New Business/Website (want feedback)

Kjell201 · #1 08-08-2006, 08:51 AM

This post might get a bit long so I'm going to try to keep it as structured as possible.

Who am I ?

In short, my name is Christian Kjellström and I'm a 21 year old student from Sweden. I'm studying for my Masters in Business and Management at the moment and when I don't study I work evenings for a marketing company and I play poker semiprofessionally. You can read more about me at my blog http://www.businessandpoker.com

ThisIsTheAd

http://www.ThisIsTheAd.com is the business/website I'm referring to in this post. I came up with the idea after discussing the MillionDollarHomepage with some of my friends at work (who hasn't?). There's a bunch of copycat sites who all failed miserably. However, I think there's still a lot of potential for similar sites as long as the idea is somewhat unique.

The idea

The idea is that only one ad will be on the frontpage and very in focus. To get this ad the advertiser has to pay more than the previous advertiser. However, whenever another advertiser buys the front page the previous advertiser gets money back. You get (100-days*4) back with a max at 90%. So 2 days is 90% back, 5 days is 80% back, 10 days is 60% back and so on. Only if no one is able to pay a higher price within 25 days will the advertiser pay the full amount.
Something that's important though is that every ad will remain on the site and users will be able to browse back and see all the ads. Not just a list of ads but the full ad with picture/text/etc. This is so that the advertisers will get traffic to their site even when they're no longer on the front page. It's also to make it more interresting for visitors to see which ad was first and how the site developed with new ads and higher prices. Hopefully I can drive enough traffic to get it going and then word of mouth can take care of the rest. People have an interest in seeing who's paying the most at the moment and how much money the site is actually making, which means visitors will come back again and again.

How to drive traffic/get advertisers

I have several plans, some of which I won't announce until I've finished them, but it involves contacting advertisers that are more likely than your normal advertiser to invest in a idea such as this (I think I know how). I'm also driving traffic just by writing this post [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I will be writing about it on my blog and drive traffic that way and I'm also going to use...

...Affiliates
I'll try getting members of this forum to drive traffic by offering a 0.5% share of the sites lifetime profit for each paying advertiser someone can refer. So if you can get an advertiser to the site I will pay monthly or quarterly (depending on the sites success) to you. (by paypal, neteller, or through party, stars, etc). If you have a site yourself then referring yourself would be ok.
If you can't refer anyone just mentioning the site on a blog,etc is a great way to help me. I would return the favor by linking to your blog from mine.

Feedback
I want as much feedback as possible. What do you think of the idea. What would work better. Changes to layout/text. Tips on marketing the idea. Spelling/grammar errors (I'm swedish you know). Anything you can think of really that might be useful.

Logbook
I will write and update on my blog about my progress with the site and I can probably crosspost those updates in this post.

So, that's it, let me know what you think.

Nicholasp27 · #2 08-08-2006, 10:08 AM

I think this is a great idea

You put your own little spin on the milliondollarhomepage. If you can get some serious traffic via word of mouth, advertising, whatever, then this could be a huge success.

The site looks fine to me. I don't really have any suggestions, just good luck driving traffic there to make it a success

Colt McCoy · #3 08-08-2006, 11:10 AM

[ QUOTE ]
You put your own little spin on the milliondollarhomepage. If you can get some serious traffic via word of mouth, advertising, whatever, then this could be a huge success.

The site looks fine to me. I don't really have any suggestions, just good luck driving traffic there to make it a success

[/ QUOTE ]

Milliondollarhomepage was not successful because it was a brilliant idea. Milliondollarhomepage was successful because it was a novel idea and the guy got lucky enough to manage to get it on television. Most of the ad buyers didn't buy until AFTER it had gained notoriety and had some momentum. Unless you've got some kind of way for your page to get a lot of traffic, it's just another copycat that no one will care about.

Np27, I started to respond to your thread awhile back about monetizing web traffic. Monetizing traffic is easy. There are dozens of ways to do it. It's driving substantial traffic in the first place that's difficult.

Kjell201 · #4 08-09-2006, 05:16 AM

Got the 2nd ad up yesterday. Will be contacting potential advertisers today by e-mail aswell as posting on some business/marketing/advertising related forums.

I also added a feed to the page at http://www.thisisthead.com/feed.xml so that people can subscribe and see when a new ad has arrived.
I won't put it on the page until I've seen that it works correctly though (since I have no experience in manually creating rss feeds)

Anyone have any other ideas for improving the site?

Huggie · #5 08-09-2006, 11:28 AM

Do you provide a minimum number of days or hours for which an ad is to be displayed? What if someone bids $100 at 9:00 AM on a day, and later someone bids $110 at 10:00 AM? Does that mean the first advertiser still pays $10 (10% of $100) for only 1 hour of advertising on your homepage?

mwgr5 · #6 08-09-2006, 01:04 PM

The key to these ideas, IMO, is the marketing. Million dollar homepage did not get lucky to be on TV and featured in many articles. The owner thought he had a good idea so he marketed that idea to the media and throughout the net as much as possible. This is very important IMO.

Colt McCoy · #7 08-09-2006, 02:08 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The key to these ideas, IMO, is the marketing. Million dollar homepage did not get lucky to be on TV and featured in many articles. The owner thought he had a good idea so he marketed that idea to the media and throughout the net as much as possible. This is very important IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]

Of course he got lucky, at least that was a large part of it. Lots of people call the media with little things like this and get ignored. Once he got on television once and it generated some interest, momentum took over. You're right that the marketing part of it is important, but you have to get lucky too. You realize heads of marketing at billion dollar corporations would give their left nut to successfully execute on this kind of viral marketing? They try all the time with top personnel and a lot of money at their disposal. Rarely does it work. Why? Because you have a product, a marketing plan AND get lucky.

Kjell201 · #8 08-09-2006, 05:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Do you provide a minimum number of days or hours for which an ad is to be displayed? What if someone bids $100 at 9:00 AM on a day, and later someone bids $110 at 10:00 AM? Does that mean the first advertiser still pays $10 (10% of $100) for only 1 hour of advertising on your homepage?

[/ QUOTE ]
From the "buy"-page: "Maximum refund is 90% and the minimum number of days your ad will be on the front page is 2 days. "
So, 2 days minimum.

Kjell201 · #9 08-09-2006, 05:36 PM

[ QUOTE ]
The key to these ideas, IMO, is the marketing. Million dollar homepage did not get lucky to be on TV and featured in many articles. The owner thought he had a good idea so he marketed that idea to the media and throughout the net as much as possible. This is very important IMO.

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed, getting media and as much attention as possible is the only way to succeed. As soon as the site starts moving and getting traffic/advertisers word of mouth and peoples natural curiosity to see if sites are successful will keep them coming back.

Currently I'm focusing just as much on getting media attention as getting advertisers, and later on I will, if everything works out, focus more and more on media.

[ QUOTE ]

Of course he got lucky, at least that was a large part of it. Lots of people call the media with little things like this and get ignored. Once he got on television once and it generated some interest, momentum took over. You're right that the marketing part of it is important, but you have to get lucky too. You realize heads of marketing at billion dollar corporations would give their left nut to successfully execute on this kind of viral marketing? They try all the time with top personnel and a lot of money at their disposal. Rarely does it work. Why? Because you have a product, a marketing plan AND get lucky.

[/ QUOTE ]
I think I have a good idea (product), a pretty good marketing plan, and I definitely agree that a bit of luck is surely involved.
Like I mentioned above, I'm not just uploading a site and sitting back to see what's going to happen. I will continuesly try to contact new advertisers, spread the word on more blogs, contact more media, etc, etc. I'm fully aware that this is the only way to have a chance of succeding, and just the fact that knowing it takes work, is the first step to getting the site successful. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Kjell201 · #10 08-12-2006, 05:40 AM

Log update
I've got a third ad coming up as soon as I've received the image for the ad. It's http://www.beer.com and they have more traffic than the two first ads put together. (according to Alexa.com). They're also going to put my link on their "Sites we like" and "Hot off the web" sections. Hopefully this can bring me more traffic to get the site really starting and if the site goes well I can bring alot of traffic back to them later. Win-Win.

I've also gotten one PM so far from a 2p2:er that wants to affiliate and refer an advertiser.
I'm hoping more forum members join in on this if you know anyone willing to advertise, or if you mention the site on your blog etc. I will ask all advertisers where they heard of the site and if they mention a member of this forum that member will get a share of profit (for the whole site, not just that ad).