Thoughts on Selling Listings in a Niche Service Specific Directory
I'm looking for some other Warriors insights on how I should proceed with this.
I have a Niche resource site in the Healthy & Beauty niche. It's a informational content site w/ a nice blog my writer posts to 3 times a week and have a directory attached sorted by Province (I'm in Canada) and city with clinics/spas that offer the service the sites focuses on.
The site ranking well, receiving over 100 uniques a day and I had a custom plugin created so that
a.) Visitors can search for businesses in their area offering the service they want
and
b.) I can show geo targeted ads (i.e. if you're from Toronto and land on my site then all the banners and ads will be for a local Toronto business OR just link to the Toronto listings of businesses on my site).
I've just built my first "micro" site as well for this same industry that is targeting one specific city on it's own.
I want to start generating some revenue from the BIG authority site I have on the topic and my thought is to sell listings at a couple of different level.
1 - Basic listing (Business name, address, phone number and maybe a link to their website). Thinking something like $7-$12 bucks a month
2 - Premium listing would be more of a quarter page style display ad with the companies logo, a small google map embedded showing location and a short snippet they can provide about their biz. Thinking something like $47 a month
3 - Sponsorship of their city. This would be where they basically become the exclusive advertiser for my site in their city. This would only be available to one business in the area and they would get all the banner advertising, a custom profile page (Kinda like a mini site for their business on my site etc.). Was thinking something like $197 a month since it's exclusive.
Anyways, that's where I'm at with this.
Where I'm stuck is how should I begin marketing?
I'm going to create an advertising area on the site, create some videos explaining what's offered and at what price points also provide some basic analytic data for how many people from different cities are ending up on my site, bounce right, time on site etc.
To get prospects I know I could
-cold call
OR
-direct mail
Right now since I want to target such a LARGE area and this isn't my only project inside my business I'm leaning towards creating a direct mail piece. Hiring someone to gather me the decision maker contact names at a list of businesses I'd provide and then sending out this direct mail piece (possibly post card, possibly letter not sure yet) which would direct to online to see the video(s) etc.
My issue is, I've not done direct mail and I'm wanting to know if I'm seriously just dreaming that people will open this piece/look at it, go online and watch my video, review my ad info and potentially list with me.
I recognize a lot comes down to getting it opened, looked at and the response rate isn't going to be HUGE, but anyone who's tried something like this at all have they had success with it?
As a SIDE NOTE
As a Side note, as I'm rolling out city sites for this same market the compiling of all these businesses and potentially getting them listed on my site opens up a second offer to sell them leads or lease my city site to them as well.
There is some cross over with traffic but ideally the city site will rank for "service city name" and the larger site ranks for generic "service" keyword in most cities across Canada.
Thanks for any insights on this.
I have a Niche resource site in the Healthy & Beauty niche. It's a informational content site w/ a nice blog my writer posts to 3 times a week and have a directory attached sorted by Province (I'm in Canada) and city with clinics/spas that offer the service the sites focuses on.
The site ranking well, receiving over 100 uniques a day and I had a custom plugin created so that
a.) Visitors can search for businesses in their area offering the service they want
and
b.) I can show geo targeted ads (i.e. if you're from Toronto and land on my site then all the banners and ads will be for a local Toronto business OR just link to the Toronto listings of businesses on my site).
I've just built my first "micro" site as well for this same industry that is targeting one specific city on it's own.
I want to start generating some revenue from the BIG authority site I have on the topic and my thought is to sell listings at a couple of different level.
1 - Basic listing (Business name, address, phone number and maybe a link to their website). Thinking something like $7-$12 bucks a month
2 - Premium listing would be more of a quarter page style display ad with the companies logo, a small google map embedded showing location and a short snippet they can provide about their biz. Thinking something like $47 a month
3 - Sponsorship of their city. This would be where they basically become the exclusive advertiser for my site in their city. This would only be available to one business in the area and they would get all the banner advertising, a custom profile page (Kinda like a mini site for their business on my site etc.). Was thinking something like $197 a month since it's exclusive.
Anyways, that's where I'm at with this.
Where I'm stuck is how should I begin marketing?
I'm going to create an advertising area on the site, create some videos explaining what's offered and at what price points also provide some basic analytic data for how many people from different cities are ending up on my site, bounce right, time on site etc.
To get prospects I know I could
-cold call
OR
-direct mail
Right now since I want to target such a LARGE area and this isn't my only project inside my business I'm leaning towards creating a direct mail piece. Hiring someone to gather me the decision maker contact names at a list of businesses I'd provide and then sending out this direct mail piece (possibly post card, possibly letter not sure yet) which would direct to online to see the video(s) etc.
My issue is, I've not done direct mail and I'm wanting to know if I'm seriously just dreaming that people will open this piece/look at it, go online and watch my video, review my ad info and potentially list with me.
I recognize a lot comes down to getting it opened, looked at and the response rate isn't going to be HUGE, but anyone who's tried something like this at all have they had success with it?
As a SIDE NOTE
As a Side note, as I'm rolling out city sites for this same market the compiling of all these businesses and potentially getting them listed on my site opens up a second offer to sell them leads or lease my city site to them as well.
There is some cross over with traffic but ideally the city site will rank for "service city name" and the larger site ranks for generic "service" keyword in most cities across Canada.
Thanks for any insights on this.