Belegarth

See, people have thought of banner ads, but they haven't seemed to have brainstormed exactly WHERE to put them-- and that's what this thread is here to solve! It has come to my attention that we are, in fact geeks. And what do geeks do on the internet? Webcomics and porn, but getting a Belegarth banner on a porn site is just kind of weird; Q.E.D. we put Belegarth banners on exceedingly successful webcomics, like Goblins, Something Positive, Least I Could Do, Megatokyo, or whatever. (Penny Arcade might be a little tough.) It may take a lot of funding, but there are a lot of devoted members on this site who I think wouldn't mind supporting the sport/game in such a fashion.

What we'd need is someone whom we all know and trust to handle the cashflow, and someone experienced at doing so-- but I'm not sure who it would be.

If it's a crap idea, tell me why-- you may well be right.
If you think it's a good idea, help get it off it's feet-- this could be the push we're looking for.

i think its a good idea maybe vg cats too?

Yeah man, I was just throwing some good ones out there.

I think you'd find that comming up with the money would be a lot tougher than you're imagining. We're not exactly a wealthy sport.

2 things.

* Banner ads are a + in this webmasters books. I would love to have a banner for each different event with the date and locataion and a happy little link to a webpage about the event. Armageddon Chaos AtthGates Melcrome Winterwar Okfest.... I would love to be constantly displaying said banner ads on the wiki and new interface. Honestly the new interface I have purposely left a large space in the design blank for a banner ad. What I really need is to not have to make the banners (looks to the Recruitment guys)

* Second I think that the populace needs to understand that no money gets put into the webpage. Aka. Enoch, Winfang, Jikanta & I don't get paid and Armageddon basically pays for this website.... I will say that again. ARMAGEDDON pays for this website. Meaning you don't go to arm... well um hate to say it but you are not contributing. I did put adwords on the wiki... I put them at the bottom of the screen and I made it so if you use anything other than IE they won't pop up. In 1 year those click-throughs have produced 32$ worth of revenue only, while technicaly the wiki has cost 247$ (shared cost) to run for the last year.

How hard is to click on a sponsored link? I guess it must be very hard.

But looking at this trend. We would need capital to put our banner ads up on other websites. Would our banners on other sites prove profitable... I bet we would see people coming to events if we advertised events on adwords. It would be weird... how did you learn about chaos wars? Oh I clicked on a banner about it.


So I pose this questions... is anyone out their willing to make Event Banner ads? If so I would start posting them everywhere asap. Animated graphics saying Armageddon July 8th-15th Danville IL come fight with some pictures and the like for all the events. It wouldn't be too hard for someone to do, and definatly a "possition" on the Web team for said individual.

I've got flash and CS. I could possibly pump out a banner or two on the little free time I have.

(I'd also consider runescape due to its large US player base)

That's exactly my point, Madog-- You put it on Wikipedia, where there is a small chance that a geek may see it, but if you put it on a webcomic, or some really popular medieval free MMO, then we'd probably at least double the revenue you got on wiki. (Hopefully more. )

And that's another thing, it's a poor sport, but there are a lot of people in it who still want to further it as a community, and those people I think we could count on. I know that I'D chip in a few bucks if it meant I'd see one or two more people at practice, knowing that this idea brought them here.

But my main point in this thread is location, location, location.

(not at work, hence I can post longer messages)

While I like the idea of banners and can probably make several for the different events, the problem I see is the landing pages.

I think that posting event banners is kind of moot, and that we should just post banners to the Belegarth website itself; maybe even create a brand-spankin' new webpage for the newblies.

sounds like it needs some analysis. Banner ads on other sites cost money... moolah... cashola... this, while possibly effective, needs to have a ROI that exceeds the cost.

I know this sounds very business like, and rather un-Belegarthy, but to evaluate the ROI, we need to have survey of the target market to see if they would actually respond. We also need to analyze how many respondents it takes to pay back the investment.

I know this seems like a lot of work, but it is. This is how a non-profit has to work to evaluate whether or not it has an idea that will turn an investment into a newbie producing machine or just suck up some money and have no idea whether or not it worked due to the time-frame involved from turning a newbie into someone who helps pay the piper.

Not trying to poo-poo the idea, but I think you need to have some way of measuring the effectiveness of the effort and then analyze whether or not it had a better return than any other campaign that has been already used (ads in the local papers, etc.).

Target Market definition:
Not just geeks, & nerds, but ones in areas where they can start playing and get hooked.

The reason I would define that market like that is that there is a higher chance of retention if a newbie has other people to play with. While this is possible with new realm development, it is more difficult requiring more effort, and a lower effort to return ratio.

I know this sounds like boring business stuff, but it would be extremely helpful if someone were willing to do the work.

On a side note. I think the event banners placed on our site would be fun to do and would cost us nothing more than we spend now if someone were to put the effort into them. I don't know that it would generate more interest, but it has a higher probability of disseminating information quickly about the events by directing people to the location where the information is stored. This _may_ increase attendance, but I don't think those who want to attend are currently stymied by lack of information, especially since most are literate and can look on the Events thread.

sincerely

I would like to say a lot of the not for profit side of Belegarth more professionally run, but that stuff costs money as well. And unless there's someone in the mists of Belegarth that does that kind of thing professionaly and doesn't mind working for free, it won't happen, me thinks.

Volunteer basis is the only practical way.

I am a network engineer with some practical business background, enough to know what needs to be done, not necessarily enough to know how. If someone knows how to do these, I will be willing to do the legwork.

I volunteer my time and energy if one of us can volunteer the know-how.

I agree Jimbo, there is not a budget for, nor should there be, for a project like this as we have a plethora of energetic people, hopefully some with a business degree who can sort of guide us in the effort.

The most any man can have is the beginning of a good idea.

RedBeard wrote:I think the event banners placed on our site would be fun to do and would cost us nothing more than we spend now if someone were to put the effort into them....

This _may_ increase attendance

So we now have a larger amount of noobs who do not own a foam sword, much less anything legal to use on the field.

Off topic:
I'd like to see our events turn into more of a ren-faire type of thing where fighting is the highlight of the faire.

Savetuba, that's the point. We want to get new people hooked onto this sport, have they weapons or not. I'm sure that people have loaner weapons.

And, what with the whole banner thing, I feel that what we would have to do is raise the money(Tough, definitely... but it could REALLY be worth it), create the banners, and contact the hosts of the banners. I chose webcomics because they need these banners to keep their site going, and who knows, we may even get a webcomic or two who's done the sport once or twice, and is willing to help us out.

If it really is more difficult than that, then I'm willing to look into the situation, and see every step it takes to get a banner advertisement on a site. After all, many sites that I visit have a blank banner with 'Advertise here, yeah!' things where there should be an advertisement.

I honestly think that we wouldn't see much cash revenue, but we could get a plethora of fresh meat who aren't afraid to be total f'ing geeks.[/b]

get lots of news, yes. get them to start at an event where they would pay $20+ to enter, then another $50+ for weapons. Not the way to keep poor college students.

Or, alternately, we could get them to show up for an event and pay the relatively minor admission (admittedly, I can't figure out a way offhand to give true newbs a discount that wouldn't be exploitable by the less ethical of our established populace), and have loaner weapons and/or garb to help them get involved and get hooked. Said loaners can be easily and cheaply done en masse; not everyone needs to be swinging a hyper-engineered masterpiece or an Edhellen product. A pile of tabards can be made in no time from the dollar bin at your local Walmart, on the cheap; maybe give them away to new players who attend as part of admission.

Anyway, back on topic: this idea piqued my interest, and I decided to go to Something Positive (http://www.somethingpositive.net) and see what the rate was for their page. A 468x60 ad, across the top of the comic, costs $50 a day and the sidebar ad, a 160 by (up to) 600 pixel space, costs $75 a day. Now, this may seem steep, but, to quote their site...

Something Positive reaches between 150,000 and 200,000 readers and serves, on average, 250,000 page views a day.

That's a lot of people... and I believe those stats have been up for a while, so the readership has probably increased.

I personally would be willing to front the cash for a few days a month of similarly-priced advertising, if someone else can do the design and such... I suck at anything computer-art-related. It's an excellent opportunity to move beyond word-of-mouth and passing-by-on-the-street recognition, and I think we'd be shooting ourselves in the foot, growthwise, if we don't eventually do something along these lines.

My 2 cents; take them as you will.

savetuba wrote:So we now have a larger amount of noobs who do not own a foam sword, much less anything legal to use on the field.

EUREKA! We must tap the audience of people that ALREADY OWN FOAM WEAPONS, but DON'T FIGHT!

BRILLIANT!

hmm... ok... lets assume banner-ad-on-the-cheep (28 x $50 = $1400 per (short) month).

I cannot assume that the 250,000 readers are different readers per day. This leaves us with the assumption that 250,000 readers will get exposure to our ad for a period of one month.

The percentage of readers that 1) click through 2) think it's cool 3) tell their friends about it, 'cause their not going to do it by their selves 4) drive their butt to a realm and start fighting and 5) get hooked enough (and have time enough) to come to an event that pays for it completing the cycle.

That's five points of failure per success. Assuming that we get a good click through of 1%, and we assume a 50/50 success to failure ratio at each step, the numbers look like:
1) 2,500 people a month look at the Belegarth site
2) 1,250 think it's cool
3) 625 people a month tell their friends about it
4) 312 people a month drive to a realm
5) 156 people (after some time) go to an event to complete the cycle

Each new person generating $8.97 in extra revenue (not other overhead costs) will complete the cycle.

The 50% success rule may be a bit optimistic as we have done no research on current Belegarth players to find out if they would click through a banner ad and what would hook them into coming once they got there.

Maybe we could find out from our current members
1) what sites they visit most frequently
2) What banner ads they have clicked on most recently
3) Which sites they were taken to made them want to join or buy something

This would give us a hotlist of websites that people go to who are definitely defined as our target market.
It would give us ideas on which banner ads speak clearest to our target market so that our design could take some influence from them.
It would also tell us what our pages that they are directed to need to look like to encourage getting off their duff and coming to play.

Any thoughts?

I'm telling you, webcomics (Especially S*P) would be great, because so many of them are webcomics about gaming conventions, gaming, and pen and paper Rps already. Hell, I bet that we could even get them to do a Belegarth storyline, because it's already so close to the heart of their comic; if we told them we'd have an advertisement up for a month or so.

And, Redbeard, I'm rather sure that if we got a banner on a site like the aforementioned S*P, we'd probably get a tad more than 50% clickage on the banner, if we made it right.

Thirdly, it's really not about getting them to pay back the advertising that we did through events and such, it's really just about getting some new people, and getting the word out. Remember:

Getting a newb through a banner: 50$ a day
Getting two newbs through a banner: 50$ a day
Seeing your realm increase by 25% in the period of a month: Priceless.

Big Jimmy wrote:

savetuba wrote:So we now have a larger amount of noobs who do not own a foam sword, much less anything legal to use on the field.

EUREKA! We must tap the audience of people that ALREADY OWN FOAM WEAPONS, but DON'T FIGHT!

BRILLIANT!

hahaha

Bishop wrote:

Big Jimmy wrote:

savetuba wrote:So we now have a larger amount of noobs who do not own a foam sword, much less anything legal to use on the field.

EUREKA! We must tap the audience of people that ALREADY OWN FOAM WEAPONS, but DON'T FIGHT!

BRILLIANT!

hahaha

Yeah, it made me chuckle too.

I am suggesting that the new people can be garnered through other means that not only target the same market, but have a much higher return to cost ratio.

I am not going to suggest for a second that anyone who wants to spend their money on any endeavor to promote Belegarth shouldn't do so. I am simply suggesting that the effectiveness may need some evaluation.

I think I have covered some solid steps in trying to effectively run an advertising campaign and measure it's effectiveness, though to be honest, I was extremely generous with the ratios and success hit rate estimates because, like you, I am optimistic about Belegarth and how absolutely cool it is.

I will post no more on this topic unless specifically requested.

Thanks

$50 a day?!?!?!

I was thinking more in the ballpark of $50 a month!

That's like $1500 a month!

The only time I've ever heard of the sport raising near that much capital was when their was talk of getting power and/or showers at our neck of the woods at forest glen.

Also, I really don't think that's our audience at all. I've tried recruiting off of the many many many online games I used to play. It doesn't work. I think the funniest comment I ever got was "Oh wait.... you do this like... for real? Outside? nevermind..."

What games were you playing?

oh man, that's a big list....

Imperial Conflict
The Conquest
TDZK
Carnage Blender
Neopets
bartender
Kingdom of Loathing
Roid Racer
Diablo 2 (guild forums)
WoW (More guild forums)
edit as I remember:
Dominion

I'm forgetting a lot, I played "tick based games" off and on for like 10 years. Up to 7 at a time.

Haha, wow, then that was a dumb question...
It's strange that sites like that would give you poor reactions to our sport. Hmmm, maybe a different medium to reach our demographic is the best option...

Any other ideas? I really think that a properly place banner ad, even for a week, could get quite a few new members.

I think the problem is that, and I include myself in this, gamers are inheirntly lazy. I do like 3 months fighting, 3 months gaming and then back, spring fall fight, summer winter game. When I game, I just don't want to leave the chair. Most gamers are the same, they already have a hobby.

The audience your looking to target is too lazy and slothful for this "sport."

Ive been advertising on Halflife and CS:S for a while, and I found a few people who've recognized us. But over all, the players think it's too strange.

Sorry for being lazy, but why can we not do a banner swap with other LARP/Gaming/Con sites?

Todo wrote:

Bishop wrote:

Big Jimmy wrote:

savetuba wrote:So we now have a larger amount of noobs who do not own a foam sword, much less anything legal to use on the field.

EUREKA! We must tap the audience of people that ALREADY OWN FOAM WEAPONS, but DON'T FIGHT!

BRILLIANT!

hahaha

Yeah, it made me chuckle too.

Responce to event banners:

well excuse me for thinking of saftey issues. Personally I can name several bad things that happened with noobs on a field of 8 (4 vs 4) from the last con we had in AZ. There were MANY nut shots from noobs to others. Many head shots including me taking a swung glaive the face. (If someone wants the pic I have it for sale *tor*) and noobs that would keep coming after 2 limbs or being legged (still using both legs).

Other things I shudder to think about;
Javs thrown the wrong way. (cool I just hit that guy. 'yeah, with the pomel.')

People purposfully hitting arrows with their swords.
Red weapon baseball swings aimed at your head, 'cause that was how they did it in braveheart.

Now think of gathering 20+ people who have never fought before. Loaning them stuff to use, then pushing them onto a large field of 200+. I can see lots of people are going to get hurt, mainly the noobs.

Tuba, I'm not suggesting a massive newb hoarde to come out and attempt a hostile takeover of an event, I'm talking about getting out info on where practices are, what it takes to start a realm, and so on and so forth.

Besides, newbs will be newbs, and the only thing we can do is teach them.

Todo wrote:Tuba, I'm not suggesting a massive newb hoarde to come out and attempt a hostile takeover of an event, I'm talking about getting out info on where practices are, what it takes to start a realm, and so on and so forth.

Besides, newbs will be newbs, and the only thing we can do is teach them.

what's wrong with newds? we were all new at something once?! right?

Ok I know how to turn on my computer that is my level of geekyness.


Is there a way to make an advertisement page here with a link I can post on my company's web page? mine is a free web page site so graphics are out but I can post a link...

I deal with schools, churches and libraries
I go to them and teach classes from calligraphy to how to make chain mail.
:dramatic pause: I wonder if they would be interested? and it is the Armageddon site area to boot. mwahahahahahah.

call me at 217 446-3528 D and S Wholesale Tues-Sat 9-5 to post anything you guys want.

my site is http://freewebs.com/dandswholesale check it out and tell me what you want your page to say.

I think that Lady Feri and BAM have the right idea, being one of my first thoughts after reading about suggested web based advertising.

Why not put 1 or 2 (no more than that, because anything more would be considered incredibly annoying) ads on the bele home page? Or the forum. Or both? Then with the money, little or not, earned from our advertising for others, we would turn it around and advertise ourselves somewhere else.

two words: rennasance fair (i cant spell, its late)


i MIGHT be going in a few weeks, if you guys want i can print a few fliers, and hand em out to the people fencing