I have two goals for this newsletter: first, to do a lot of your marketing research for you (all forms of media, not just online) and put it here in a digestible format; second, to guide you through and help you take full advantage of your sponsorship on TexAgs.com.
As a sponsor, you have the right to participate in conversations on all discussion forums and promote your business on TexAgs.com. Our most successful sponsors participate in the forums; hands down, coupling your sponsorship package with direct participation is the best recipe for a profitable campaign.
Participation in the discussion forums is more than just making promotional posts, it’s participating in the day to day conversations and becoming a member of the community. Here’s what Adam Koch, a long time sponsor with TexAgs, had to say about the great success of his campaign:
I did not really do anything special. I think it is partly my reputation and word of mouth that are the most benefit. The ad by itself likely would not generate enough traffic but I use it to generate a little credibility to those who do not know my reputation. I would say the first 6 months were a trial and I did not see much benefit from it. I was dedicated to keep on for a year, so that’s what I did. Now I’m seeing more activity and as a result it is starting to generate a little profit after a year. With insurance however, even if I break even, that is a good thing. I will make money the next year on that account assuming I do not lose them as a client.
I really think that just placing the ad and waiting for the phone to ring will not work often here. You must to be active in the community, and make no mistake (as you know) Texags is a community. A community as a whole wants to do business with other members (at least that is what I am hoping) and it seems to be playing out that way for me. I’m trying hard to become THE insurance agent for Texags.
When you are ready to begin your TexAgs sponsorship I will create a username like this for you and help you use it to your organization’s advantage.
Each month this section will contain several marketing and advertising related articles from various sources. This section will help keep you up to speed on current marketing initiatives in an ever changing marketplace.
- Internet advertising will be relatively unscathed in the downturn
- Online advertising is projected to continue a strong growth trend despite the recession as audiences move online faster than advertisers.
- Internet Advertising: The Ultimate Marketing Machine
- Half of your advertising budget is wasted! If you start this article, be sure to finish it, the best and most relevant tidbits are toward the end.
- Reaching Elusive Audiences: Adults at Work (.pdf)
- A telling study by Jupiter Research detailing online behavior at home and at work. A short read and several charts and graphs for the visual crowd.
- The New Frontier of Advertising
- This article was written in 2006, but if you haven’t read much about search engine optimization, take 3 minutes to look this one over.
In this section I will address questions that I hear on a regular basis from our sponsors. Please email me if you have a question or issue you would like addressed in this section: amanda@texags.com
Q
Why doesn’t my ad come up on TexAgs as often as I thought it would?
A
Most of the sponsors on TexAgs have what is called our Basic Sponsorship Package. This package guarantees that we will show your ad a minimum of 500,000 times per month. The important thing to remember is that Texags.com receives on average, 25 million page views per month. This means if you’ve purchased 500,000 page views per month, your ad is likely to be seen on TexAgs about 1 in 50 page views throughout the site.
The Basic Sponsorship Package is a great ad package for a long-term sponsor who is looking to have a steady presence throughout the website, but not looking to have a major and immediate impact. There are other sponsorships available for those companies looking to make a major impact by purchasing a stationary ad on the TexAgs home page or in one of the discussion forums.
If you are dissatisfied with your ad showing up 1 in 50 page views, consider purchasing more page views (i.e., purchase 1,000,000 page views per month and your ad will show approximately 1 in 25 page views throughout the site).
I’m sure many of you have noticed that ads for the Texas A&M Foundation, Aggieland Credit Union, Freebirds, Rudy’s, Ticket City, Traditions Book Store, etc. show up quite a bit more frequently than others. These sponsors have taken advantage of some of our more unique sponsorships, all of which include stationary ads on at least one portion of our site and a generous number of rotating advertisements. Several of these sponsorships are even interactive, most notably, the Texas A&M Foundation (Spirit & Mind), Freebirds (Burrito Lottery), and Rudy’s (BBQ Blitz).
If you’re interested in putting together an interactive advertising campaign with stationary ad placement, please contact me. I’d love to work with you on creating a unique program that will help you reach your target audience.
Q
I’ve hit refresh 100 times and not seen my ad, what’s going on?
A
If you are constantly hitting the refresh button on TexAgs and still not seeing your ad, take a look at the very bottom right of your screen. You should see: “There are approximately XXXX visitors currently on TexAgs.” On any given day there are usually between 4,000 and 8,000 visitors on our site at once; these people are also clicking through different pages of our website collectively at a much higher rate than you are as an individual at your computer screen. Fear not, your ads are being shown at the rate you purchased them to.
In this section I’ll keep you up to date on our side of things – changes to the site, any relevant news or events we have going on, etc. The first few newsletters will focus on introducing you to the TexAgs team.
- Brandon Jones ’95 has been the President and CEO of TexAgs since 1998. He has grown the site from a handful of A&M Football fanatics to the online go-to destination for Aggies everywhere. He and his wife, Ari, have 2 daughters and a son who will arrive in March.
- Amanda Northcutt ’08: Director of Sales to both myBCS and later TexAgs.com since the beginning of ‘07. I am married to Travis Northcutt ’08 and we recently purchased a house in Bryan and are in the process of our first major remodeling project.
Additional Notes
- As always, I can be reached on my cell phone (979.324.0485) or by email (amanda@texags.com) any time. I appreciate any feedback you’d like to provide on this newsletter: comments, suggestions, complaints, etc.
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