Niche Music Website with 1mill - 1.2mill uniques per month - best way to monetize?

minustheartist · Jan 23, 2013

Hey guys, I currently run a network of websites, one of which hits 1 - 1.2 million uniques per month.

We currently run take over ad deals, ad networks, paid editorials - however our turn over isn't anything to shout home about with that amount of traffic.

We're looking at RFP's, however we don't have the man-power and contacts.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to market the site and turn over more?

Ad networks are constantly rolling, like Sonic Network, and Fixion - but they take 50-60% of the revenue.

We also have a targeted email list of around 270k emails for members that have signed up to the site.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking - what the hell is this guy on about - he should be a raking it in. But I am just a music journalist with a big ambition, and managed to achieve alot of traffic, and readership loyalty in 8 years.

I am reaching out to the BHW forum as I love reading the articles on here and hope to get some great advice.

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

Hey all, anyone have an ideas on this? Years later and we're still earning very little on the site...

Bienshen · Dec 30, 2013

Well your email list alone sould be worth its weight in gold.

Lets try start by sending idk maybe 8 news letters, then on the 9th one send out some affilate offer on how to make your own music, or maybe some guitar lesson affilate. stuff like that.

just sharing some ideas. nothing major though. thats quite alot of views a month. 1 cent from all your viewers is 12k a month..

have you tired adsense?

ttrox · Dec 30, 2013

I don't know what kind of numbers you're dealing with (I mean profit) but it's true you could be getting a whole lot of money from it.
I don't know as well, how targetted your site is, as "Music" could get pretty vague; however, if you were to sell headphones, music CD/DVD's downloads with an affiliate network, I can imagine you should at least make a good amount from it (40.000 UV/day is quite a number, and while conversions might not be that many, it's still a number).

Note that what I said in the last paragraph depends on how targetted your website is to any of these things. Being music, I can't imagine it being too far off, though.

Hope it helps.

DKovik · Dec 30, 2013

How engaged are your members?
What sort of content is on the site?

BarryAllen · Dec 30, 2013

I would recommend selling stuff through affliate links. That would bring in more profit than anything else I can think of. As well, adsense wouldn't hurt. When you've got that much traffic and that many emails, wow, you've got yourself the real deal man.
BA,

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

Bienshen said:
Well your email list alone sould be worth its weight in gold.

Lets try start by sending idk maybe 8 news letters, then on the 9th one send out some affilate offer on how to make your own music, or maybe some guitar lesson affilate. stuff like that.

just sharing some ideas. nothing major though. thats quite alot of views a month. 1 cent from all your viewers is 12k a month..

have you tired adsense?

This is something we have never really utilised, however we want to avoid affiliates as the list is Bands, Record Labels, PRs and users. So I think if we suddenly sent out affiliates for people to buy it would hit us with a heavy unsubscribe rate.

We tried adsense but it didn't earn much at all.

ttrox said:
I don't know what kind of numbers you're dealing with (I mean profit) but it's true you could be getting a whole lot of money from it.
I don't know as well, how targetted your site is, as "Music" could get pretty vague; however, if you were to sell headphones, music CD/DVD's downloads with an affiliate network, I can imagine you should at least make a good amount from it (40.000 UV/day is quite a number, and while conversions might not be that many, it's still a number).

Note that what I said in the last paragraph depends on how targetted your website is to any of these things. Being music, I can't imagine it being too far off, though.

Hope it helps.

Money wise we only turn over money from paid editorials, so per editorial it's $150. We get about two a month.

Our site is very targetted for music lovers, bands and record labels. We are one of the leading music reviews, news and features websites and we're just about to hit our 10 year anniversary in 2014. Yeah it's around 35k-40k uniques a day.

On the site there is: Threads: 63,131, Posts: 109,339, Members: 58,089

DKovik said:
How engaged are your members?
What sort of content is on the site?

Very engaged, it's album reviews, interviews with artists, playlists and news.

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

BarryAllen said:
I would recommend selling stuff through affliate links. That would bring in more profit than anything else I can think of. As well, adsense wouldn't hurt. When you've got that much traffic and that many emails, wow, you've got yourself the real deal man.
BA,

Would affiliates not cheapen the brand? We've built our site for the user experience, so the idea of affiliates scares me somewhat...

DKovik · Dec 30, 2013

minustheartist said:
Would affiliates not cheapen the brand? We've built our site for the user experience, so the idea of affiliates scares me somewhat...

They would cheapen your brand and alienate your users, depending on the product.

If ads were a bust, then I think the only way to bring in more cash in the least shady way possible is through your own merch. iTunes/Spotify/etc... affiliates would be a plus but absolutely not the sole source.

You could also try direct ad sales if you've been using networks up to now.

I'm relaunching my own fledgling review site soon (not even close to the size of what you have), but I'm really, really interested in what you do.

Also just realized I've probably got you bookmarked to spam you with my album later this year.

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

DKovik said:
They would cheapen your brand and alienate your users, depending on the product.

If ads were a bust, then I think the only way to bring in more cash in the least shady way possible is through your own merch. iTunes/Spotify/etc... affiliates would be a plus but absolutely not the sole source.

You could also try direct ad sales if you've been using networks up to now.

I'm relaunching my own fledgling review site soon (not even close to the size of what you have), but I'm really, really interested in what you do.

Also just realized I've probably got you bookmarked to spam you with my album later this year.

That's what I thought.

It's surprisingly hard to sell adverts, even with the numbers that we roll with.

Sure, hit me up on skype anytime and I can chat to you about what we do.

Yeh send your album through for sure!

DKovik · Dec 30, 2013

minustheartist said:
That's what I thought.

It's surprisingly hard to sell adverts, even with the numbers that we roll with.

Have you tried selling to artists/labels?

Sure, hit me up on skype anytime and I can chat to you about what we do.

Yeh send your album through for sure!

I will. Not too soon though. I don't want to come off as too desperate.

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

DKovik said:
Have you tried selling to artists/labels?

I will. Not too soon though. I don't want to come off as too desperate.

Tried a few times but didn't really have any bites, not sure what angle to attack it at.

DKovik · Dec 30, 2013

minustheartist said:
Tried a few times but didn't really have any bites, not sure what angle to attack it at.

I dunno, the more I think about it, the more I think it's gotta be something simple.

You gotta figure all those other sites are just banking, but most of them are very... "corporate" and you have to wonder how they could possibly keep running.

C C Z · Dec 30, 2013

minustheartist said:
Hey guys, I currently run a network of websites, one of which hits 1 - 1.2 million uniques per month.

We currently run take over ad deals, ad networks, paid editorials - however our turn over isn't anything to shout home about with that amount of traffic.

We're looking at RFP's, however we don't have the man-power and contacts.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the best way to market the site and turn over more?

Ad networks are constantly rolling, like Sonic Network, and Fixion - but they take 50-60% of the revenue.

We also have a targeted email list of around 270k emails for members that have signed up to the site.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking - what the hell is this guy on about - he should be a raking it in. But I am just a music journalist with a big ambition, and managed to achieve alot of traffic, and readership loyalty in 8 years.

I am reaching out to the BHW forum as I love reading the articles on here and hope to get some great advice.

Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Can't you add a page on your site answering questions from visitors and inserting an affiliate link or two that way?

For example, if one of the visitors asks "What type of guitar do you recommend?" or something like that, you can answer the question and insert an musical instrument shopping site.

With something like this, you will come off as just being helpful, and will actually help also.

Just something off the top of my head.

ttrox · Dec 30, 2013

I honestly don't see ads/affiliate links as invasive; it all depends on the context. If you are talking about an specific guitar (such as someone mentioned before), a link to an affiliate site that sells it wouldn't be strange at all, in fact, it would be adviseable to place it so users/potential customers could know about it.

Call them "targetted affiliate links". Now that you say it's a forum, if someone writes about the new song of "X" band, a little ad somewhere on the screen that isn't too bothersome would be good to be placed, leaving you with potential sales and visitors that know that they can visit your site to know new bands and get their songs, etc.

cot_ton · Dec 30, 2013

Here's what I do with my 1 million uniques monthly.
$8k-10k from advertising
$5k from affiliate sales
$5k-10k from advertorials.

Not sure what your overhead is but it may be time for you to invest in an ad sales person to try and land your own deals. Pay them a salary with commission depending on what you can afford.

DKovik · Dec 30, 2013

cot_ton said:
Here's what I do with my 1 million uniques monthly.
$8k-10k from advertising
$5k from affiliate sales
$5k-10k from advertorials.

Not sure what your overhead is but it may be time for you to invest in an ad sales person to try and land your own deals. Pay them a salary with commission depending on what you can afford.

Damn. Do you have someone to get ads or was that just a suggestion? 216-300k/yr ain't, uh, bad...

Riders On The Storm · Dec 30, 2013

Actually you've a great potential to sell music related services. I am into music business as well. hit me up on skype:xavier.magpie1

mikkelwilk · Dec 30, 2013

One thing I woul do is sign up for a affiliate networklike Amazon and just everytime you put up a review you just put a ad on the end like "buy this album now!" I can think of a quite of few ways to make bank with your site
If you want just Skype me at "mikkelwilk" and we could talk about it

minustheartist · Dec 30, 2013

C C Z said:
Can't you add a page on your site answering questions from visitors and inserting an affiliate link or two that way?

For example, if one of the visitors asks "What type of guitar do you recommend?" or something like that, you can answer the question and insert an musical instrument shopping site.

With something like this, you will come off as just being helpful, and will actually help also.

Just something off the top of my head.

Thanks for that, you mean some sort of survey?

ttrox said:
I honestly don't see ads/affiliate links as invasive; it all depends on the context. If you are talking about an specific guitar (such as someone mentioned before), a link to an affiliate site that sells it wouldn't be strange at all, in fact, it would be adviseable to place it so users/potential customers could know about it.

Call them "targetted affiliate links". Now that you say it's a forum, if someone writes about the new song of "X" band, a little ad somewhere on the screen that isn't too bothersome would be good to be placed, leaving you with potential sales and visitors that know that they can visit your site to know new bands and get their songs, etc.

I can see the angle you are heading towards, we are more band orientated rather than gear stuff.

cot_ton said:
Here's what I do with my 1 million uniques monthly.
$8k-10k from advertising
$5k from affiliate sales
$5k-10k from advertorials.

Not sure what your overhead is but it may be time for you to invest in an ad sales person to try and land your own deals. Pay them a salary with commission depending on what you can afford.

If this is true, then you must be earning a hell of a lot.

An ad sales person would be the best way forward, but as it stands we would want someone on a freelance basis, that works on commission only.

xavier00 said:
Actually you've a great potential to sell music related services. I am into music business as well. hit me up on skype:xavier.magpie1

I've just added you on Skype.

mikkelwilk said:
One thing I woul do is sign up for a affiliate networklike Amazon and just everytime you put up a review you just put a ad on the end like "buy this album now!" I can think of a quite of few ways to make bank with your site
If you want just Skype me at "mikkelwilk" and we could talk about it

I think we tried that before but it didn't really make anything.

Added you.

Niche Music Website with 1mill - 1.2mill uniques per month - best way to monetize?

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