When you run a successful online community, especially one targeted at a particular niche, you will have no shortage of people who want to reach your audience, in order to sell them something or put a service in front of them. This may be big business or it may be a one-off sale, perhaps the sale of a used item that the seller no longer needs.
Some of these people will spam your site. But, a percentage of them will want to reach your forums in a legitimate way, by advertising with you.
Unfortunately, many of these people will not have the budget to be able to afford a standard display advertisement. In some cases, it may not even make sense. If you have a piece of exercise equipment that is worth $100, you wouldn’t spend $100 on a banner ad. But, you might spend $5 or $10 for a thread in a special classified ad section on an active fitness community targeted at your geographic region.
This is where classified and thread based ads can be powerful. These micro ads give people a legitimate way to reach your audience that is within their budget and while they may not individually sell for a lot of money, when you are selling enough of them, they can add up to a substantial amount.
Have you heard of 99designs and/or Flippa? 99designs is the leader in crowdsourced design services and Flippa is the largest marketplace for buying and selling websites. When you look at these platforms and see how many listings there are, understand that each listing is purchased and eye-catching upgrades, like a bold font or highlighted listing, cost extra.
Would you believe that both of these popular, profitable, standalone companies began as individual forums on an established community? Well, they did. They were both borne out of the SitePoint Forums, one of the largest web development forums in the world, which had added a forum for website sales and a forum for design contests.
They had a great audience of web developers, web designers, programmers, online marketers and web professionals that people wanted to reach. But, for someone advertising an inexpensive service or selling a website or a domain name, it wouldn’t usually make sense to buy a traditional advertisement. To satisfy this demand, they eventually launched the SitePoint Marketplace, a set of individual forums that basically served as a classified ad section built right into the community. Each ad posted in it was a forum thread.
Posted in the regular forums, this would have been spam. But, in this special, dedicated section, it was completely acceptable. They charged enough to make it worthwhile, but not so much that it was unaffordable, ensuring that it was a solid value. New threads ranged in the vicinity of $5 through $40 or so.
Individual forums were matched against the demands of the community. Beyond design contests and website sales, there were sections for selling your domain name, web hosting deals, advertising sales and more. This increased revenue without adding additional display ads onto the website.
It was also a value-add to the community, as well, because they were targeted, offering visitors the types of things they were likely to be interested in. The effect was less, “Hey, that’s an ad!” and more, “I might actually want to buy this.” If it had been a haven for any random advertisement, for products that made no sense within the community, it would not have worked.
These sections grew to be so popular that, eventually, it made sense to spin them off into independent businesses with their own management and staff. Pricing changed, based on demand, and they added a number of ways to accessorize and enhance listings, leading to a slew of value-added services with additional costs attached. While there were plenty of iterations from being an individual forum to becoming a dedicated platform, that is the simplified story of their beginning and where they are now.
In addition, SitePoint also runs the smaller SitePoint Market for ads that don’t quite fit within the two spin-offs. In this section, the listings are free, but there are a number of add-on services that cost extra.
The best thing about this model is that it can work for anyone, as long as they have an audience that people want to reach. Instead of thinking about how you can sell a few ads for a high price, think about how you can sell a lot of small ads at a more affordable price. You do not need to be as big as SitePoint for this to work. Depending on your niche, it can take many forms, such as:
• Products and services
• Used goods
• Job listings
• Conference and event listings
• Directory of companies and service providers that serve your niche
These are just a few examples. Whatever your community is about, there are probably a lot of goods and services that relate to it. Because of that, there are likely people who would be interested in advertising, if given an attractive platform that is a visible part of the community and not an afterthought that no one ever looks at.
Beyond a dedicated section for classified-style advertisements, a thread can itself be a paid advertisement on your community. Since a forum post can contain text, images, embedded video from sites like YouTube and more, it represents an opportunity for a more detailed, engaging type of ad than would usually be contained in a standard size display ad. One can also set a thread title to entice people to take a look.
Unlike a thread or post in a dedicated classified ads section, an ad thread will usually be a thread posted within one of your regular discussion forums. In order to draw more attention to it, you can stick it to the top of the individual forum thread list and, perhaps, tie it into a sponsorship of that forum, in order to offer more value to advertisers and to be able to command a higher price.
Unless your community has very low traffic, selling an ad thread for $5 to $20 probably doesn’t make sense. Instead, price your threads in relation to the other advertisements that you sell, adjusting the cost based on the anticipated views.
Since there is sometimes more attention given to a thread when it is first posted, you may want to offer a small discount on renewals, as long as the advertiser is keeping the same thread and is not allowed to post a new one or bump their existing one. Generally, the term of the ad should be at least 30 days.
Speaking of expiration, you should determine whether or not a thread will be removed from your public forums once the time frame that the advertiser paid for has run out. If you plan to leave it up indefinitely, you should charge accordingly and may want to opt for a one time flat payment versus a monthly plan.
You can leave the thread open to replies; just make sure that the advertiser is on board with it and that they know that it will be treated like any other thread. Due to potential moderation headaches, and the possibility of it being bumped over and over again, it is sometimes a good idea to close the thread. But, every community will be different and there may be value in leaving the thread open, for both your community and your advertiser.
It is up to you what limitations you want to place on the advertisement itself. Perhaps you want to limit it in size by number of words or characters or limit the number of images or types of content that can be displayed. It comes down to what works best for your individual situation.
Since it is just a thread, it is very easy to sell ad threads on your own. The primary company working in this space, serving forums specifically, is PostRelease.
When you are in a dedicated section for advertisements or for classifieds, which is clearly labeled as such, you know what to expect. If that is what you offer, the organizational or taxonomic system that you create for those threads likely discloses that they are, in fact, paid for.
But, when you sell an ad thread and it is listed amongst regular threads started by your members, disclosure is imperative. You need to make it clear that what is being read is an ad. Here are some suggestions:
• Give the thread title a prefix (like “Advertisement:” or “Ad:”) or a suffix
• Include a line of text in the post with the ad, at the top, at the bottom or both, saying that it is an advertisement and has been paid for. Try not to make it the smallest font possible! You could also use a graphic for this
• If it is possible for you to set a specific thread type that has an icon next to it, when viewed from the individual forum or search results, set a specific thread type for advertisements
• Post all advertisement threads from a specific, designated account that, in its signature, notes that the post is an advertisement
By putting some or all of these strategies into place, you’ll be making it clear that the thread in question is an authorized ad and not a natural conversation or spam.
Here’s a side benefit that you may not have considered: these sorts of advertisements and dedicated sections can lighten the moderation load placed on you and your staff.
Let’s say that you have a section where you allow people to advertise for free. Maybe it was a good idea at first, but now it is out of hand and it takes a toll on your moderators, who have to sort through it, make sure people are respecting the guidelines of that section and, possibly, approve new threads.
Putting a price on those advertising threads, even a low cost of $5, will help sort through the mass of posts and cut down on the noise, while also supporting the community financially.
Some people who spam aren’t doing so with that intent and, given a dedicated area in which to advertise, would willingly put their thread into it, which can be beneficial for everyone.
There is great opportunity to be found in classified ad style forum sections. They allow you to offer a form of advertising that is accessible to most people, as opposed to standard advertisements that tend to be higher priced and limited to parties with a budget for them.
Meanwhile, advertisement threads allow you to offer advertisers deeper integration with your community, whether it is a standalone campaign or part of a larger ad buy that blends with traditional advertising.
As long as you have the audience, keep it targeted and make sure that people know that they are looking at advertisements, these options are definitely worth exploring