I've got several partly developed geo sites, one of which has excellent prospects for generating steady income, I think. It targets a booming neighborhood/nightlife mecca in a major US city. I had planned to 1) generate traffic, then 2) approach businesses in the neighborhood about advertising.
I say on the site that it will "launch soon" and invite businesses to contact me if they're interested in advertising. Figured I'd offer free ad space to neighborhood restaurants and nightclubs while I'm building traffic, but I haven't done anything to grow traffic and so far the only content on the site are listings of neighborhood restaurants and nightspots with links to their websites. But, damn, a large local furniture chain just wrote to me about advertising on the site.
What would you do?
Would you give them the rates you plan to charge AFTER you generate sufficient traffic?
Would you tell them of your plans to add content and generate traffic over the coming months and feel them out on what would be the threshold for them to advertise?
What are other options?
Lastly, does anyone have ideas about what to charge? What do fledging city sites charge for advertising?
I definitely don't want to do what I did two months ago with another geo site. An advertising company doing a local campaign for an upcoming movie asked me to offer proposals for a $5,000 ad package and a $7,000 package. I had no choice but to tell them I couldn't bid because I had no traffic (and no hope of generating traffic in the necessary time frame).
I say on the site that it will "launch soon" and invite businesses to contact me if they're interested in advertising. Figured I'd offer free ad space to neighborhood restaurants and nightclubs while I'm building traffic, but I haven't done anything to grow traffic and so far the only content on the site are listings of neighborhood restaurants and nightspots with links to their websites. But, damn, a large local furniture chain just wrote to me about advertising on the site.
What would you do?
Would you give them the rates you plan to charge AFTER you generate sufficient traffic?
Would you tell them of your plans to add content and generate traffic over the coming months and feel them out on what would be the threshold for them to advertise?
What are other options?
Lastly, does anyone have ideas about what to charge? What do fledging city sites charge for advertising?
I definitely don't want to do what I did two months ago with another geo site. An advertising company doing a local campaign for an upcoming movie asked me to offer proposals for a $5,000 ad package and a $7,000 package. I had no choice but to tell them I couldn't bid because I had no traffic (and no hope of generating traffic in the necessary time frame).
