Become a Brand (Not Just a Niche)

14 Jul 2009

Become a Brand (Not Just a Niche)

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I was reading Seth Godin’s blog yesterday and read a great post about CPM gaps. In this post, he talked about how you can integrate advertising with your site so that it becomes part of the brand. A “hand in hand” effort so to speak.

I realized that there are a few companies that do this very well, and far too many that don’t. There are two that I can think of right now that do this very well (Slowtwitch and Beginner Triathlete). Although they are niche specific (triathlon forums), they both do a remarkable job of integrating themselves with the advertising community. As a result, when you visit these sites you feel like you are hanging out in the community.

Although it might not seem important, choosing the right advertisers can have a tremendous impact on the feel of your site. Throwing up an ad just to have another source of revenue is not necessarily the best long-term approach. I constantly re-think the ads on my site, and after thinking about Seth’s post I plan on thinking about it even more.

Rather than trying to squeeze into a niche, why not figure out how you can close the gap between the consumer and your advertisers? Become the brand, not just a niche player. Something to think about.