local forum sponsoring?

T

tssdetailing

New member
Hi fellas!

So now that spring is nearing, I've started gathering some info from local car forums. One in particular is asking for $500 for a year sponsorship. It's mustang forum with about 6000 members. TO me, I can't justify that cost. Especially if I only get 3 or 4 Stage 2 or better jobs a year from them. The gear-head mentality is "no one can touch my car" but I really REALLY want to become the go to guy for local performance car enthusiasts.



Does anyone have any knowlege or similar info on this? Should my passion for working on street-rods take a backseat while I build more notariety?
 
You're really looking at it wrong. Break the cost down into months.



$500/12 = $42/mth. (give or take)



Now I really hope that even a basic full detail runs more than $42. If you're on there and get advertising rights to promote your business (should be an obvious but some forums you never know) you should be savvy enough to grab at least one a month to pay for that advertising plus a little. Get 2 a month (more in the summer months) and your ahead of the game.



If it's really hard on your financials ask the forum owner to bill monthly instead of all at once. Some will some won't. But that's actually pretty cheap compared to a lot of other fourms out there that charge to advertise on their site.
 
but realistically, these cars get garaged for 5 months out of the year. So I'm looking at 500/7= $71. Now, yes I can swing that. It's not the money really-it's the risk.



Does anyone have experience sponsoring local forums and seeing an ROI?
 
I helped run a local forum in the past. We use to charge $40/month which was an auto withdraw from their paypal account. Needless to say, our sponsors were always talked to and talked about by the forum members. I saw it as a great way to get exposure as "the go to guy". The only suggestion I have is to constantly reply to public questions when asked in your "sponsored sub-forum" area. I noticed a lot of peoples questions would go unanswered when wrote threads to the sponsor, which made the place seem a little sketchy in my eyes.
 
I'd sponsor anything locally or privately owned (by an active forum member). too many companies making a pretty penny on forums and excluding anyone who doesn't want to pay them even if the person/business isn't making any or much of a profit.



I watched an active forum go down the drain over this issue when sold to auto (separated to reduce google results) guide. they took a tight-knit community and tore it apart for chumpchange....:(



sorry to rant, I'm still ticked over the situation.
 
I sponsor 5 weekly car shows every year , It cost me 250 a show for the whole year and i attend the shows at least once a month with my van and every week they hand trophies to the top cars with my company name on it. I have business cards at each sign up table and at the first and last show i give raffle baskets with coupons and free stuff in it. It works for me as i got at least 7-10 new client's each year for the past two years
 
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