[Make Money?]

Originally Posted by GrendelKhan{TSU

ok. so like everyone's covered most of range of possibilities... which is great and very useful (the point being..it is possible to at least not be in the hole every month).

so let's say someone has a new board and growing with all the required minimum whatever to make money.

HOW would you recommend that person implement their ads for the first time?

My forums ads are very often custom made - just to run on my forum. The CPM is VERY high.. its not competitive with other Internet banner opportunities. we run NO generic ads, no ad agency's serve our ads we serve them ourselves. We reject ads that aren't specific to the core topic of the forum..

If you are in a NICHE market as I am, perhaps start by giving AWAY ads to key players to make your self look cool and attractive to other potential advertisers in the same NICHE MARKET.

or use your banner ad area to run competitions - give aways - that might make people pay attention to the banner area.

As more (paying) folks come aboard slowly creep your prices up... start to charge the freebie customer..

We try to stay number one in our topic field but it is hard...

I find things snowball, success breeds success..

I do a LOT of hard sell work to get the ads to come in.. I pound around on foot at 3 & 4 days trade shows twice, sometimes three times a year in the USA and Europe to sell ads for the forum.. most of the work is persuading folks to drop print ad budget to come and spend it with us instead.

That's my story, I am sure everyones' is a different one..

it feels good to give something back...

I've just been take, take, taking on this forum...