Has anyone ever contacted businesses (releating to the subject of their forum) and asked for them to sponsor the site i.e. give some sponsorship money and in return put their links/advertisement banners up, if so how did this go? Did the business want a constant say in what happened on the site?
Good question, I've thought about contacting some my self but wanted to wait until I had 500+ members.
I have not yet, but my goal is to when I consistantly get 500 unique visitors a day to try soliciting some advertisers/ sponsors. I'm almost there.
Yup, we came to an agreement quite quickly. I get games, merchandise and goodies in return for one advertisementbanner and occasionly posting news about the sponsor. I keep them posted about the development of my site. It's important for them for my site to grow, so they get potential more traffic through the advertisementbanner en other related links
This is similair to what i wish to come to an agreement for, did you start before your site was up? How did you contact them? Via email, letter? I wish to find a sponsor before the site is up so i have some capital to work with, gnatster: how did you go about getting them to do this without the site being live?
My site was online for 3,5 years before this second sponsorship began, I never actively searched for sponsors. I send them an e-mail with a small introduction, what I would like from them and what my site could benefit for them. The company is quite informal and of moderate size, which surely played a part in the succesfull deal. My first sponsor contacted me after 3 years uptime. I was real lucky with that one, although they donate all kind of goodies to me without wanting anything back. Not really sponsorship..?
No, I have not. When your site gets big enough, sponsors will start contacting you. Companies are always looking for new markets to tap into. So when your site gets popular, they will find you.
I have two forums related Money making Idea's mostly HYIP so i contact Sponsor and advertisers 10-15 times in a day some time i get quick response also good advertisers those spend $$$ per month But after their sponsorship expire only 10% of site renew it but they don't ask question like what i did in return it sound funny but we just contact though email if they are interested they will reply us else leave it.
I actually wrote an article on here a while back about my experience with this and my sport website. I have sponsors, I don't pay for my dedicated server in return for a couple banners, and I get given over $2000 a year in goodies to give out to my members. I have also been contacted by sporting companies, merchandise outlets etc about advertising in our electronic magazine.
