How would you promote this site? $100 bucks for the best idea

Before I did anything to promote the site I'd get a benefit oriented attention-grabbing headline up there so the reader doesn't click off immediately. Then I'd get a concise paragraph right below the headline to let visitors know what you have because as it stands, people are going to arrive, wonder and leave. Seriously. Good luck.

I'd market with guest postings. It would create a buzz that way.

Agree with travlinguy, I don't really know what your site does - I, like a lot of people, don't read large blocks of text and just press back if it looks like that is what I'm going to have to do! I need to be shown a short but descriptive heading that stands out and, in simple terms, tells me what this page is about before I start reading.

Dsiomtw, I really think you should listen to Tralinguy. He speaks out of core marketing experience and from what I have read so far, he's got serious points you should consider. Neglect to this could cost you a whole lot of bucks of which possibility may not cross your mind.

Cheers on your new site.

This looks like something MakeUseof.com would feature, I would submit it to them for review.

The word should have been reference. As for conversions, look around you. This site is loaded with people looking to make money online. I'd bet there are lots of new people here that would give you different answers as to what a conversion is. I think of a conversion almost exclusively as it relates to sales while there are many more meanings for the word.

But the word conversion isn't the point. The point is, you're way too close to this as many marketers are with their own offers. Everyone goes through it. We get so involved with our projects that we think everyone is as lit up about what we're doing as we are. And we take it for granted that they'll understand it like we do. I've written about this many times. It's the kiss of death for a marketer.

I think it's kinda ironic that you're offering a service for people who are in the exact position you're in at the moment. I have a feeling you'll get it worked out though. But I'd seriously hold off on paying for traffic until you do. Good luck.

You're site looks very cluttered which gives a very bad UX. I'd start there.

I would start by redesigning the entire site.

Seriously its plain, boring and certainly doesn't point me towards what the service is or what its about.

Add a headline then a video explaining what the site is about and get the site looking professional with a stylish branded header.

What ever you do I certainly wouldn't launch the site as it is.

Good luck!

Not sure what your budget is, but running an ad in a physical marketing magazine might help (Entrepreneur Magazine, et al.) You could design the ad to compare two different versions of a sales page, with a simple headline, stating "Which One Would YOU Buy From?" Just a simple visual, that imho might be particularly well suited to a physical magazine copy.

Also, I agree with everyone else about your site design- it's a mess. I had to search for your headline and info about what your service was for longer than a potential customer might grant you.

I would create a thread in a popular forum asking people how would they promote the site and maybe to make it interesting, tell them I'll give let's say $100 to the person with the coolest idea.

That's what I would do??

Mark

Thanks for all the replies. I was interested in getting ideas for promoting the site, but this is great too. Probably more important at this point as several people have pointed out.

Just to clarify, this is just a bare-bones skeleton of a site that was slapped together so people could start using the site and we could "beta" test the service.

A professional video is in the works, but apparently we waited on that too long. They said about 6 weeks from start to finish, and we just got it going last week. We've never outsourced a video like this and just didn't know it would take so long.

We're waiting on some graphics and working with several copywriters to improve the site from here. The primary copywriter in charge of the project says probably another month or so before he'll be done. Everything just takes time.

What you see now was created mostly by a group of techies - copy was written by someone who isn't a copywriter, the simple graphics were done by someone who isn't a designer, etc. As some of you have pointed out, it shows I guess lol

We've changed out the headline and the entire top section, so if anyone wants to check it out and let me know what you think I'd appreciate it. We're just going to do the best we can for now as the video and final copy is at least another month out.

Nah that wouldn't work too well. 32reviews isn't really for people in the IM, WFH and MMO niches, which seems to be about 95% of the people here. The warriors are giving lots of great feedback about the site itself though, which I'm quite grateful for.

After implementing Travlinguy's recommendations, I would market the site picking out several keywords, creating several edgy and funny videos, post them on Youtube, create backlinks to get the vids to page one, and then use social media to promote them hopefully going viral.

I am going to assume that you have worked out the website, and implemented some of the suggestions above. Since you are not explaining the value of testing, you are going to want to find people who care about testing already. I'd recommend looking for the product developer/entrepreneur crowd..

I would link up with product developers, and network at their events. I don't know where you are, but an example:

Continuous Web- Portland (Portland, OR) - Meetup
NYC Technology Startups (New York, NY) - Meetup
The Product Group (New York, NY) - Meetup
StartUP Product Talks San Francisco (San Francisco, CA) - Meetup
Chicago Product Management Association (Chicago, IL) - Meetup


If you guys aren't looking to do in-person things, you can do live webinars - still reaching people through these same types of groups.

You can also put together case studies showing increased conversions and upload them to Scribd, DocStoc, SlideShare, Issuu etc

Buy articles or media on blog sites geared more towards this crowd:
Six Revisions - Web Design Articles, News, Tutorials
PandoDaily | the site-of-record for silicon valley
GigaOM
Web & Social Forum, Discussion & Latest News | The Verge Forums

Great concept. I think the steps 1,2 and 3 should be in red, and bolder. Once y improve the headline, the 3steps will POP. Also hve a short video or audio on the site. Finally, at the base of the screen have some success stories (user testimonials).

To promote it I would use Facebook, get everyone talking about it.
Cheers,
DavidC

Thanks to everyone for the ideas, keep 'em coming. Much appreciated.

We've made a bunch of changes over the past 24 hours or so based on everyone's feedback, and we're not done yet. We're testing new headlines, we've added some more graphics, testimonials, made it less cluttered, etc.

Check it out and let me know if we're moving in the right direction.

If anyone wants to test it out for free and give us some feedback on the service itself, let me know!

So sorry to all that I kind of forgot about this thread. I paid travlinguy to do a little work for me, but only now realized that what he did isn't really related to the "contest" I proposed in this thread. So ...

Thanks to all that responded. My vote for the most thought out and overall best promotional idea goes to bchez. Shoot me a PM with your paypal email and I'll send you the $100.

We've overhauled the entire site based on a lot of the feedback we got and we're getting some pretty positive feedback now. Check it out and see what you think ...

32reviews - Test. Optimize. Profit.