The 3 things that will determine SportsLizard's success
Now that the site is launched and I've had a few weeks to work out the kinks, it's time to see some substantial growth. SportsLizard is already a very successful website in my eyes (I think the traffic, emails from collectors, and press I've gotten validates that) but it has yet to be proven a successful business - something that Pure Adapt can rely on for substantial revenue and can count on as a building block for it's future.
SportsLizard's business model is simple (I think) and therefore there are 3 things that we need to do well to succeed. If any of these 3 fall short, SportsLizard will fall short.
#1 - Get sellers to sell their stuff on SportsLizard
This is probably the easiest of the three, and therefore the one I'm least worried about. I've only contacted a handful of sellers thus far and we've already got over 10k items listed. It's not too hard of a sell - we list your products for free and take no cut when there's a sale. I get a lot of "why is this free" from people, but I explain our mission and that we make our revenue from advertising, and people usually are willing to give it a shot. Considering I've contacted 30 out of thousands of sellers, I'm not too concerned that we can't push Beckett.com (200k listings) by the end of the year.
#2 - Drive more traffic to SportsLizard
In order for sellers to be happy, we need to sell their items. For that (and in order to increase our ad/sponsorship revenue) we'll need more traffic. Right now SL get's ~1000 visitors a day. Not a bad start, but not even close to what the industry leaders get...and to be honest we already have as good as (if not better) of a site depending on what you are looking to accomplish.
I'm also not too worried about this one because when I put my mind to it I've ALWAYS found ways to increase traffic for my sites and client's sites. Among the things we're doing (in no particular order):
This is the one I'm most worried about. First, it's our only source of revenue for the site right now, and second, I've never solicited people for advertising before. I *think* it's an easy sell to contact people who advertise on my competitors and sell them less expensive advertising to the same audience, but who knows. I'm selling by impressions on purpose like Beckett does so they can make an apples to apples comparison. I'm also contacting fantasy sports sites, sports betting sites, and ticket broker sites - all who want my audience and all who have HUGE margins so hopefully have more $ to spend (than say, collectibles sites).
If this fails, we're screwed because advertising networks can't generate the revenue we need for the traffic we get. By selling advertising directly, I'm expecting to get 3-5 times the revenue than what we get now with AdSense (or what you could get with a comparable advertising network).
-----
Once we see success on these three fronts, we can start building the online price guide and offering premium services. But I don't want to get ahead of myself too much.
This week most of my time is going to be spent contacting potential advertisers, so I'll know quickly whether or not this is going to be easy, hard, or next to impossible.
The one thing that really, really makes me feel good is that my partners seem to have more confidence in SL than I do. I'm a bit jaded because I've re-launched the site like 80 times and it's never quite worked all the way...which leads me into a "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. But there supreme confidence and unwavering doubt that SL will be a huge success gives me a ton of confidence.
SportsLizard's business model is simple (I think) and therefore there are 3 things that we need to do well to succeed. If any of these 3 fall short, SportsLizard will fall short.
#1 - Get sellers to sell their stuff on SportsLizard
This is probably the easiest of the three, and therefore the one I'm least worried about. I've only contacted a handful of sellers thus far and we've already got over 10k items listed. It's not too hard of a sell - we list your products for free and take no cut when there's a sale. I get a lot of "why is this free" from people, but I explain our mission and that we make our revenue from advertising, and people usually are willing to give it a shot. Considering I've contacted 30 out of thousands of sellers, I'm not too concerned that we can't push Beckett.com (200k listings) by the end of the year.
#2 - Drive more traffic to SportsLizard
In order for sellers to be happy, we need to sell their items. For that (and in order to increase our ad/sponsorship revenue) we'll need more traffic. Right now SL get's ~1000 visitors a day. Not a bad start, but not even close to what the industry leaders get...and to be honest we already have as good as (if not better) of a site depending on what you are looking to accomplish.
I'm also not too worried about this one because when I put my mind to it I've ALWAYS found ways to increase traffic for my sites and client's sites. Among the things we're doing (in no particular order):
- Advertising in some smaller publications and on a weekly live vodcast.
- Continuing to publish great/controversial articles on the blog. For SEO purposes and viral purposes, this has been my best method of growth in the past and probably will continue to be. This also lends itself to social bookmarking, article syndication, etc.
- Do "box break" videos (where you open a box of cards on camera) and throw them up on YouTube. You'd be surprised how popular these types of videos are in the cards industry. These also give me an article to write (about what cards were pulled) and we'll sell the good cards on eBay (and advertise for SL in the listing) and give the rest to charities like local Boys and Girls clubs...all for the price of a box of cards.
- A well run Pay-Per Click campaign. I had success with SL in the past, but had a tough time converting the traffic once it got here....something I'm much, much better at now.
- As I'm doing all of this, natural search traffic will continue to grow as we add content and increase backlinks. Most of the new traffic now comes from search, and I hope to see steady growth in that area as well.
This is the one I'm most worried about. First, it's our only source of revenue for the site right now, and second, I've never solicited people for advertising before. I *think* it's an easy sell to contact people who advertise on my competitors and sell them less expensive advertising to the same audience, but who knows. I'm selling by impressions on purpose like Beckett does so they can make an apples to apples comparison. I'm also contacting fantasy sports sites, sports betting sites, and ticket broker sites - all who want my audience and all who have HUGE margins so hopefully have more $ to spend (than say, collectibles sites).
If this fails, we're screwed because advertising networks can't generate the revenue we need for the traffic we get. By selling advertising directly, I'm expecting to get 3-5 times the revenue than what we get now with AdSense (or what you could get with a comparable advertising network).
-----
Once we see success on these three fronts, we can start building the online price guide and offering premium services. But I don't want to get ahead of myself too much.
This week most of my time is going to be spent contacting potential advertisers, so I'll know quickly whether or not this is going to be easy, hard, or next to impossible.
The one thing that really, really makes me feel good is that my partners seem to have more confidence in SL than I do. I'm a bit jaded because I've re-launched the site like 80 times and it's never quite worked all the way...which leads me into a "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude. But there supreme confidence and unwavering doubt that SL will be a huge success gives me a ton of confidence.
posted by Adam McFarland at
4/09/2007 01:38:00 PM
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