The Permanent Sponsorship of Web Content
by John S.
Rhodes
In WebWord.com Newsletter #26 I asked folks if they
wanted to permanently sponsor some of my web content on WebWord.com. The idea is rather
simple. You give me money, and I give you ad space on some of my web pages forever.
No one else will ever advertise on these pages at WebWord.com. Your ad is forever bound to
that page. You get long lasting, and repeated value for your sponsorship dollars. I
thought I had a good idea.
But, I didn't get any responses.
I was somewhat puzzled by the lack interest.
As I write this article, there
are 1,065 subscribers to the WebWord.com Usability
Newsletter. There were about 1,000 when I sent out Newsletter #26. That's a lot of
people when you think about it. I reached plenty of people with my opportunity. I thought
I had a fighting chance of getting a sponsor. But, I didn't get a single response. Not a
single request for more information.
No one even fought with me about
the $300 I was asking for the deal (for $300, you could sponsor all of WebWord.com's
content for month of August). That's a lot of page views and content. I thought that
strategic thinking people would snap up this long lasting value. And, I thought that the
offer was going to generate some buzz.
What went wrong? What's
the scoop? Why didn't people snap up the offer?
First, if you are like
most people, you don't care about advertising on the web. You want news,
and tips, and you are looking for good information. You could care less about sponsoring
anything. You might skip over the words and ideas associated with advertising.
Particularly as a WebWord.com reader, you want usability information.
Second, $300 is
a lot of money. Heck, $10 is a lot of money to most people I know. When I think
about it, $10 sounds like a lot of money to me too. Let's put $300 in perspective: it's
almost enough for a Palm V. I think I'd rather have a Palm V than advertise on WebWord.com
if I had the choice. I can't blame you. Here's another way to think about it. In most
places in the United States, $300 will get you about 60 heart clogging meals from
McDonald's or Burger King. Perhaps I was simply asking for too much money.
Third, the
permanent sponsorship model might only work for branding. Assuming that you can't
change your ad, and it stays the same forever, you can't use limited time offers or
promotions. You have to think years ahead. You have to think about how your ad will be
seen by people for years. The message you want lasts forever. "Forever" scares
marketing folks. They are afraid to commit to a long time horizon. In today's fast paced
business environment, I can't blame them. However, if you care about branding, I think
that permanent sponsorship has a chance.
Fourth, maybe you
don't think that WebWord.com hits your target market. Perhaps you care about
advertising and marketing, but maybe you don't want to reach WebWord.com's readers. Maybe
there isn't a good match between your needs and my web site content.
I suppose that I could go on,
but I won't. I think that you get the idea. The model doesn't work for WebWord.com right
now, but it might in the future.
There were several interesting
responses to my offer that I'd like to share with you.
Here's what Leonardo Ruppenthal had to say:
Interesting idea about
the ad that never dies. I see interesting ramifications for a company that goes out
business or is consumed by another. What if the service/product in a old or obsolete,
maybe even laughably so? I see this sort of permanent ad being more effective when
the content is generic. So instead of saying "Check out Product X, Version
Y" which will be obsolete in a few years, you might simply say "Check out
Company Z". Unless you're somehow thinking of using dynamic ads for a spot that has
been permanently sponsored?
I particularly liked what Mar
Orlygsson posted on his site. Here are his
points:
Wouldn't it make sense
to offer sponsors a chance to decide which articles to sponsor themselves,
rather than have them blindly sponsor every bit of content to be published over a certain
period of time?
And what about old
material on the site? Why not allow permanent sponsorship of that too? (At a reduced price
of course.)
Also, I think auctioning
high traffic pages might prove profitable. There could be a fixed price on
temporary banner-space for a short period of time while popularity (and quality) is being
evaluated by both the site-owner and interested parties (sponsors). Then a permanent
ad-placement would be made available to the highest bidder. Leftover pages could be
offered cheap (or auctioned) in packs of ten or so.
On the technical side,
It could be handy to have the ad-banners reside at the sponsors' own servers. This would
give them the ability to change their banner from time to time to reflect changes in their
business.
The bottom line is that I think the
permanent sponsorship model can work, but it has certain limitations. Of course,
there are strengths too. Think about the possibilities, sell the concepts appropriately,
and the model will work.
If you use this idea, contact me and I'll post your comments here with a link
to your site.
What
next?
|