i'm about to launch a very unique poker software product for online poker players. i'm making this post so that we're sure we've considered all of our possible traffic options.
from what i understand, google/facebook/yahoo/bing do not allow advertising related to poker (even though we're not actually promoting online gambling sites themselves)...though, i'm on an ehow.com page related to poker and i see sites selling poker chips and a site called tiltitoff showing up in their adsense. so, we have to get creative.
the traffic options we've considered:
1) SEO - we plan to have a very good blog and produce new poker related content. this will bring free traffic to our site. i figure we're more reliant on this than other companies.
2) media buys - to spread the word, there are a bunch of poker related sites we can buy advertising on.
3) blogs - we're going to contact blog owners and ask them to try our product and maybe write about it. unfortunately, it's proving to be somewhat tough to get in touch with these people. also, most of the major poker blogs are tied into existing poker companies (like poker training sites) whose owners don't want other brands being promoted on their servers. i've thought about going directly to the training site owners, but i'm really not sure what value i can add to their company by having them promote our product. maybe suggest they run an email promotion offering our software for free to existing customers who renew their memberships? that's something we'll consider, but it seems weak.
basically, i think doing media buys would be easier and more noticeable since there aren't that many popular poker blogs anyhow. the quality of most poker blogs is fairly weak, they're either operated by good players who post infrequently...these guys barely talk about poker and their writing isn't always phenomenal. or they're run by poker news companies that just post tournament updates and boring stuff that nobody really reads. there aren't exactly any poker blogs that have a huge following with a bunch of RSS subscribers. for a few reasons, this whole option is coming across as a less than ideal strategy for us.
4) twitter/facebook participation/engagement
anything blatantly obvious that i'm somehow leaving out?
from what i understand, google/facebook/yahoo/bing do not allow advertising related to poker (even though we're not actually promoting online gambling sites themselves)...though, i'm on an ehow.com page related to poker and i see sites selling poker chips and a site called tiltitoff showing up in their adsense. so, we have to get creative.
the traffic options we've considered:
1) SEO - we plan to have a very good blog and produce new poker related content. this will bring free traffic to our site. i figure we're more reliant on this than other companies.
2) media buys - to spread the word, there are a bunch of poker related sites we can buy advertising on.
3) blogs - we're going to contact blog owners and ask them to try our product and maybe write about it. unfortunately, it's proving to be somewhat tough to get in touch with these people. also, most of the major poker blogs are tied into existing poker companies (like poker training sites) whose owners don't want other brands being promoted on their servers. i've thought about going directly to the training site owners, but i'm really not sure what value i can add to their company by having them promote our product. maybe suggest they run an email promotion offering our software for free to existing customers who renew their memberships? that's something we'll consider, but it seems weak.
basically, i think doing media buys would be easier and more noticeable since there aren't that many popular poker blogs anyhow. the quality of most poker blogs is fairly weak, they're either operated by good players who post infrequently...these guys barely talk about poker and their writing isn't always phenomenal. or they're run by poker news companies that just post tournament updates and boring stuff that nobody really reads. there aren't exactly any poker blogs that have a huge following with a bunch of RSS subscribers. for a few reasons, this whole option is coming across as a less than ideal strategy for us.
4) twitter/facebook participation/engagement
anything blatantly obvious that i'm somehow leaving out?
And I have read somewhere else that you need to spend $10k/month for that option.
