Advertising on TAY: your ideas wanted

As for how the locals can play: There are good examples for this elsewhere. See posts by mtnlion on TGR and Epic, sierrajim and dawgcatching or whatever the name is on Epic and others. The last one even posts up big lists of sale items on their "special deals" thread and then links to it from his/her signature. They're also very much part of the community (yes I am an online marketing nerd). These users clearly understand how to get their name out there without spamming all the time. See how many times someone looking for gear is asked to "PM so and so. He has some." While these guys clearly ship stuff nationally and whatnot, you can easily see how the same model could be applied locally.

Also, having a link list of local shops would be helpful.

I took a look at Epic and the posters you mention, andyski, thanks for pointing this out. I don't have the number of posts needed to view stuff in signatures, it tells me, but I get the idea now. I'm not sure I like this way of doing things, though. My "vision", if I had one, for setting up and modifying our forum software was to get rid of as much fluff and other distractions as possible so that when someone wants to get conditions info, it's there in each thread in as pure a form as possible. That's why there are no avatars here (I even wanted to delete signatures but was convinced otherwise, and that's worked out OK because people are restrained with them). That's also why there are monthly boards for backcountry trip reports only, no exceptions, with separate boards for other types of discussions. I guess this is also why I am having trouble with the idea of adding traditional online ads to the forum, and why I like segregating the advertising into a separate, view-optional, board as we're testing now with the Shop for Gear board. I'd be happy to have local shops have a presence here by giving each a thread in that board, but I don't yet know if/how that might work and have been testing out other, more traditional, possibilities as well. You can take a look in the TRs parallel universe testing forum . There are not actual ads right now but rather placeholders, with one which appears in the header (displays on every page), and two others which appear when viewing a specific board or thread. Try to imagine ads from local shops in these spots...I'm interested in opinions on this.

I have implemented Aaron's idea here on the real TRs of suggesting that people who make a sale using the Yardsale board consider making a donation to TAY. I was able to figure out how to make a message appear on the posting page only for thread starters and only in the Yardsale board, so that nobody else has to see the message (of course someone posting WTB will see it too). You can check it out by going through the motions of starting a new thread in the Yardsale board. Opinions welcome on this too.

Dear Charles,

First of all thank you for all the work you have put into the website. Second, I just made a donation to help out a bit. Third I did not know about the donate link until today, I know that might be hard to believe but I do think you need to make it visually more prominent. How about an orange (complimentary to TAY blue) button?

I will read through this thread before offering any suggestions but in general my view is advertising is OK but please make it tasteful. One ad per page. www.snow-forecast.com is NOT a good example. I use the site and I hate the constant visual clutter.

Cheers
runningclouds

runningclouds, thank you for your donation! It is true that I reduced the prominence of the "donate" link, and I probably should change that back.

Marcus, I applied for an affiliate relationship for TAY with performancebike.com...and was turned down. No reason given, and my email inquiry as to why the application was rejected has not been answered. I mentioned your point, that many skiers bike in the summer, and also that the application was due to a member suggestion.

I haven't had much time lately to work on the advertising questions, so nothing new to report as far as local or other retailers. I should have more time in the near future. I have gotten the message that any in-your-face (ie. not view-optional) advertising should be restrained and limited in amount, and that goes along with my view. Now I just need to come up with a plan that will be of interest to the advertisers.

Marcus, I applied for an affiliate relationship for TAY with performancebike.com...and was turned down. No reason given, and my email inquiry as to why the application was rejected has not been answered. I mentioned your point, that many skiers bike in the summer, and also that the application was due to a member suggestion.

Interesting... guess I know where I won't be directing my bike-related funds. Hopefully they reconsider. Thanks for all your continued work on this.

Hey Charles,
As a long time cyclist recently turned backcountry skier I agree with your assessment that skiing and biking have a lot in common. A couple of my favorite bike part web sites that might be interested in advertising that I have been completely satisfied with are;

biketiresdirect.com/
aebike.com/

The bike tires direct product usually show up within 3 days of ordering ( from Portland) and AE bike will take a week. But both will not charge sales tax like performace or nashbar have to.

Thanks for your efforts