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Chris
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Re: Advertising

Post by Chris »

I also despise pop-up ads and will figure out a way to block them if possible. Other types of ads are not so intrusive and would be more palatable, IMHO. I'm also happy to pay a nominal yearly membership fee to keep the site up and running. Finally, I would bet that there are at least a few code-savvy users on here who would be happy to help with the site scripting for free. Count me in as one of those.
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rwtucker
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Re: Advertising

Post by rwtucker »

Kai & All,

User maintained services like DAN face the complicated choices you and others have outlined above. I'm pleased to see that we are discussing them.

I don't feel that I have a perfect solution but I do have some observations and a suggestion.

Most DAN members have been pretty good about chipping in to fund the operation (it may not be enough, I'm only commenting on the spirit of the 50-100 "regulars." I wonder if that same spirit would also carry forward to patronizing a "Sponsors Page" that would be limited to vendors of products and services of direct interest to Diamond drivers. Access to the page could be provided as a top level navigation option, perhaps next to the frequently used "Active Topics" button. To create benefits on all sides (host, members, sponsors), we might even require that these sponsors offer periodic specials unique to DAN members. Specifically, I'm thinking of ADS-B vendors, parts suppliers, upholsterers, etc. We might even get a little competition going among maintenance shops.

The downside to my idea is that someone needs to approach these vendors with the offer. To accomplish that, perhaps we could agree upon the details of the offer and then divide the work among us. I had the point in securing vendors for our Fly-in last summer. Every vendor I contacted was willing to send someone to our event, most were eager to be represented. It wasn't much work. In fact, the most time consuming part was digging up the contact information. If we could build or purchase email addresses for GA aviation vendors, many of us have the capability of sending out a "personalized" automated email blast of all of them in a matter of minutes. I would be happy to do that. Having a dozen or so vendors on a separate Sponsors Page, each providing a small revenue for presence and additional revenue for click-through and/or purchase, might be all we need to keep DAN not only free, but free of banners and pop-ups.
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Re: Advertising

Post by Tommy »

I misunderstood, I also despise pop ups. I have no problem with advertising, say similar to the Beech forum.
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Kai
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Re: Advertising

Post by Kai »

Chris wrote:I also despise pop-up ads and will figure out a way to block them if possible. Other types of ads are not so intrusive and would be more palatable, IMHO. I'm also happy to pay a nominal yearly membership fee to keep the site up and running. Finally, I would bet that there are at least a few code-savvy users on here who would be happy to help with the site scripting for free. Count me in as one of those.
Chris, thanks for your kind offer. Indeed I followed the idea of asking code-savy users who stretched out their hand. But if the help is voluntary, I had to accept that there are days for the family, for flying, when there are issues with their business, etc. They might not be available when an update of the phpBB software suddenly makes it impossible to login to the site. There are more issues in terms of coordinating logins, access rights to the database and so on which I am not capable of managing.

Indeed, when I registered this site and setup the forum 5 years ago, I hoped it would be a community-governed and -managed site and I would have little to do except for a bit of moderation and activating accounts. But I was definitely too optimistic about that. Today I would say it was naive of me to hope for that.
rwtucker wrote:Most DAN members have been pretty good about chipping in to fund the operation (it may not be enough, I'm only commenting on the spirit of the 50-100 "regulars.
There were many people who helped a great deal with their donations and I am thankful for that. It definitely helped to make this site better and more functional. Godaddy, server rent, some scripts and a good part of the maintenance was paid from that. Unfortunately, the number of regulars donating was a lot less than 50. As I said before, the only year when costs were covered with donations were when I threw in the window latches. I am not complaining by no means, I ran this site because I liked it and $1000 into one direction or another means nothing to the joy I have had getting positive feedback and seeing fellow pilots helping each other.

Regarding your idea of sponsors: there is nothing wrong with it and we could try that, too. But a lot of members want to post ads on here and while it is Diamond-related stuff, I needed to seek for some solution to that instead of being negative on sales. So why not matching up the financial needs of the site with the interests of people who would like to sell their planes or spares?

Then there is something else which is unique to the demography of our users. We are all pilots and mostly somehow successful in one or another thing we did in our worklife. It is hard for many of us to follow the lead of others. So if your idea is to get a few more people on this forum to inform some prospective sponsors with our proposal, you will find out that very few will actually do that.

I had to take a decision and I knew it would not be to liking of everybody. Some say "donations", others "ads" and again others will say that a membership fee would be the best. Until now only one thing is sure: the decision will affect me much more than any others here and if something goes wrong, I rely on people who get paid for what they are doing.

For example: The Wiki was an idea of an early member of this forum. The Wiki idea is that someone posts some wisdom there and other community members are free to edit or improve the article. But it was constantly spammed and even hacked but no-one would have deleted the spam. We then brought in some more security by giving away logins to edit the Wiki pages. Since then it has not received a new article except for the updates I added myself.

For what it´s worth: I uninstalled the pop up.
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cbrinton
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Re: Advertising

Post by cbrinton »

Kai,

I find this forum to be an extremely valuable source of pilot, flying, ownership and Diamond information. My biggest desire is that that continues to be true. As already discussed there are a number of ways that the costs of the site can be covered and as an IT manager I understand and concur with the desire to want the simplicity and relative reliability of paid resources supporting the environment.

Im certainly happy to view advertisements if thats what it takes. The less annoying the better :)

I would also be happy to donate on a regular basis (by being reminded) or have the option to upgrade my account to a paid account for extra privileges/less advertising. There are many techniques used out there for this situation. I think the most important thing is that you pick the option that works best for you as site owner/operator because the absolute last thing I would like to see is that running this site becomes such a chore that you lose interest.

BTW, I just tried to use this thread as a reminder to donate but couldnt find the donate button anywhere?
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rwtucker
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Re: Advertising

Post by rwtucker »

Kai,

I'm not sure that I agree that it would be difficult to get a few of us to cooperate to solicit potential sponsors. I will commit to sending out the email blast (we need to decide to whom they will respond). Perhaps another DAN member already has an aviation vendor email distribution. That's all it takes.

I think I see one strand of this argument that we might all be able to agree on: making the commercial "Sponsor" area a prominent but separate tab at the menu along with "Forum Home," "Active Topics," etc. It remains to be seen whether we can attract sponsors who will offer occasional specials that will make it in everyone's interest to check the Sponsor tab frequently. I think most of us will check it frequently anyway, just to see what's for sale including by DAN members (perhaps a separate area for us), new products, etc. This approach would bring in revenue as desired, and avoid the unsightly banners and pop-ups that I think many of us are hoping to avoid.

Until Chris Brinton mentioned it, I didn't notice that the "Donate" tab is gone. I must have missed the "free window latches" promotion. When I donated, it was because I thought it was time. The last time I did, I thought I saw a list of 50-60 names and growing. Many of us are probably ready to donate again.
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Colin
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Re: Advertising

Post by Colin »

I pay $600 or so per year to get XM weather in the plane. I pay another $150 a year to use the Foreflight app on my iPad for the year. I would be happy to pay $100 a year for this forum, which has been as invaluable to my flying. I wish I saw some of these pilots a little more often in real life, but the community and knowledge base have improved my flying and my aviation life.
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Kai
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Re: Advertising

Post by Kai »

Colin wrote:I pay $600 or so per year to get XM weather in the plane. I pay another $150 a year to use the Foreflight app on my iPad for the year. I would be happy to pay $100 a year for this forum, which has been as invaluable to my flying. I wish I saw some of these pilots a little more often in real life, but the community and knowledge base have improved my flying and my aviation life.
I have never seen it this way. But it is worth thinking about it.
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Kai
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Re: Advertising

Post by Kai »

After all the useful input here, I am taking into consideration a version free of advertising for members (or an opt-in checkbox on their profile page, default setting: blank) who pay a maintenance fee and with advertising for those who wish not to pay a fee.

The question is on how to see if the visitor is a paying member or not. The login seems not to be persistent enough on all browsers. Also, more and more users use tracking- and adblockers which will make it harder to identify the visitor of the homepage. So before logging in, it might still be that the paying member sees advertisement.

On Robert's idea on setting up an individual page for sponsors: well, I am not well acquainted with the idea of "hidden" advertising. Robert (rwtucker), maybe you can send me a link of some pages you were thinking of?
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Re: Advertising

Post by rwtucker »

Kai wrote:On Robert's idea on setting up an individual page for sponsors: well, I am not well acquainted with the idea of "hidden" advertising. Robert (rwtucker), maybe you can send me a link of some pages you were thinking of?
Structurally, what I had in mind is pretty easy Kai. If you click "Active Topics" above, you are taken to a list of active topics sorted by date, clicking on any item in the list takes you to that topic. If you were to click on "DAN Sponsors" on the same level, it would take you to a list of sponsors, perhaps with their logo by their name and a tag line denoting their value proposition. Clicking on any of the sponsors would most likely take you to a click-tracked DAN landing page on their company website (there are other options here). The landing page would contain the special greeting for DAN members and any special offer in place at the time. (I would suggest that sponsors be required to change their offer every 20-30 days, more often if they desire to do so. The rotation cycle for specials should be staggered so that new offers become available every day (assuming at least 20-30 sponsors). This constant change maintains interest and elicits clicks each time a DAN member visits for at least one of the times that day.

There are several sources of revenue under this general model including a monthly fee for space on the "DAN Sponsors" page, click-through revenue, and purchase revenue. Models and ratios for these revenue sources are well established, as are tracking and compensation systems. A referral system can generate additional revenue. I'm sure that many current DAN members are familiar with this approach and can add detail based on their particular experiences.

An example of rotating specials might be a 5% discount good for the next 20 days on tires purchased by DAN members. The following period, the same sponsor might switch the discount to charts and cockpit accessories, and so on. This process can even be automated.

What I like about this approach is a) it is unobtrusive; we need not be bothered by it when we want to check on a reply to an important topic, b) most of us will visit frequently to see what's up in the world of sponsors, c) the revenue stream is likely to be adequate to maintain the site, perhaps much more, and d) the revenue will grow as membership grows. Instead of charging for membership, I would suggest that we employ the same "diamond" system that you developed. We would require that a new person join and participate to some level before becoming eligible for sponsor discounts.

This approach might sound overly complicated to someone unfamiliar with digital marketing and sales. It is not. What I just outlined is easy to implement and rests on web practices that are more than a decade old. We could eventually migrate to more sophisticated models if the traffic and potential revenue warranted it. For example, DAN members could opt-in to receive email when a new special is added by DAN Sponsors they have chosen to monitor.

Finally, I would like to register my view against a membership fee. Many of us would have no problem with it but if you look at the demographics of general aviation, many pilots are reaching or are already at retirement age. Many are on fixed incomes. You can also argue for other solutions . . . no clear best path here.
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