Advertising on TAY: your ideas wanted

Travertine, your idea sounds like something that could be useful as a fallback if the finances were not looking positive toward the end of the year. A last minute donation drive to put TAY into the black. But it would still be preferable to get some kind of revenue stream coming in each month an avoid that need.

Jason, your idea is a possibility. Not sure of all of the implications of doing something like that, though. If it seemed to be a TAY-sponsored event, especially in the mountains, I would guess there could be liability concerns and there could be permitting issues for a location such as Rainier. Having an event in town might remove some of those problems. Maybe there's a band whose members frequent TAY that would like to headline a benefit event at a bar?

Pete, just a clarification: on the testing forum the only pay-per-click ads are the Google ads (and as a publisher, TAY has to be very careful about what is said regarding these as per the Google TOS). The ads for gear shops are all pay-per-performance, ie. TAY gets a % of the sales price (as with the zazzle shirts). If pay-per-performance ads were going to be carried, it would probably be a good idea to try to get an idea about which online shops our membership frequents. I've signed up with two affiliate programs, giving access to pay-per-performance ads from the following shops (not all are represented on the testing forum at this point): rei.com, backcountry.com, altrec.com, moosejaw.com, e-omc.com, sierratradingpost.com, and mountaingear.com. I could also sign up with non-gear sites such as amazon.com.

Enzolola: if we are going to carry some ads, maybe you'd be in a position to give some guidance? I certainly don't know much about this, and suggestions from someone who does might help to bring in some revenue with the least amount of changes to the forum. If I was going to pursue pay-per-impression ads, perhaps from local shops, I could sure use some guidance as to setting rates and the major issues in negotiating. I'm assuming this is what you mean when you say, "get ads directly which will increase your margins" - skip the middleman and work directly with the advertiser?

I have to admit that when I look at the testing forum, I don't like what I see. Maybe I would get used to the new look? I probably wouldn't be too bothered by a single, not too large pay-per-impression ad placed somewhere in the header, especially if it was very relevant to our audience.

I keep trying to think of alternatives to packing every page with ads. Here are some I've come up with, partly based on the ideas in this thread:

• Donation drive(s): I sure hate it when NPR has theirs, but it appears that repetitive in-your-face actions are what it takes. I should try to get an estimate of how many members are active on the forum, but with over 2000 members, you'd think that it wouldn't be unreasonable to hope that 100? 200? could make a small donation once a year. 100 members x $10 each = $1000 would provide a good base of income. I can email the entire registered user base in one click. The drawback with this idea is that is cannot directly target forum users who have not registered ("lurkers"), and from my limited sampling there are typically several times more lurkers online than members (50 Guests, 8 Users right now).
• Advertiser's page(s) for pay-per-performance ads: instead of having this type of ad scattered through each forum page, perhaps there could be an advertiser's page (or board) on the forum. I could set up a thread for each advertiser's ads. Forum users could choose to look at a thread to find gear they were pursuing or for whatever promotions were being run by the advertiser. Clicking on an ad and following through with a purchase would result in a commission for TAY. The big unknown here is how much these pages would actually get used to make purchases.
• Put ads on non-forum TAY pages: There are a lot of trip photo gallery pages on this site which were written to attract searches, and a number of them work well. I could insert ads into these and try to keep advertising on the forum to a minimum. The only real drawback to this idea is that the trip photo gallery pages are static html, which would mean editing each one individually (there are over 200 of them).
• Paid forum membership, as suggested by vogtski: you'd think that $5 or $10 per year to access the forum wouldn't be unreasonable, but there are significant technical issues (ie. the forum software is not set up to make this automated, and I don't have the skills to hack to software to make it so). Any idea that would create two classes of forum users - those who had paid/donated vs. those who hadn't - is problematic for this reason. In addition, I guess this is something I'd rather avoid if at all possible. I like the idea of internet info being accessible to everyone.
• Auctions: one site I looked at recently has an interesting way of raising money. People/businesses donate items to be auctioned from the site, each item is listed in a thread in the Auction board, and members bid in the thread until the closing time for the auction. The winner sends payment to the web site, which then forwards the shipping info to donor, who is responsible for actually shipping the item out. Items auctioned that I've seen include gear, photographs, books, and services (ie. a slot on a guided tour). This auction idea might be one that local shops and service providers could support, but I haven't looked into it.

Of course, I could just stop taking so many three martini lunches. That would really help TAY's bottom line.

Charles, thanks for TAY.

I think you should go for the advertising.

Advertising is a win, win, win.

• TAY members win—the site remains alive and well, and if you choose to click through you can take advantage of offers and promotions from advertisers. We all buy ski gear, and most of us probably drool over gear on-line the same as we drool over telemetry and TR’s.  If you don’t like the advertising, don’t look at it or click on it—the forum content on TAY doesn’t change (much) and you still get what you ultimately came here for.

• Advertisers win because they get to talk to a very targeted demographic and can recognize profits by tracking click-through and ROI. We all buy gear. Why not buy from the companies who are are paying to keep this site alive and well?

• TAY, LLC wins. Advertising will be a lot easier to sell than organizing auctions & fund-drives. Advertisers renew which leads to a steady revenue stream and one that hopefully will be somewhat turn-key. IMO profits will be easier to recognize, and I say good for Charles if he is able to generate a lot more than a dollar for all his hard work. Think “hobby with benefits.”

Seems like we could have a get together once or twice a year where it is 5 dollars to join minimum or higher if one would like. I'm sure you'd get a big group pretty easily. As for places and times, I'll let others comment. It would bring in an annual income. Hey, you could even do it up at rainier or something for an august ski killing two birds with one stone, ending with a bbq somewhere else that night.

Sorry I haven't read through everything yet, but I saw this and it sounds like a sweet idea. I know I'd throw $10 down in a heartbeat to meet some great folks, share some great laughs (maybe music?), and put some names with faces. This way too, it keeps the site free, but it gathers those who really care in a fundraiser event. I'm sure you could probably tell some various companies about the fundraiser/bbq/whathaveyou. Once an ad manager for a company (for instance Black Diamond) sees how beneficial it would be to get their logo "sprayed" by giving free gear in a raffle (you could charge for tickets), or even by having a "sponsor booth" at the event, the road starts to work both ways. Not only will they be able to advertise their name, but people will come because they use a particular brand/company and feel loyal to it. I don't think it'd be far fetched to think that they might give avalungs, or skis from Rossingnol, or a splitboard from Burton to auction off. As far as venues, I glanced over the liability concept, and venues are pretty easy to come by. I was at a Kayaker fundraiser in the "Pagoda" in Pt. Defiance that was pretty cool, and I've been to venues like "The Swiss" that had a successful turnout as well. You've created something pretty awesome here. Thanks for doing that!

Charles

Tough call, I support you which everway you go. I know from our talks in the past that you put a remarkable amount of your time into TAY, I sort of lean towards whatever is easier for you and works best. I think all the previous ideas have merit but I do not know how one would adapt them easily into your business model with minimal effort.

CW

How much revenue is required per year? Maybe a variation on the December stop gap is just to publish, on the main page readably but not so big it's in the way of anything, the donation total YTD and expected amount needed for the year. That gives people something tangible to work with, and they can see how their $20 or whatever adds up.

Point of terminology: Does the word "Donation" have tax consequences? It might need to be termed "Subscription" or something even if you are not actually buying anything not otherwise available.

How about we just get in some donations and put off the advertising question until 2009? Mine just in: $41.32. One Mount Baker lift ticket. The site has inspired me to skin up instead of riding lifts more than once during the season, and I get to keep the health benefit.

Your formula: Lift Ticket price at your local mountain * the number of times you chose not to ride the lifts partly because of something cool you read on TAY * a percentage of your choosing.

BTW I didn't know this until a couple of minutes ago but the TAY donation page is easy to use with a credit card. Just don't press the Total button near the top after you enter CC info, because it will blow all your info away and you will have to retype it.