What to do with a site

[pdxdvr]

Just so we're on similar brainwaves, let's pretend I'm doing a site geared towards horseback riding the Hawaiian islands. I hate horses, so it's not really about that, but gives you a decent idea.

While equestrian enthusiasts are my primary target, beyond the best places to ride, I'm also talking about restaurants, lodging, zip lines, plantation tours, etc.

I'm working on an "insiders guide" ebook I'm going to sell that's stuff like "The best beaches to spend a day at for horse lovers". I'm also getting some ad purchases on the site plus a couple of affiliates for other tours on the islands. So there's some money coming in already, but the horseback riding leads is my main goal right now.

I'm already starting to get inquiries from people who want to go horseback riding. As it stands now, I have a friend who owns a stable that I'm referring them to for a small commission. But let's pretend they're just on one island and not every person filling out the form is going to that island.

Here are my two ideas:

1. I pick a stable in each of the major towns that I refer web inquiries to for a commission. Problems may include still not being the ideal location for the customer, maybe not the best price so they go elsewhere, depending on my affiliate to do a good job and close the sale and report back and pay me.

2. Contact every stable and get them to subscribe to a lead service. When a customer fills out the form on my site, everyone who subscribes can see it and bid on it. I get nothing for the lead, but get the constant subscription from potentially dozens of stables. Main problem is I'm not sure the best way to setup the bid system (preferably within WordPress) so the customer doesn't have to hand over their email to dozens of stables and get inundated with emails from the stables until the end of days. It seems like it would be easy to throw some PPC (or mturk for quick BS numbers) at this at first to help build perceived value to the subscribers.

A typical day of riding is ~$150 per person, my current commission is 15%, typically there's at least two people booking, sometimes up to 5 days of riding. But I've sent about a dozen leads to my one stable and only one has converted because of location and price.

Thoughts on either idea for what to do with the leads I'm generating? Or something else entirely?

 

[Jizzlobber]

Thoughts on either idea for what to do with the leads I'm generating? Or something else entirely?

Perhaps a different experience?

 

[contract]

?

No one can really prove anything, until you actually test it yourself first.

Don't know niche, or if there's even enough volume..
Don't know how well the ebook will convert...
Don't know what the target market is, and if they have money for this...
Don't know how many businesses will be interested...

etc.

You can only do two things with leads: sell products to them yourself, or sell the leads to someone else who can close the deal.

Not sure what's going on here..

 

[EricVonDoobie]

 

[Andrew Scherer]

I think your problem is a business relationship problem. You need to meet better providers, correct me if I am wrong.

 

[Zaino]

Did u say u own a PLANTATION?

 

[JarredLv]

I miss college.

 

[Paper_Chase]

So you built out an entire site without figuring out how to monetize it first?

Ur doing it wrong OP.

 

[cyphermil]

You have internet real estate OP. You can rent it out nightly, you can rent it out monthly, you can do wetfyw with it.

I personally like all those ideas. I think you should try them all and see what works for you. Tell the stables that you are doing a trial period to test the viability of a business idea so they don't think your a loser who can't made the old thing work so he went to the new thing, and try them all. Then report back.

 

[pdxdvr]

You can only do two things with leads: sell products to them yourself, or sell the leads to someone else who can close the deal.

Not sure what's going on here..

I understand that, what I'm asking/pondering is do I sell the leads the traditional way where I have a 1-to-1 (or 1-to-many) relationship and they pay me an agreed upon amount for leads or if I setup some kind of subscription model where all the stables are paying me monthly for access to bid on the leads.

I think your problem is a business relationship problem. You need to meet better providers, correct me if I am wrong.

I have a great provider, they're just on the Big Island. So someone wants a horsey vacation on Kauai, my provider is worthless. There's hundreds of providers on each island, they all get 4+ stars on TripAdvisor, so again, I could try to pick one from each geographic area and sell them leads one by one or I could figure out how to setup a subscription system and get all of them to pay me $50 for access.

So you built out an entire site without figuring out how to monetize it first?

Ur doing it wrong OP.

The site had a monetization plan since before I registered the domain, it's in the black big time, now I'm just trying to optimize it by considering options. Thanks for chiming in though.

You have internet real estate OP. You can rent it out nightly, you can rent it out monthly, you can do wetfyw with it.

I personally like all those ideas. I think you should try them all and see what works for you. Tell the stables that you are doing a trial period to test the viability of a business idea so they don't think your a loser who can't made the old thing work so he went to the new thing, and try them all. Then report back.

Thanks. The cool thing is everything so far is working as planned. The initial referral commission paid for expansion of content and some backlinks. People are buying ads without me having to go out to sell them. People are clicking and buying via the affiliate links. I'm getting questions every day about all kinds of FAQ-worthy material that's going to make up the eBook and I've already sent out pricing surveys to people who have contacted me so I know where I'm going to price it. I'm now at the point where it's going to take some time/money to either get the relationships with more stables for direct leads or build out the lead bidding system and contact all of them. I like the idea of telling them it's a new idea trial, thanks for that.

 

[BabyGotBacklink]

Why would you base your whole very specific metaphor/example on something that you hate?

Agree with Contract and PaperChase btw First you get the concept then you build the site HOWEVER if you just lucked out into some traffic and leads then you need to run the numbers, decide if you want it bad enough and go for the biggest ROI. With just a metaphor and no real numbers we can't make that call, only you can.


I will say that if you are going with a bidding system you have to remember that this is giving your prospects more time to dick around on other sites, waiting for your providers to answer maybe they are lured into instant gratification. Just a thought

 

[Weeds]

#1

If you could come at me with an email that entold great fortunes from advertising monthly on your site, then I would be silly not to place ads.

I would immediately do a cost analysis, though. How many targeted visitors do you provide?

I do like the idea of gathering the list and sending the customer, although I would prefer to track sales from your links.

 

[pdxdvr]

Why would you base your whole very specific metaphor/example on something that you hate?

Because I don't want to out what I'm working on due to one particular jackass in the actual niche I'm dealing with who keeps ripping off everything I do. I keep outranking him at every turn, so it's not a big deal, it's just annoying. I picked something for an example that has a similar price point, and socioeconomic customer.

Agree with Contract and PaperChase btw First you get the concept then you build the site HOWEVER if you just lucked out into some traffic and leads then you need to run the numbers, decide if you want it bad enough and go for the biggest ROI. With just a metaphor and no real numbers we can't make that call, only you can.

No "lucked out into some traffic and leads", it was planned. What I didn't plan for was how stubborn the site visitors are. It's like my referral partner is in Waimea and the visitor is staying in Waikoloa (20 miles) and despite my partner being #1 on the island by plenty of TripAdvisor reviews, they refuse to go the 30 minutes to the best horseback riding operation in the island chain. I didn't anticipate that, so now I need to branch out with where I'm sending leads that way the site visitors don't just go away when the stable just isn't close enough for them.

I'm not sure what the biggest ROI is, I was posing the question/situation to see if anyone had any insights into doing a lead site as a bidding system similar to elance/odesk.

Right now, and I'm still not ranking where I will be for several higher volume keywords (long tail is converting nicely so far), I'm getting an average of 15 inquiries per month. If I expanded my referral stables, I can either try to get a 15% commission (like I'm currently doing with someone I trust) or just charge per lead. If I get enough stables to convert at an absurd 50%, most inquiries are for 2 people for 3 days, so:

15 inquiries * 50% = 7 (I round down)
7 inquiries that convert * 2 people * 3 days = 42 days of riding
42 days of riding * $150 per day of riding = $6,300
15% lead commission * $6,300 = $945 / month
Average of $63 per inquiry in commission.

OR I can do the subscription bid system. If I assume my same absurd 50% conversion by way of stables paying for the system and there's 150 stables in the area:

150 stable * 50% = 75 subscribers
75 stables * $30 per month (half what they'd typically pay for a lead) = $2,250

Okay, I did the math, looks like the subscription based system is the way to go assuming I can safely decrease the conversion % equally to both. Especially since the subscription system will be easier to manage both the system and the money.

I will say that if you are going with a bidding system you have to remember that this is giving your prospects more time to dick around on other sites, waiting for your providers to answer maybe they are lured into instant gratification. Just a thought

Yep, definitely a good point to consider, thank you for bringing that up.

I would immediately do a cost analysis, though. How many targeted visitors do you provide?

I do like the idea of gathering the list and sending the customer, although I would prefer to track sales from your links.

Excellent points, at this point as seen in my above example, I'm only getting about 15 inquiries per month. I have PPC campaigns planned that should increase that number, but I don't want to run those until I have the best system in place to deal with the increase. For people just wanting to run ads and not get direct inquiry leads, I'll be honest and say my prices are too high for the traffic coming through (at least in terms of what I'd think it's worth if I were buying an ad), but my inventory is full, so I guess I should either open up more ad spots or raise prices.

The problem with trying to track sales from the inquiries is they leave my hands and I have no way of knowing if a trip is booked. My one referral actually has full payment processing on his site, so we can track that really easily, but most other stables just have a "contact us to book" kind of thing.

 

[TylerDurden]

OP PM me. I live in Hawaii and I have a lot of insight into the activity industry here.

 

[Weeds]

WAIT.

I like number 2 now.

I would set up a CPM on your site that was lucrative for your client and you both. Divide your visitors by your leads and come up with something that would suit your clients by their county. Or whatever...

Fuck tracking after they leave, setup something simple to analyze traffic for keywords within your site. Filter based on the returns for each county.

If your traffic is low, that could be a pretty high CPM. Find a way to shrink the cost down, like CPhundred.

 

[pdxdvr]

OP PM me. I live in Hawaii and I have a lot of insight into the activity industry here.

Thank you, I do appreciate the offer, but I'm not actually dealing with Hawaii, that was just an example that's a similar business model to what I'm actually doing.

WAIT.

I like number 2 now.

I would set up a CPM on your site that was lucrative for your client and you both. Divide your visitors by your leads and come up with something that would suit your clients by their county. Or whatever...

Fuck tracking after they leave, setup something simple to analyze traffic for keywords within your site. Filter based on the returns for each county.

If your traffic is low, that could be a pretty high CPM. Find a way to shrink the cost down, like CPhundred.

I like #2 now too, but the rest of your post lost me. I'm actually nowhere near the Hawaiian time zone so it's well past my bedtime, I'm going to have to re-read that when I wake up to see if I get it. I'm going to assume it's absolutely brilliant, so thank you very much!

 

[microphone head]

Did u say u own a PLANTATION?

THIS REQUIRES AN ANSWER OP.

 

[pdxdvr]

Sure do