UBB.Developers Forums Community Development Promoting Your Community Making Revenue Sugguestions?

Hi gang,

I have (fmforums.com) currently I have banner advertising for my members right now I charge 199 for a banner per year and 299 if they want a static square banner in the footer. Seems cheap compared to others but I just don't see how someone would pay $500 a month for a simple banner. - I know I never would - heck that is a truck payment!

I am trying to think of other methods to enhance or add value to advertisers to increase advertiser participation or create other marketing levels not only to increase the monthly/annual price but have different packages available.

I have been getting some small revenue from Google & Amazon programs. But I would like to have more participation w/ the community members.

Membership on our site is free. Therefore we don't anticipate changing this anytime. Some have suggested to create a value added area where certain forums are paid. or subscription only but I am not sure that this will provide much revenue.

I have both the Spider Hack and Josh's Search Engine mod and we are getting thousands of hits on google this I am sure will increase traffic. But I want to provide better service to my members by attracting more advertisers.

Maby some sort of incentive program to potential advertisers. Or perhaps some sort of - cash back program?

I have instituted an Open House program like it is here on threadsdev I hope this will bring out some of the members to advertise since they only are in the spotlight for a week they may say hey let's do this more often by purchasing advertising.

I also have another domain called - filemakermarketplace.com and want to build some sort of ad centric area there to help drive traffic.

Just looking for some advice I guess. I am sure many of you wrestle with this as well.

Thanks

Stephen