Until here, this is indeed quite easy to do. I would describe it as a banner farm.rwtucker wrote: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.
Do you know of any available, secure and mobile-ready scripts? Or some example which could be cloned? What you are describing costs more to program and to implement than it could possibly bring in within a year.rwtucker wrote: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.
Monthly fee: that is quite easy to do, although I think a yearly fee is easier. The other systems require that the sponsor installs such a system on their servers, automates billing and paying of affiliates and I have not found any Diamond-related affiliate programs. I can only change things on this website but I cannot setup a complete affiliate program on each sponsors webpagerwtucker wrote: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.
OMG, if DAN was a page with 100k members and 10k visits from unique IPs per day, I would say there is a chance a provider would be interested in doing special deals for members. But we are far away from that.rwtucker wrote: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.
Membership is not really growing or if at all as slowly as the number of Diamond aircraft increases. There is a period of time where DAN is useful and interesting but only a handful of members who had a Diamond 5 years ago still have it and still login regularily to this site. In the last month 152 registered users logged in to the site. From that number you have to subtract approximately 20 bots, such as the google bot which spider the site. What would be the click-through-rate of these 132 members and how much sales could be generated there?rwtucker wrote: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.
It is a lot more interesting to target visitors and lurkers who do not actively participate and are still in the market to buy a Diamond.
What you are describing is possible but we need to modify the phpBB script. Each time the phpBB software receives an update, we need to implement those lines of code to the updated phpBB version and see if it still works. When modifiying the script, which we have done before, we do not know anymore if it affects the functionality and the entire site needs to be tested again. An update of the phpBB software which can be done in 10 minutes might then take a few hours or many days if debugging is needed. Quite often we could not find the reasons why a feature we implemented would not work on the new version anymore.rwtucker wrote: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.
Robert, if a member has a Diamond plane, I guess anything between 50 and 100 USD a year is not an amount which sets him back too far. If you can afford a plane, and you do not want to see advertising on this page, it could be a fair deal to offer an advertising-free page for a premium membership fee. It leaves the page open to anybody and if advertising is unwanted, a premium fee will allow to see the page without advertising. Again, it is one of the options I am considering but maybe someone comes up with more ideas.rwtucker wrote: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.
It seems that no matter what I will do, someone will object. I get least resistance in the version of an advertising- and membership-fee free page where some donations cover part of it and supposing that I will do all kinds of programming, moderation and maintenance for free. Give or take, I have put hundreds of hours into maintaining this page, spent thousands of reading posts and what I got back was the joy of seeing the members of this site being happy and exchanging their wealth of insight to Diamond aircraft. That might not always be enough.
If there is anyone out there who would like to take this site over and keep it running on donations only, please, pm me. I am not clinging to my job by no means.
On the positive side, I did look up some aviation site with an affiliate program and found at least a pilot shop which seems to offer also products which the visitors and members of DAN might be interested in.