Notice to All Business Classified Advertisers

[FLICKOFLASH]

Notice to all business classified advertisers

The MLP has always been very willing to help out our small business partners, who in turn have helped us immeasurably. We've noticed a marked rise in small business postings, which are clogging the Small Business section with "spam-like" material. We do have a Paid sponsor banner program which has some of the most reasonable rates on the net. As we move into being a “Big Board Forum,“ the cost of the website & servers has also increased. For those who are paid sponsors & other supporters in other capacities we wish to thank you! We will do our best to help you in the future. We have become a dominant market guitar forum & are reaching now nearly a quarter of a million potential customers per month & growing. It's unfair for those who are active & are supportive sponsors to be constantly blindsided by nonactive or nonpaying businesses. We wish to continue our ventures of growth & would like those who support our Network of forums to prosper along with us. We at the MLP will be looking more into this matter in the near future & may have to implement some new guidelines if the amount of these posts continues to rise. Please feel free to PM us with any suggestions or comments as they will be greatly appreciated.

[martin6string]

As a former guitar parts retailer, I can vouch for what Flick is saying with regard to very reasonable advertising rates.

Support this place, the best online guitar forum on the net.

[brettk7]

Why not charge a fee to use the Business classifieds?

Another forum that I am a member of, allows people to do that for $12 a year. I'm sure you could fetch a much higher rate than that.


ps. Also, I had a typo in the PM sorry about that haha

[Roman Rist]

All the more reason for folks to buy raffle tickets for the MLP Special!

[b-squared]

Originally Posted by Roman Rist

All the more reason for folks to buy raffle tickets for the MLP Special!

Exactly.

BB

[FLICKOFLASH]

Originally Posted by brettk7

Why not charge a fee to use the Business classifieds?

Another forum that I am a member of, allows people to do that for $12 a year. I'm sure you could fetch a much higher rate than that.


ps. Also, I had a typo in the PM sorry about that haha

but if you look they also charge members as well even to have a avatars.



The Gear Page - Supporting Membership

[brettk7]

Originally Posted by FLICKOFLASH

but if you look they also charge members as well even to have a avatars.



The Gear Page - Supporting Membership

They also have 40,000 members and 2,000,000 posts. I understand why they HAVE to do things like that. I'm sure that isn't a cheap board to maintain at all. Not that MLP is small, but it isn't like that. There has to be a means for MLP to support itself, other than $100 a month banner packages. Not that they aren't worth it, but I'm sure you can understand why businesses may be weary about investing that kind of money.

[FLICKOFLASH]

here is what we were offering :
These are the current rates , they may subject to change in the future:

468x60 ROTATING BANNER (with Link) ON MOST PAGES + STICKY THREAD ( Top of forum pages)
1 month = $100
3 months = $270 (10% off)
6 months = $510 (15% off)
12 months = $960 (20% off)

300x250 ROTATING BANNER (with Link) ON FRONT PAGE + STICKY THREAD ( top of homepage)
1 month = $75
3 months = $202.50 (10% off)
6 months = $382.50 (15% off)
12 months = $720 (20% off)




Get additional FREE banner (with 1 year MLP banner subscription) on either Marshall Amp Forum - MarshallForum.com or Music Gear Forum - geartalk.com , depending on your business type

[FLICKOFLASH]

Originally Posted by brettk7

They also have 40,000 members and 2,000,000 posts. I understand why they HAVE to do things like that. I'm sure that isn't a cheap board to maintain at all. Not that MLP is small, but it isn't like that. There has to be a means for MLP to support itself, other than $100 a month banner packages. Not that they aren't worth it, but I'm sure you can understand why businesses may be weary about investing that kind of money.

What do we get when STORES SPAM us for free ?

[Sinmastah]

Commision ?

Perhaps a dollar per sale on expensive items like guitars and amps?

[martin6string]

Originally Posted by FLICKOFLASH

here is what we were offering :
These are the current rates , they may subject to change in the future:

468x60 ROTATING BANNER (with Link) ON MOST PAGES + STICKY THREAD ( Top of forum pages)
1 month = $100
3 months = $270 (10% off)
6 months = $510 (15% off)
12 months = $960 (20% off)

300x250 ROTATING BANNER (with Link) ON FRONT PAGE + STICKY THREAD ( top of homepage)
1 month = $75
3 months = $202.50 (10% off)
6 months = $382.50 (15% off)
12 months = $720 (20% off)




Get additional FREE banner (with 1 year MLP banner subscription) on either Marshall Amp Forum - MarshallForum.com or Music Gear Forum - geartalk.com , depending on your business type

FWIW, I priced a few different forums when I had the biz, and the prices above are a bargain considering the exposure level here.

[jonesy]

Maybe New Business's should have to check in with Alex first and be on some type of 30 day trial and allowed to make a limited number of posts? This would save bandwidth and keep a little tighter control on who gets to advertise here at the MLPF. Something like the message system where at first you are allowed 100, then VIP's get 1000 message storage.
There are many of you Matt, Roman, Greg etc. who have been here a long while and you guys should get priority over the newbie spammers who do not give anything back to the MLPF?

I keep hearing concerns of limited room on servers and the bandwidth getting eaten up
but I see about 70%-80% of the posts here are "Non-guitar related" and are basically a bunch of BS about who knows what? Those kind of posts and pics are taking space that could be used for more pertinent information like wiring, caps, guitar builds, set ups, historical info etc?

[jonesy77777]

True Jonesy,

But those off topic posts help keep alot of people interested in the forum for longer periods. We become "friends" and tend to be on the forum longer, creating more of a MLP community. You can only read about caps, old wood and gibson's price hikes so much. I think the Mods have done a pretty good job of creating a balanced forum, i like it for lots of reasons.

[jonesy]

I agree all work and no play get's boring, I am just saying a "HUGE" amount of storage space is devoted to those kinds of "Social" posts. Recently there was a thread about where MLPF is concerned about signatures eating up space, so I think you have to maintain some type of balance between what is relevant and what is not?

[calibud]

I have to agree with you guys here. Jonesy does make a valid argument in the relevance that we do get a lot of "useless" threads. On the other hand m6s does have a point, without the backstage, I would only be on mlp for maybe an hour a day tops. He is right, stating that reading about the same slash tone, or what pickups, or opinion threads, day in and day out do make us all lose interest. The backstage is where I have met a lot of great guys. Even though I have met some in the other sections. IMO it's a 50:50 without one the other would fail.

[Fixxxer]

Do peoples signatures with the pictures take up bandwidth?

I think to post in the manufactures forum, you should:

1. be a business with a business license for your state; (Important and protects our interests)
2. Pay some fee for the right to post there (Helps MLP)
3. have the option to get a banner ad (option, not mandatory)
4. Be an active member that logs on here regularly and contributes to the community.(Key attribute)

Regardless, to post in that section pay a fee and have a business license.

[jonesy]

Good ideas Fixxer, I have a Business license and would not be opposed to paying a reasonable flat fee to be able to list in Business section, versus feel like I have to buy ads etc. I don't have much in the budget for advetising and my ebay fees are eating me up as it is.

And being an active member who logs in is also a good point versus those who just post in business section and spam it with free advertising.

I would like to hear Alex's thoughts on this topic?

[martin6string]

Originally Posted by jonesy

Good ideas Fixxer, I have a Business license and would not be opposed to paying a reasonable flat fee to be able to list in Business section, versus feel like I have to buy ads etc. I don't have much in the budget for advetising and my ebay fees are eating me up as it is.

And being an active member who logs in is also a good point versus those who just post in business section and spam it with free advertising.

I would like to hear Alex's thoughts on this topic?

Dave, I remember those eBay and PayPal fee's all too well. They really do make it difficult to stay competitive.

[FLICKOFLASH]

The bandwidth issue is simple .Take me for example if I added a 10k photo to my signature that would be 10k X 10,000 posts + , Now keep in mind I am just one member of 10,000 members. That is a waste of bandwidth & cost us $$$.

[BOBBO]

Originally Posted by FLICKOFLASH

The bandwidth issue is simple .Take me for example if I added a 10k photo to my signature that would be 10k X 10,000 posts + , Now keep in mind I am just one member of 10,000 members. That is a waste of bandwidth & cost us $$$.

I live to suck up Bandwidth !!!!!

[martin6string]

Originally Posted by BOBBO

I live to suck up Bandwidth !!!!!

Nutty clown

[FLICKOFLASH]

Originally Posted by BOBBO

I live to suck up Bandwidth !!!!!

a couple clicks delete all & everything will be fine

[martin6string]

Originally Posted by FLICKOFLASH

a couple clicks delete all & everything will be fine

Flick just beat down the clown with a big stick

[FLICKOFLASH]

Here some ideas we have tossed around. A flat reasonable yearly fee , you would have to have a certain # of posts ( meaning a REAL MLP'er) & you would get a banner like the VIP banner under your name, We may limit the posts to one business thread (which all listings would be added)& allow periodic special event sales thread.

[baccaruda]

I've been hanging out at the ultimate subaru message board for several years now, and one of the practices there is to designate some features as donation-based privileges. This includes editing one's posts in the off-topic area, increased PM storage, "stealth" online status, and a custom thingy by your name that designates you as a donor. We recently moved onto our very own non-shared, more-secure server and donations have been sufficient to allow this. I'm not certain how big MLP is compared to USMB but given the rate of refresh in the MLP Member Classifieds, I might guess MLP is bigger (or richer)
I started a T-shirt fundraiser ($5/donated per shirt) that I'll be running for a month over there. If something like that would be welcome here, it's something I enjoy doing....

[FLICKOFLASH]

Rist Guitars Raffle 4 Historically Built Guitar

[FLICKOFLASH]

http://www.mylespaul.com/forums/back...r-allowed.html

[FLICKOFLASH]

Thinking we may need to crack down on flyby business posters who are not contributing to the forum & or have under 50 non spam postings. Also finding some people posting here have a 97-100% spam rate to their posts. We are here to help one another not be taking advantage of nor our members. I also found one poster this morn that linked off to a page that he collected of random deals as though to help member. Little did I know at first the link loading live sex chats Spam ware. Not Cool !!!

[FLICKOFLASH]

Originally Posted by jonesy

I agree all work and no play get's boring, I am just saying a "HUGE" amount of storage space is devoted to those kinds of "Social" posts. Recently there was a thread about where MLPF is concerned about signatures eating up space, so I think you have to maintain some type of balance between what is relevant and what is not?

The problem with this signature links & banners is picture this : you have one pic banner in your signature just for exaple say its 100 kbs & say you have 10,000 posts that equals 1,000,000 kbs. Now imagine that by 11,000 members with signatures.