Easy Way To Make 100k/Year

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Honestly this was saturated in my area around 2001. A guy started a website that was basically this ( though more "local" than "niche" really) and sold it for a nice chunk of change. I believe a radio and/or TV station bought it and it was offline within a year. The guy pumped it and got out while he could get money for it. Back then, there were a lot of suckers who would pay anything for an "internet business" with no business and spend millions on ads,etc. One local site even had an ad during the Superbowl ( for a local niche site).

I was actually publishing an offline paper back then ( as well as offering some online ad options) and used the direct mail route ( USAData, SalesGenie,etc). But I found no matter how strong my online and direct mail was, this required very good in-person closing.

Like another poster, I "went online" to avoid in person sales calls and the like. If i were a "salesman" type I would have been offline selling my ass off making huge commissions somewhere. Instead I'm online trying to make money without doing mailings, following up on leads,etc.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea. It just depends on what you are good at and your market,etc.
 


funny this should come up. I've been throwing a similar, though much larger, idea around in my head for quite a while now. maybe its time I start working on it
 
i have a question,

for this to work, do you have to setup reciepts for the client who wants to advertise you, and declare it as a business? or do people just do cash only type things? reason being what if companies want to write it off as a company expense?

sorry i understand the online logistics of it but am a lil confused on how to handle the offline transaction part of it
 
projectv3 said:
i have a question,

for this to work, do you have to setup reciepts for the client who wants to advertise you, and declare it as a business? or do people just do cash only type things? reason being what if companies want to write it off as a company expense?

sorry i understand the online logistics of it but am a lil confused on how to handle the offline transaction part of it
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Not sure exactly what you're asking but I'd assume you market your online directory just like a phone book. "Here's a directory specific to your area, and look all your competitors are listed in it. We get this many hits a month. It costs only this much to subscribe for a whole year of advertising where the customers look for YOU." etc etc

jryan54 said:
and if you wanted to be a real sneaky prick....you could scrape all of yellowpages listings for your niche and add them to your directory and then send them all an invoice saying "bla bla bla if you wish to renew your listing please pay $$$"

LOL
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That actually sounds like a damn good idea for getting subscriptions from the bigger companies. Might have to watch you you word it though, mentioning anything about renewing before they dealt with you at all sounds very risky to me.
 
i didnt mean the marketing side of it, i'm more curious about the transaction part. when u close a deal about it, do you have them pay through paypal or manually hand reciepts etc.
 
projectv3 said:
i didnt mean the marketing side of it, i'm more curious about the transaction part. when u close a deal about it, do you have them pay through paypal or manually hand reciepts etc.
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I take payment through paypal, and it automatically places them on recurring billing. (per year or 6 month)

IMO PayPal is much better than using a regular merchant account.
 
projectv3 said:
i have a question,

for this to work, do you have to setup reciepts for the client who wants to advertise you, and declare it as a business? or do people just do cash only type things? reason being what if companies want to write it off as a company expense?

sorry i understand the online logistics of it but am a lil confused on how to handle the offline transaction part of it
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I offer my customers transaction reciepts but only for offline business customers, they do seem to like it more, but I made it all automated, so there is no paper work, each time a monthly payment is made the customer just has to login to his/her account and simply print off the reciept and boom all done, all the info, ect... is all automatically filled out.

That is something you should look into more, it helps out a lot.
 
CorrrectAD, where do you get the cards mfg'd? Please dont tell me you print them out and laminate them. Heh.
 
And, let me get this straight, the bulk of the profits comes from duplicating this idea? Ie One well done directory wont turn a boat load of profit? I ask because your saying charge $175 for a year sponsorship. I figure you could get, depending on your area, 10-20 or so of these but thats just a few grand, then your set for a year with no new advertisers.

On the other hand, it seems like if you attack a locality with a million different directories (Check out new nightlife directory! Check out our new movie directory! Check out our new restaurant directory!).. eventually the locality will get tired of and/or ignore it.

Keep in mind im thinking of this from my personal situation where I am in a remote college town ontop of a mountain where, although theres 26,000 students attending the school, its in the middle of nowhere and thats 95% of the population of the people in this city. We are the only community in my city and within a 30 minute radius, really.
 
krazyjosh5 said:
And, let me get this straight, the bulk of the profits comes from duplicating this idea? Ie One well done directory wont turn a boat load of profit? I ask because your saying charge $175 for a year sponsorship. I figure you could get, depending on your area, 10-20 or so of these but thats just a few grand, then your set for a year with no new advertisers.

On the other hand, it seems like if you attack a locality with a million different directories (Check out new nightlife directory! Check out our new movie directory! Check out our new restaurant directory!).. eventually the locality will get tired of and/or ignore it.

Keep in mind im thinking of this from my personal situation where I am in a remote college town ontop of a mountain where, although theres 26,000 students attending the school, its in the middle of nowhere and thats 95% of the population of the people in this city. We are the only community in my city and within a 30 minute radius, really.
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1. I'm in a HUGE city (9million+ pop)

2. There are about 8,000 businesses in my niche that can/want to ultimately cater to all of these 9m people.

3. The $175/year figure was for my lowest of low featured listing options, some range as high as $2800/year. Not to mention that I charge for a lot of other shit, and the directory listing is really just a foot in the door for other advertising programs we offer.

4. My model is to perfect the rollout in this local area, snag a few high dollar nation-wide/global sponsors, and take the directory national, probably using a local extension (YourTownDirectoryName.com that forwards to YourTown.DirectoryName.com) initially, while maintaining the DirectoryName brand.


Some people might do things differently. Like the different niches.. start a bunch of directories sort of thing. which is fine I'm sure, but it's just a little too much for me.

People who have met me know I'm not the brightest... I need simple.



Oh and yes, I already had all the cards made. haha

If you want to make some extra bucks, you can put a Blockbuster ad or whatever in the mailer when you send out the card. The conversion is decent... it's how I pay for the mailings.


Good luck.
 
Been doing something similar for awhile. But my technique is to go ahead and scrape listings and put a few of the scraped ones live and make it look like they are paying already. Then, get your site to rank for the relevant geo search and the new customers will usually find you rather than the other way around.

Then, you do a quick review of their service/site and find some way to give a quick one line review "One of the best dentists sites in Ohio - Mysite.com" and give them a small discount to put the review on their site (most will) and "boom" you got a relevant backlink out of the deal too.
 
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CorrectAD said:
3. The $175/year figure was for my lowest of low featured listing options, some range as high as $2800/year.
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I've always wondered this more on a personal level rather then a business standpoint but who the fuck pays $2800/year for a business directory, I'm thinking about charging at the most $80/months or $960/year, with only keeping maybe 50% profit for myself.

You must have some sort of great directory offerings to be charging those amounts.
 
bloard said:
Been doing something similar for awhile. But my technique is to go ahead and scrape listings and put a few of the scraped ones live and make it look like they are paying already. Then, get your site to rank for the relevant geo search and the new customers will usually find you rather than the other way around.

Then, you do a quick review of their service/site and find some way to give a quick one line review "One of the best dentists sites in Ohio - Mysite.com" and give them a small discount to put the review on their site (most will) and "boom" you got a relevant backlink out of the deal too.
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Excellent! I was just trying to figure out how to get the backlinks from my members. I was thinking along those lines but I just couldn't quite nail it down. Thanks, you get a + rep from me.
 
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