Advertising on forums with banner ads - anyone do this?

[tankman1989]

There are a number of forums which I frequent and they have banner ads which are all related to the topic of the forum. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to start advertising there for remote support since there are no other competitors advertising on the site. I would think that since I would be the only one under that type of business that I would be more likely to gain customer loyalty. The forum is a pretty close community and they seem like they would support other members who are of the same mindset.

What are your thoughts?

[pcbox]

Originally Posted by tankman1989

There are a number of forums which I frequent and they have banner ads which are all related to the topic of the forum. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to start advertising there for remote support since there are no other competitors advertising on the site. I would think that since I would be the only one under that type of business that I would be more likely to gain customer loyalty. The forum is a pretty close community and they seem like they would support other members who are of the same mindset.

What are your thoughts?

Could work out well if you have an established presence on the forum, but most forums have notoriously low click through rates otherwise. Just make sure it's PPC and not CPM.

[16k_zx81]

Originally Posted by tankman1989

There are a number of forums which I frequent and they have banner ads which are all related to the topic of the forum. I am wondering if it would be a good idea to start advertising there for remote support since there are no other competitors advertising on the site. I would think that since I would be the only one under that type of business that I would be more likely to gain customer loyalty. The forum is a pretty close community and they seem like they would support other members who are of the same mindset.

What are your thoughts?

I reckon Bryce would be a good man to chat to about this. Given thats the business he's in n'all...

[SprinterTech-WI]

Most IT related forums won't allow those types of adds..... I have considered advertising for printing (biz cards and the likes) to compete better with the likes of Vistaprint etc..... but I have decided to wait until we finish an overhaul to our site first.... then I'll probably start advertising on forums etc... for small biz owners and what not.

[Bryce W]

With any advertising, you need to consider what "mode" the potential viewer is in when they see it. If you were to advertise on a technical support forum for example, typically you would think that it would be a good idea because these are a bunch of people that need technical support and this is your target audience.

However, the "mode" they are in is the wrong mode. They are on a technical support forum because they are looking for free help and will at least attempt to fix it themselves if they can. If they were going to pay for a technician they probably would have just done it to begin with.

Technibble advertising works for its advertisers because the "mode" most of us are in are as business owners looking for ways to improve our businesses. CRMs and Remote Support software are designed to do just that. The right type of people for the right type of advertisers.

On the forum you plan to post on, are these people looking to pay for remote support? or are they looking for some free help? Is the topic on tech at all?

[Kim101]

I think people usually expect forums to be an advertising-free place for sharing experiences...people usually trust what other people say they have already tried and not ads...My point is, if you are expecting many clicks on your banners maybe you won't get much but if your goal is to mainly make your product more popular than it is worth trying. Even if I, for example, am not interested in what you offer I'll probably remember your product's name if I see it several times on a forum. though it's difficult to measure the effect of such a campaign.

But have in mind that it would all be useless if you are advertising in the wrong forums meaning what Bryce already said - you should know what your target expects to get out of a certain forum.