What To Charge:
 

I am working on a new site. A community directory. I am going to charge local businesses (within the county) to advertise on the directory, as well as charge for classified ads and personal ads.

The ads will be complete with pictures of the business or staff, item to sell for classified ads, and of the individual for personal ads.

I am considering an annual fee for the businesses, in other words the businesses will pay up front for 12 months of advertisement.

The classified ads and personal ads will be a monthly charge.

I currently have 50 gigs of transfer before I go into overages.

I have know way of knowing what how much traffic I will get to the site.

Questions:

Would some of you give me input on fees to charge:

#1: For a business to advertise for a 12 month period.

#2: For an individual 30 day classified ad.

#3: For a personal 30 day ad.

What would be a reasonable charge, keeping in mind that I expect moderate traffic, mostly local traffice, but I am going to advertise the site in a San Francisco paper, as well as a Sacramento paper, so there may be some out of county traffic also.

I will have some affiliate advertisement on the site as well so may help to support the site.

The pics of course use quite alot of bandwidth as well as well as the graphics on the site.

If it makes any difference this is a tourist area because I live next to the largest natural lake in California.

Thanks in advance for the input.

Your price inquiries are all based on the amount of traffic your site has, not the relevancy of it or what it is.

Tis all about the traffic, and who is surfin the site, thats what a price is based on.

I think.

hehehe

I agree, but I want some general idea what would be a reasonable charge. I don't want to charge an annual rate for a business that is so low that if I do get more traffic than expected the bandwidth costs would put me in the red.

The monthly ads are not that big of a problem, as if need be I can raise the rates, but I still would like some input about what would be a reasonable charge to begin with.

Hmm?

Is that a thinking about it "hmm"?

The traffic would be mostly local (within the county), but since it is a tourist area I am going to advertise the site out of county, so there may be some out of county traffic also.

How about some input on this guys and gals?

I have something similar for my town. I charge $ 50.00 per year for a text ad and $ 100.00 per year for a banner rotator ad. Keep in mind that I live in a really small community.

I also have non adult click thru programs on there and advertise in a variety of magazines, newspapers and yellow pages. I also made a bunch of flyers and distributed them to local businesses.. blah blah..

for 250 per year they even get their own webpage.. ta taaaa!. If it is a community advertising forum, put on your nicest outfit, go door to door to all the businesses and introduce yourself and your website..

That little site actually does well so put on your walking shoes and hit the businesses first.

You can always icq me at 18314311

do a pay per click on the busisness and the classified ads and then charge a nominal fee for people accessing the personals not the ones posting them. Say $5 for a one month access depending on your traffic. You will get more personal ads if they can post free and if you get a bunch them others will pay to browse them also you would need people to do a basic search on the personals with pic if possible without being able to retrieve contact information such as address e-mail ect. You can set the personals ads so that their is a feature to send e-mails via a script, with out giving out the e-mail address, from inside a members area and another search script that can not send e-mail outside of the members area.

just my 2 cents

Brian

Thanks for the input. I hadn't really considered a banner rotation for the businesses.

Will you provide me with some idea of the size population that you are serving and an average of monthly hits to your site. From that info I can do some approximate calculations for my area.

Bump.

Here is how we did it once upon a time (we did it at a time when the Internet wasn't quite ready for it):

Go through your local yellowpages and include everyone....then send out a mailer telling people the are listed there and are now online...buy a few ads in your local paper and use that as your pitch, that you will be working locally...tell them the ad is free, but for $49 per year, you'll add one picture and bold the text (the same way as yellow pages ads are sold) and then give them some upsell options, like a table border, different colored text, etc.

Then sell a couple banner ads for like $100 per year....urge those who've bought upsells to add this url to their advertising (give them a directory listing and then upsell them their own page and have them use that URL...if they already have a website, offer them a link to an existing website...

This can also be a good way to solicit design work....ask them if they have a website and if they say "no" offer them one for $199 per year (a basic 1-2 page site) and work up from there...

Also, get with your local ISP(s) and advertise your site through them as well...sometimes they will have a little local site and will give your directory a link....try to get actively involved in your community and be visible...this will show you are serious....

If there is a local telemarketing company, some will be on the lookout for new products to offer...work a split deal with them for use of their phone people...get their phone people selling for you on a commission basis....

there are more ways you could go with this...email me for more info....I'll assist you in get pointed in the right direction or provide do's and dont's from my own personal experience....ah, the days when I worked for a guy I thought was an idiot, but was just ahead of his time...ok, he WAS an idiot, but still had some good ideas....great domain name cyberinformation.com went to waste sadly.........

I am already going through the yellow pages and adding everyone for free. With just the name of the business, address, and phone number.

My upsell is going to be that for X dollars per year they can have a picture and a description of services, cost of services, or products etc. and by paying for this they will also have a priority listing over their competitors that do not pay for the additional advertising, they will also have the ability to update info through out the year. I have been considering 60$ per annum for this.

I had not considered banners and websites etc. and this is something I would not want to get involved in at this point in time, but if I can solicit enough bussiness to get off the ground, this is something that can be considered at a later point in time, and seems like a good idea.

Good thinking about the ISP, and as I have stated I intend to advertise my directory for a period of time in the local papers, as well as Sacramento, and San Francisco, in addition to trying to get linked to some websites in those areas. The cable company also has local advertising, so I will advertise my directory on it for a period of time. The directory will have a few free bells and whistles to attract local use of the directory.

I don't know if there is a local telemarketing company or not, but I will research this, but sounds like another good idea.

I think I will go with $60 per annum for businesses, $5 for a thirty day classified ad complete with picture, and the same for a personal ad.

I will also have afflilate advertising on the directory so I may make a few bucks from that also.

Thanks for the input and the generous offer of further assistance.