Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`m currently in the home stretch of developing a medium sized web community for professional designers. My primary objective for the site is to network with and help talented people. My secondary objective is to make the site profitable, so it can sustain itself and ultimately, will contribute to my company`s bottom line.

Dale King

 

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Offering free services or features is really the only way to grow any type of "community" online but offering premium services is really the best and most profitable way to support such a community that does not have extremely large amounts of unique visitors.


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Terry Reeves
Search Marketing Strategies for Small Business      

If you mean clothing designers, there`s another topic right now about someone who`s trying to find name-brand clothing. In that topic, the response referenced shows. If you have a community of designers, it would seem to me that you could monetize it by becoming an "agent" and putting together online galleries, showcases, and other centralized ways to get the word out to buyers.

My community site is mainly visited by graphic designers, advertising creatives and product designers, secondarily by architects and artists.

To DKing`s point: I like the idea about contextual marketing. However, the only idea that pops into my head there is to place amazon (associate account) books and other products in those posts. I`ve done that in the past but it really doesn`t do much of anything.

Are there other ways to use the idea of contextual marketing in posts?

To Craig`s point: I think I do help to promote many peoples products, reputations and exhibitions for example, but how would you suggest monetizing the "Agent" idea? We have a simple gallery included in the site, but I was going to offer that for free.

To Bartimus` Point: Premium services is a great idea for the next phase of the site I think, post launch. I`m not sure what premium services I could offer them. Besides maybe creating a store and selling on their behalf and taking a commission. IMDB had a tempting and clever idea when they added their "star meter", but only allow premium members to see why it went "up" or "Down". Simple and effective. What could a graphic or product designer want as a premium service comparable to such a proposition?

Would it be counter productive  to ask recruiters to pay a small fee to post job opportunities on the site, but keep job browsing free?

"Would it be counter productive  to ask recruiters to pay a small fee to post job opportunities on the site, but keep job browsing free?"

That is exactly what I would do. Assuming you get some good traffic from the search engines. Businesses and people seeking business expect to pay for placement on job boards.


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Terry Reeves
Search Marketing Strategies for Small Business      

The model for an agency is pretty well known. You act as a broker between people who need graphic designers and the designers themselves. How in particular, would be the branded identifier you come up with.

That is very reassuring! I think I will have it open during the soft launch/beta and then add the pay barrier, once the site runs smoothly and gets more regular traffic.

You`re right it is. As a freelancer I was signed up with a few of them myself. But it didn`t hit me until you reiterated this point, that I could be the agent/agency myself, as I have many contacts on both sides of the deal.

<ding!> great idea!