads with -

"please take a look at our sponsors - because when you make a purchase we get a small commission which helps to pay for running this site. Please be assured we only allow sponsors that provide things we would want to buy (and in some cases do!) ourselves."

Or something like that - some people will buy things they were on the fence about just to help you out.

Good idea - that also alleviates any FTC issues!

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Jay Jennings

15 years ago

As far as the "truth" option goes, you might want to send the members a message letting them know it costs money to run a forum (97% of them already know that) and that you were thinking of charging a membership fee but decided that advertising would be more fair to people who couldn't afford another bill.

Tell them to give it a month and then you'd like their opinion on whether the advertising is too obtrusive.

1. You've asked for help and most people love to give their opinion.

2. Most people will forget all about it before the month is up.

3. Since you've mentioned a membership fee most people who don't like ads probably won't say anything anyway because they'd rather see an ad than fork over cash. =

4. Profit! =

Jay Jennings

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AskiKaOwnzYou

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Allen Graves

Hi Warriors,

As I was brainstorming on how to increase lines of income this year, I realized that I have a very successful pet forum that already has hundreds of established members and gets thousands of "guest" hits every day.

There is currently no advertising or monetization on the site at all. I put it up a few years ago and have done nothing with it - just been checking it every week or so. Over the years it has developed a nice little member base and I even have a few moderators to keep everything clean.

If it were just the member traffic, I would leave it alone, but I feel I am leaving money on the table by not taking advantage of the "guest" traffic.

Now, I know how to monetize a site. The problem here is how NOT to tick off the members. Has anyone dealt with this before?

How would you monetize the forum without pissing off your current members? I wouldn't want them to leave the forum since they are the ones creating all the content for the "guests" to find. Not to mention this is completely on auto-pilot for me.

It is a forum for a specific dog breed using phpBB.

Thanks for your time and any guidance you could offer.

Respectfully,
Allen Graves

mate, you said you wanted to monetize your forum... take my advice and setup a small to medium business within tampa florida and/or usa or wherever the majority of users comes from....

Take the time to "speak to small to medium businesses" selling pet products online already...

FIND THE DESPARATE ONES that are just starting out (research envolved here - you want someone "begging you for business" - not a mafia-like prick that says "you would be lucky to have me"...)

Next: simply start a new thread sticky (OR WHATEVER, USE INTELLIGENCE) detailing "finally, online pet stores" - innocently quote some pet stores...

The users will not know that you're hard selling your own profits...

Because what you can do is create a "second pet store", not associated with your forums or yourself (hide owenrship). Work with a small to medium business to somehow create an affiliate path that you profit from...

Examples:

1. Create separate phone number for locals... They call that number (because you advertised it), then you receive percentage of profits (they will pay you percentage of profits, cloaked as "advertising costage" and you will need to "step up" and buy a business number from your local government (usually under $100USD)... It's time to "do something special"...

I will give you an example of what I myself do...

I have business number australia, I run my niche right... I have created my own niche website (like your forum), then I approached about 20 small to medium business owners, (most saw me as competition and where a-holes), finally I Found a select fiew I wanted to work with... Subsequently, my websites yeild their contact telephone numbers (but here's the catch) I setup new telephone numbers with those companie/s to answer the phone calls etc and pay me my "advertising costage"/ per action (per service in my instance)

Utilizing this effective profits role model, you can easily ask for 33% profits from any online/offline pet service stores (selling, servicing/washing/looking after/veterninaries, etc etc)...

All you got to do is perhaps make a (for example) "local verterinary clinics forum, place names of clinics and your own "conversion telephone numbers", every state in america, australia and the uk, you can contact one pet veterinaary, one online selling pet store (affiliate program), one "everything, then you can implement it into your website as a "guide" - as pet owners come to your forums, and need veterinary services or want to mass buy pet food online and have it delivered to their doorstep or look online for that "poodle pink dress", etc etc - YOU CAN BE THE MIDDLE MAN, BETWEEN THE ACTUAL SERVICE/SALE and the clientèle.

If done "tastefully, your forum visitors will be thanking you... all the way to the bank..."

(p.s. forum owners for niches are the MOST POWERFUL Internet websites possible... You can "HARD SELL" pet stuff to your members without them knowing it's coming from you...)

YOU HAVE THEIR EMAILS, YOU CAN SETUP ANOTHER WEBSITE CALLED "EMAILMARKETINGBLABLABLA.COM - ETC" AND HARD SELL PET STUFF TO YOUR MEMBERS WITHOUT THEM KNOWING...

Online secretly, email lists are purchased everyday, Trusted sources (top 4 websites) sell these lists to multi-million dollar corporations on a daily basis, knowing how powerful they are...

Imagine if someone ELSE had access to your mailing list from your forums (if you've not extracted it yet) - 100% qualified interest in pets, etc... now go to cj.com and other reputable affiliate websites, such as linkshare.com etc (try steer clear from clickbank offers, most are fraudulant or with little or no WORTH)

TO SUMMARIZE MY ON-GOING "BLABBER"

Do these things...

1. Email List (Generate One Of All your Users)
2. Try JUST ONCE emailing them from a separate resource.... Go To "Clickbank.com (the immoral but lucrative site) and lookup "etvcorp" it is a "satellite direct" (in the marketplace of cb.com once signed up), then read what the etvcorp program does, get a "hoplink" with your affiliate encoded into it...
3. Send an innocent email to all of your customers from "x person (i.e. "The FREE TV ExperT" etc...)... This will envolve creating a new email address, a new online identity, etc... Or simply get a mate of yours to do it so you're not doing anything immoral (well you are, but at same time, people are used to getting emails that they never asked for, hundreds of them, on a daily basis, you yourself know this to be true... what's one extra...)

Well anyway, that's one really simply, yet highly questionable exercise you could participate in... I thoroughly doubt your members will ever find out it came from your pet site (don't you?)...

There are many techniques used on a daily basis, however I will notify you that on ALL of my wesbsites (accept those that train webmasters - as i respect them) Most my websites have a disclaimer (but a f u c k i n g long disclaimer that users will give up reading after 5 minutes...) However at the middle, lower sections of this disclaimer, it clearly states "email address allowed to be used to such services as internet marketing, selling to lists, etc etc... so if any user registers on my websites, I am ALLOWED by law to inadvertantly email them anything I wish, whenever I wish, and without their knowledge.

It may sound immoral, however, provided there is always an "opt-out" in any email sent, it's 100% legal.

I've heard people online say "I got a 500 user list, I have a 2000 users list, I have a 100,000 user opt-in list..."

Well after a fiew weeks of SLOPPY WORK, someone could make a 100,000 "crappy" leads list, but imagine after a fiew years of focus...

The best webmasters no longer have to pay for advertising, they have their own "lists"...

List building is where it is at, my pet forum owner. If you're not "in the game of email - you're simply - "not in the game"...

To summarize...

1. SMB Refferal Business for pet forums WORKS.
2. Adsense works but gets u f-all profits and may assist in diminishing your website in a BIG WAY. (People don't remembr websites they clicked an adsense banner on, instead, they rememebr "where they ended up only) Do you really wanna spoil your website by incorporating adsense?

More advice... Incorporate only image ads... they are commonly from professionals and "Look good" - pet forums will look forward to coming back to "interact with the banners" - (this comes at the cost of knocking out the highest source of income "textual adsense advertisements"), however, if you look at youtube and facebook.com etc (sites i banner advertise on) - they've put tonnes of money into researching what keeps their users.... "BANNER ADS FROM ADSENSE is the way to go if u "really" need to adsense/adbrite/etc" your website.

There is also a really really annoying kontera.com, these f a g s advertise textually, so all text/content you have on your website gets highlighted (some words), but to be honest, ****ty profits and alot of the time they annoy users trying to not click them.

There is also your ability to finally "go offline" and launch your own "pet business" (of any sort whatsoever) - so do work with that small to medium businesses to get them buyers. then once you feel you "have enough buyers", simply launch your own company...

People like "ME" may be doing this on a two yearly basis, niche by niche at a time... If someone like myself would have a website like yours, I'd willingly spend one year getting smb's to pay me profits, etc, realizing it's automated full time, residual income for dropping "1 prominent link" in a non-evasive place on my website with the tag "NEW". F-ck, I'd even build my own online pet delivery service (selline pet bones, distributing petfood in bulk for cheaper prices)...

Let me finish with one last comment, "you're only as good as your experiences"...

My experiences have been with smb's (I tried selling "niche" online through affiliation for 10% profits... converted s h i t, made my site get lower rankings cos google penalizes affiliated websites hardcore...) Then I switched to smb niche business and worked with them... Suddenly 33% more conversions, and 33% final profits, I doubled the SMB's businesses and they paidup big-time - effectively granting me 33% their company profits for doing "f u c k all"....

end of..

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Mokai

15 years ago

have you thought about product creation? making a pet training guide, or a membership site were you offer monthly lessons and cross promote it on the forum via banner and stickies. Or build your list and promote what i mentioned above. ill go into a more thorough post tommorow to help ya out just getting late and im tired :p

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Bjarne Eldhuset 15 years ago

You could:

1. Interview the top posters + the most knowledgeable posters on your forum. Ask them to give you their top tips on a certain topic. Tell them that you have to make some money to keep the forum going, and that you want to split the profits with them.

2. When you have 25 interviews or something, make an ebook.

3. Give all 25 posters included in the book their own exclusive affiliate link + signature link so they can earn 50 percent of every sale (and you the other 50).

4. Every time they post, your ebook gets exposure from the top people on the forum.

5. Repeat ____ times. Make the interviews very specific, and you can keep pumping out attractive ebooks.

For example:
"25 Top Border Collie Potty Training Tips Exposed"
"25 Best Breakfast Recipies For Your Border Collie"
"25 Types Of Excercises Your Border Collie Loves"
"25 Things My Border Collie Ate That It Shouldn't Have"

And so on, and so on.
- Thanks
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