Monetizing a tech niche.

[3ukman]

Point 1. Having read the forum for 2 weeks now , seems that 98 percent of the people here are making money by blogs/adsense/affiliates and targeting to a specific niche. Right or not right ?

Point 2. Having realized Point 1 I have selected a niche and it has to do with IT/Software consulting. Now the real target are tech managers at Small Biznesses and Maybe larger Enterprises. Could anyone share some experience about monetizing a niche that targets technical people ?

For example if I take myself , a tech person , I really ever look at ads on the tech sites I read. In fact I have developed selective ignorance of adsense ads and other ads – i know they are there but I don’t look. To be honest prior learning this IM “bizness” , I don’t remember ever clicking on an Adsense ad. I did click on Adwords ads of course but this was as part of the search process and the subject in question here is monetizing a tech blog.

So is there a notion that tech blogs tend to monetize better with “the ad display system where you charge advertisers to display ads ” and not adsense/affiliate. ?

[MichaelHiles]

As a tech guy for many, many years, I can vouch that one has to dump their own perspective out the window and realize that the masses are not cynical, selective intellectual skeptics who have trained themselves to tune out ads.

I know people who click on every link they see -- and buy lots of useless crap they don't need as well!

If you're going to succeed in IM, you have to lose the techie perspective to a large degree.

I think the tech blogs that make the kick ass money, say Scobelizer by Robert Scoble, are run by people who are paid lots of money to review a particular product, company, service, etc...

Sponsored content.

They have a phenomenal reach, cult followings, and savvy marketing companies know that getting a mention is worth exponentially more than a 125x125 hanging in the right pane on a PPC or impression basis.

[3ukman]

Amazing advice ! You talk about some high-level game there , I guess this is several levels above the blog/adsense/affiliate game. ...

[Traffic-Bug]

Problogger has some ways in which you can derive monetary benefit from your blog content. Since your niche is technical and target audience IT managers they will likely be reading established tech blogs so you need to market yourself there like buy a backlink from them.

[MichaelHiles]

Originally Posted by 3ukman

Amazing advice ! You talk about some high-level game there , I guess this is several levels above the blog/adsense/affiliate game. ...

On one hand yes.

On the other hand, even corporate marketing comes down to the trench level street hustle. Even though we're talking about an order of magnitude difference in delivery, it all still comes down to human psychology. Someone somewhere has to make a decision to spend money in order to save money/make money/improve the bottom line/etc...

I sit back, completely amused at the cult-like, personality driven followings of a lot of these self-proclaimed "gurus". Sure, a few of them even make a decent amount of money.

But even the Frank Kerns of IM are pipsqueaks in the face of true technology marketing titans like Gates, Ellison, Dell, Yang, Cuban, etc...

Some of those guys make that much a day, every day, 24/7, 365.

Not to dis my fellow IMer's, because I am all about the trench hustle. I love the game. But the perspective still has to be maintained. Yanik Silver is no Bill Gates. Mass Control 2.0 is no Oracle Database.

The guys making money in this level of IM are doing so because of the real players who develop, market, and maintain marketshare in the real game of technology enablement. You know, venture capital, public offerings, earnings per share... the real game.

Someone has to program the affiliate tracking application. Someone created HTML (Thanks Tim). Those are the guys who make the real coin.

And no, none of you have ever heard of me. And yes, I made a buttload of money with the "internet" long before most of you had even heard of it.