BOI sponsorships..

I know you have all heard me voice concerns about the BOI surviving because of financial constraints when I retire... Well that day is quickly coming upon us. I have had several people ask me about sponsorships to other forums, and I have to admit I haven't given it a whole lot of thought, since I had most forums here with the capability of accepting sponsorships a while back. But after lack of use, I removed most of them and haven't thought about addressing that issue much since then. This got me to thinking about the possibility of DIRECT sponsorships for the BOI itself, in an effort to generate funds for the survival of that particular forum on this site.

I decided to add a bit of incentive to this sponsorship by making it possible for sponsors to place 120x60 banner ad graphics in this section for people to see, instead of regular text links like I have been using for sponsorships. This is all handled via my http://www.FaunaAds.com website, so anyone already having an account there can take advantage of this offering immediately and are likely well familiar with the process.

Anyone interested but not already registered on FaunaAds, will need to register before placing the ads. You will need to create your own 120x60 .GIF or .JPG banner and overcome the slight learning curve. It's all done self service and payments into your account there is handled via PayPal. I suggest that you read the FAQ section before creating your first ad, though, so you have a better idea about how to do this correctly.

Certainly this is just a shot in the dark, and I have no idea if it will fly at all, but I figured I would give it a shot. Each banner ad sponsorship is only $2 per day in one of the most widely read forums in this business. Not only do you get a lot of exposure from this ad, but you are also going on record for directly supporting the BOI with your sponsorship. I've heard countless people say that the BOI is invaluable to this industry. Well, guys the warning flag is now on the field. I've been sticking my neck out for a long time with this, and putting myself in legal and financial jeopardy by allowing YOU to be able to post about the bad guys. How about showing everyone that you DIRECTLY support the BOI and what it is doing for everyone?

So anyway, let's just see what happens from here...

When I first joined here back in '05 I think there was a $10 membership fee for BOI posting privileges. Why not bring that back as something like an Official BOI Supporter membership level. You could make up a special BOI coin and throw in a few of the perks that one would get from being Contributor Level. In hard times, $10 is a little easier to cough up than $25, and might draw in a few people that were previously on the fence about paid membership.

Rich, how do the sponsorships work?

Are they montly, yearly? Can they be made weekly/bi weekly?

Originally Posted by ApexPredatorBoids

When I first joined here back in '05 I think there was a $10 membership fee for BOI posting privileges. Why not bring that back as something like an Official BOI Supporter membership level. You could make up a special BOI coin and throw in a few of the perks that one would get from being Contributor Level. In hard times, $10 is a little easier to cough up than $25, and might draw in a few people that were previously on the fence about paid membership.

Well, I'll have to think about this one. There are some things I would need to think about to see if I can sidestep any possible unintended consequences.

But thanks for the thoughts.

Originally Posted by Mooing Tricycle

Rich, how do the sponsorships work?

Are they montly, yearly? Can they be made weekly/bi weekly?

Actually the one I just put on the BOI is daily, kind of. But paying into the account on FaunaAds has a minimum of $10, so I guess the minimum banner ad run would be 5 days if this option is used exclusively. Of course, any advertiser and/or sponsor can allocate funds from their account in any manner they choose among multiple advertising avenues.

The regular forum sponsorships using the text links has been yearly. Depending on how the banners go over in the BOI, I may switch them all over to being graphical banner ads in the same format. One major benefit is that the FaunaAds script automates EVERYTHING about this function. With the current text ads, I had to set it up manually, then check for expirations periodically and nag the sponsors when it expired. Truthfully, it kind of frustrates me when I ask someone if they are going to renew so I know whether or not I need to remove the link and they don't even have the courtesy to give me a reply. So with the FaunaAds script, I don't have to worry about that. When the funds in the account runs dry, the ad disappears automatically.

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Actually the one I just put on the BOI is daily, kind of. But paying into the account on FaunaAds has a minimum of $10, so I guess the minimum banner ad run would be 5 days if this option is used exclusively. Of course, any advertiser and/or sponsor can allocate funds from their account in any manner they choose among multiple advertising avenues.

The regular forum sponsorships using the text links has been yearly. Depending on how the banners go over in the BOI, I may switch them all over to being graphical banner ads in the same format. One major benefit is that the FaunaAds script automates EVERYTHING about this function. With the current text ads, I had to set it up manually, then check for expirations periodically and nag the sponsors when it expired. Truthfully, it kind of frustrates me when I ask someone if they are going to renew so I know whether or not I need to remove the link and they don't even have the courtesy to give me a reply. So with the FaunaAds script, I don't have to worry about that. When the funds in the account runs dry, the ad disappears automatically.

Very awesome!!! 5 days is a good run, and i like that its not a whole year ( might not have babies for that long, maybe i will, who knows. LOL ) Ill have to do this for myself!!

Thanks for answering my question rich, i think visual ad's for people is a GREAT GREAT GREAT idea

Originally Posted by WebSlave

The regular forum sponsorships using the text links has been yearly. Depending on how the banners go over in the BOI, I may switch them all over to being graphical banner ads in the same format. One major benefit is that the FaunaAds script automates EVERYTHING about this function. With the current text ads, I had to set it up manually, then check for expirations periodically and nag the sponsors when it expired. Truthfully, it kind of frustrates me when I ask someone if they are going to renew so I know whether or not I need to remove the link and they don't even have the courtesy to give me a reply. So with the FaunaAds script, I don't have to worry about that. When the funds in the account runs dry, the ad disappears automatically.

Personally, I have been thinking about becoming a sponsor on the bearded dragon forums, but I like the idea of being able to have a graphical banner instead of the text link. It would take out the option of having to scroll down constantly to get to the posts. If you have 10 sponsors, you have 10 links to get through until you hit the forums themselves, and can be kind of a pain. Putting it like the BOI sponsorship ads would make it much easier to get around, plus it would take out the problem with you having to make sure things are current. Plus it just looks better IMO.
I think you should really consider doing a yearly option for people as well for the BOI sponsorship at a decent price. I don't know how much harder it would be to give different options for the sponsorships (maybe daily, monthy, bi-monthy, 6 months and a year?), but it might open more people into purchasing it. I know I would rather buy an ad for a time period than having to pay every few days...
Although some of us do not have babies year round (me included), some do have a lot of informational stuff on their website that people like to see. It helps to draw in customers to see what you know, which usually drives them to keep checking back for available animals. Plus, there is the all-important Google ratings issue. And for those of us that are horrible about remembering to ad funds to the account, a one-time fee would be much easier.

Actually that's a good idea, but the software I am using for the banner ads does not allow that option. And I certainly could not do it manually. That being said, the software script I am using for FaunaAds has recently been abandoned by the developers, so I am looking at another script. It's just that right now with hatching season imminent, I can't really tackle something of the magnitude of a complete conversion of my entire advertising system. And as to whether or not the newer script has the above mentioned capability, I really don't know. Nearly all of them I have looked at are pretty standard in the manner that I can set up the way banner and text ads are purchased by advertisers.

Generally, these are the only options:

1. Cost per day
2. Cost per click
3. Cost per 1K impressions

Of the three, the cost per day seemed the easiest for most people to understand. I used to use the "cost per 1k impressions" option with the original script I used to use, but I got worn out replying to questions concerning how long their ad would run per 1K impressions. And I was never much interested in the cost per click option, since that one neglects the value of visual recognition and imprint memory that takes place just from people seeing the ad.

With the way I have it set up, the advertiser can select when he/she wants the ad to run, and for how long. If I expand this into the other forums as well, then they can fully control WHERE they want that ad to appear as well. Which in a way can be done now anyway. Someone could set up an account on FaunaAds, upload as many types of ads as they want in the zones set up, and then whenever they feel like it, turn on or off ads in each (or all) of the zones to have their ad show up all over the place.

If the small (120x60) banner ads prove popular, I may consider dropping the large rotating banner ads in favor of the smaller fixed ads. They are more screen real estate efficient, although it may be a toss up as to which one would earn more money for this site.

One thing I have to consider as well is the loading on the server from the banner ad server engine. If I wind up making an additional $100 per month with the larger number of small banner ads, but then find that I need to lease a smaller dedicated server for $150 per month to balance the load, well, that just won't make sense to do.

This is all designed to make this site self sufficient and make certain that it doesn't become a financial burden to me. The days of my being willing and able to pay for it out of my SerpenCo funds are drawing to a close.

I don't mean to jump at you with something totally new but I'm a part time webmaster and I was curious if you have ever used adsense to help pay for the server costs. I'm not sure where you get your server, how much bandwidth you use, space, or anything like that, but google's adsense program is very good. Typically it will cover the server cost and then some.

Adsense is already in use on this site if you don't have such things blocked.