Sky Poker & blonde.

[Boba Fett]

We tried to persuade them that general raising of awareness had a value, & it does, but how do you put a price, or value, on it, especially when negotiating with hard-nosed accountants?

If I owned a poker forum and wanted to quantify the value of exposure through my medium this is what I would do.

At the end of every year I would run a Blonde Poker Open MTT hosted on my sponsors site for Blonde members only. An end of season spectacular to find Blonde poker's ultimate player of the year. Non-refundable registration for this tournament would be open from Jan 1st and I would market this event relentlessly throughout the year. Message every member inviting them along to play and have lots of exposure on the forum. As each month went by the total runners for this event would build as a % of people logging onto the forum will be encouraged by the exposure to reg for the big event. If no sky account they will be more inclined to open one as it's for a specific reason rather than just general play.

Decent confidence should mean you can offer a sizeable guarantee for a modest buy-in, like the recent Goliath in Cov. Use banners to advertise that eye-catching guarantee on the up-dates thread. This way you get all those non-members with sky accounts signing up to Blonde and those without either signing up for both. Loads of different events through the year, comps, staking threads, bounties, running a book, side bets, the fun would be endless. By the end of the year x thousand runners could be achieved. Then when I'm sitting in front of them hard-nosed accountants I would pull out my graph demonstrating their most popular MTT of the year at x entry fee was the Blonde Poker Open. If they don't extend I still have tangible evidence to present to my next perspective sponsor

I tell you what I would deffo enter that so I could bust some random Blondes at the tables. Only forum names as well so I can see if I bust Boldie or bvb vs Greekstein, how hilarious. I can see myself lifting that trophy now (sorry if that causes offence). Bragging rights and banter would be sensational. I figure if I couldn't make a success of such an event sponsors would be right to pull the plug.

Lol Mantis you absolute mug

I like James Keys

[MANTIS01]

Naturally the added benefit would be all sky players who have never heard of Blonde would see this big MTT gathering pace in their lobby with big guarantee and  % would be directed to the forum. Thereby utilising the sponsor to grow the membership of the forum.

[mulhuzz]

We tried to persuade them that general raising of awareness had a value, & it does, but how do you put a price, or value, on it, especially when negotiating with hard-nosed accountants?

If I owned a poker forum and wanted to quantify the value of exposure through my medium this is what I would do.

At the end of every year I would run a Blonde Poker Open MTT hosted on my sponsors site for Blonde members only. An end of season spectacular to find Blonde poker's ultimate player of the year. Non-refundable registration for this tournament would be open from Jan 1st and I would market this event relentlessly throughout the year. Message every member inviting them along to play and have lots of exposure on the forum. As each month went by the total runners for this event would build as a % of people logging onto the forum will be encouraged by the exposure to reg for the big event. If no sky account they will be more inclined to open one as it's for a specific reason rather than just general play.

Decent confidence should mean you can offer a sizeable guarantee for a modest buy-in, like the recent Goliath in Cov. Use banners to advertise that eye-catching guarantee on the up-dates thread. This way you get all those non-members with sky accounts signing up to Blonde and those without either signing up for both. Loads of different events through the year, comps, staking threads, bounties, running a book, side bets, the fun would be endless. By the end of the year x thousand runners could be achieved. Then when I'm sitting in front of them hard-nosed accountants I would pull out my graph demonstrating their most popular MTT of the year at x entry fee was the Blonde Poker Open. If they don't extend I still have tangible evidence to present to my next perspective sponsor

I tell you what I would deffo enter that so I could bust some random Blondes at the tables. Only forum names as well so I can see if I bust Boldie or bvb vs Greekstein, how hilarious. I can see myself lifting that trophy now (sorry if that causes offence). Bragging rights and banter would be sensational. I figure if I couldn't make a success of such an event sponsors would be right to pull the plug.

Lol Mantis you absolute mug

Not gonna call him a mug because I don't know the guy.

I will say from a business perspective, I'd estimate the ROI of such a plan to be about -85% at best.

just sayin.

[MANTIS01]

We tried to persuade them that general raising of awareness had a value, & it does, but how do you put a price, or value, on it, especially when negotiating with hard-nosed accountants?

If I owned a poker forum and wanted to quantify the value of exposure through my medium this is what I would do.

At the end of every year I would run a Blonde Poker Open MTT hosted on my sponsors site for Blonde members only. An end of season spectacular to find Blonde poker's ultimate player of the year. Non-refundable registration for this tournament would be open from Jan 1st and I would market this event relentlessly throughout the year. Message every member inviting them along to play and have lots of exposure on the forum. As each month went by the total runners for this event would build as a % of people logging onto the forum will be encouraged by the exposure to reg for the big event. If no sky account they will be more inclined to open one as it's for a specific reason rather than just general play.

Decent confidence should mean you can offer a sizeable guarantee for a modest buy-in, like the recent Goliath in Cov. Use banners to advertise that eye-catching guarantee on the up-dates thread. This way you get all those non-members with sky accounts signing up to Blonde and those without either signing up for both. Loads of different events through the year, comps, staking threads, bounties, running a book, side bets, the fun would be endless. By the end of the year x thousand runners could be achieved. Then when I'm sitting in front of them hard-nosed accountants I would pull out my graph demonstrating their most popular MTT of the year at x entry fee was the Blonde Poker Open. If they don't extend I still have tangible evidence to present to my next perspective sponsor

I tell you what I would deffo enter that so I could bust some random Blondes at the tables. Only forum names as well so I can see if I bust Boldie or bvb vs Greekstein, how hilarious. I can see myself lifting that trophy now (sorry if that causes offence). Bragging rights and banter would be sensational. I figure if I couldn't make a success of such an event sponsors would be right to pull the plug.

Lol Mantis you absolute mug

Not gonna call him a mug because I don't know the guy.

I will say from a business perspective, I'd estimate the ROI of such a plan to be about -85% at best.

just sayin.

The objective is to quantify the value of exposure through forum advertising to a sponsor for the sole purpose of securing continued sponsorship. Hence if you get x thousand runners through forum advertising you have quantified this value in a presentable way. I think that is a more positive and constructive way to demonstrate the influence a forum has to a sponsor than it's players downing tools as has been suggested. So I don't understand the ROI comment and proposed % because you aren't investing any money and your objective isn't to get a return other than continued sponsorship. Having said that the sponsor could agree a % cut of the juice for the comp which could give you a nice return for no investment. So yeah don't understand -85% ROI (from a business perspective). Throughout the year as sky players see a Blonde comp in their lobby they migrate to the forum and greater membership means even more influence moving forwards. And stands to reason more players would open sky accounts which you could link to Blonde which again is the whole objective. Just an idea thou, sure others are welcome.

[mulhuzz]

We tried to persuade them that general raising of awareness had a value, & it does, but how do you put a price, or value, on it, especially when negotiating with hard-nosed accountants?

If I owned a poker forum and wanted to quantify the value of exposure through my medium this is what I would do.

At the end of every year I would run a Blonde Poker Open MTT hosted on my sponsors site for Blonde members only. An end of season spectacular to find Blonde poker's ultimate player of the year. Non-refundable registration for this tournament would be open from Jan 1st and I would market this event relentlessly throughout the year. Message every member inviting them along to play and have lots of exposure on the forum. As each month went by the total runners for this event would build as a % of people logging onto the forum will be encouraged by the exposure to reg for the big event. If no sky account they will be more inclined to open one as it's for a specific reason rather than just general play.

Decent confidence should mean you can offer a sizeable guarantee for a modest buy-in, like the recent Goliath in Cov. Use banners to advertise that eye-catching guarantee on the up-dates thread. This way you get all those non-members with sky accounts signing up to Blonde and those without either signing up for both. Loads of different events through the year, comps, staking threads, bounties, running a book, side bets, the fun would be endless. By the end of the year x thousand runners could be achieved. Then when I'm sitting in front of them hard-nosed accountants I would pull out my graph demonstrating their most popular MTT of the year at x entry fee was the Blonde Poker Open. If they don't extend I still have tangible evidence to present to my next perspective sponsor

I tell you what I would deffo enter that so I could bust some random Blondes at the tables. Only forum names as well so I can see if I bust Boldie or bvb vs Greekstein, how hilarious. I can see myself lifting that trophy now (sorry if that causes offence). Bragging rights and banter would be sensational. I figure if I couldn't make a success of such an event sponsors would be right to pull the plug.

Lol Mantis you absolute mug

Not gonna call him a mug because I don't know the guy.

I will say from a business perspective, I'd estimate the ROI of such a plan to be about -85% at best.

just sayin.

The objective is to quantify the value of exposure through forum advertising to a sponsor for the sole purpose of securing continued sponsorship. Hence if you get x thousand runners through forum advertising you have quantified this value in a presentable way. I think that is a more positive and constructive way to demonstrate the influence a forum has to a sponsor than it's players downing tools as has been suggested. So I don't understand the ROI comment and proposed % because you aren't investing any money and your objective isn't to get a return other than continued sponsorship. Having said that the sponsor could agree a % cut of the juice for the comp which could give you a nice return for no investment. So yeah don't understand -85% ROI (from a business perspective). Throughout the year as sky players see a Blonde comp in their lobby they migrate to the forum and greater membership means even more influence moving forwards. And stands to reason more players would open sky accounts which you could link to Blonde which again is the whole objective. Just an idea thou, sure others are welcome.

trust me, they won't. if players behaved like this, marketing would be easy, but they don't and it isn't.

also, the roi for the sponsor of the entire sponsorship agreement would be about -80 to -90% with this kind of scheme. they don't work. One of the things that blonde has going for it in general is a great community spirit and a strong desire in general to 'back the sponsor' but even that isn't enough for plenty of reasons*. Conversely that spirit is the only thing which gives any commercial rationale to sponsorship of blonde by a third party and that's why i'm convinced something will be found. I'm convinved there is a way forward, but it seems unlikely that pure sponsorship alone makes much sense.

*I don't know how much I should go into without talking to Tighty and TK first, so I won't post more on why atm.

[MANTIS01]

We tried to persuade them that general raising of awareness had a value, & it does, but how do you put a price, or value, on it, especially when negotiating with hard-nosed accountants?

If I owned a poker forum and wanted to quantify the value of exposure through my medium this is what I would do.

At the end of every year I would run a Blonde Poker Open MTT hosted on my sponsors site for Blonde members only. An end of season spectacular to find Blonde poker's ultimate player of the year. Non-refundable registration for this tournament would be open from Jan 1st and I would market this event relentlessly throughout the year. Message every member inviting them along to play and have lots of exposure on the forum. As each month went by the total runners for this event would build as a % of people logging onto the forum will be encouraged by the exposure to reg for the big event. If no sky account they will be more inclined to open one as it's for a specific reason rather than just general play.

Decent confidence should mean you can offer a sizeable guarantee for a modest buy-in, like the recent Goliath in Cov. Use banners to advertise that eye-catching guarantee on the up-dates thread. This way you get all those non-members with sky accounts signing up to Blonde and those without either signing up for both. Loads of different events through the year, comps, staking threads, bounties, running a book, side bets, the fun would be endless. By the end of the year x thousand runners could be achieved. Then when I'm sitting in front of them hard-nosed accountants I would pull out my graph demonstrating their most popular MTT of the year at x entry fee was the Blonde Poker Open. If they don't extend I still have tangible evidence to present to my next perspective sponsor

I tell you what I would deffo enter that so I could bust some random Blondes at the tables. Only forum names as well so I can see if I bust Boldie or bvb vs Greekstein, how hilarious. I can see myself lifting that trophy now (sorry if that causes offence). Bragging rights and banter would be sensational. I figure if I couldn't make a success of such an event sponsors would be right to pull the plug.

Lol Mantis you absolute mug

Not gonna call him a mug because I don't know the guy.

I will say from a business perspective, I'd estimate the ROI of such a plan to be about -85% at best.

just sayin.

The objective is to quantify the value of exposure through forum advertising to a sponsor for the sole purpose of securing continued sponsorship. Hence if you get x thousand runners through forum advertising you have quantified this value in a presentable way. I think that is a more positive and constructive way to demonstrate the influence a forum has to a sponsor than it's players downing tools as has been suggested. So I don't understand the ROI comment and proposed % because you aren't investing any money and your objective isn't to get a return other than continued sponsorship. Having said that the sponsor could agree a % cut of the juice for the comp which could give you a nice return for no investment. So yeah don't understand -85% ROI (from a business perspective). Throughout the year as sky players see a Blonde comp in their lobby they migrate to the forum and greater membership means even more influence moving forwards. And stands to reason more players would open sky accounts which you could link to Blonde which again is the whole objective. Just an idea thou, sure others are welcome.

trust me, they won't. if players behaved like this, marketing would be easy, but they don't and it isn't.

also, the roi for the sponsor of the entire sponsorship agreement would be about -80 to -90% with this kind of scheme. they don't work. One of the things that blonde has going for it in general is a great community spirit and a strong desire in general to 'back the sponsor' but even that isn't enough for plenty of reasons*. Conversely that spirit is the only thing which gives any commercial rationale to sponsorship of blonde by a third party and that's why i'm convinced something will be found. I'm convinved there is a way forward, but it seems unlikely that pure sponsorship alone makes much sense.

*I don't know how much I should go into without talking to Tighty and TK first, so I won't post more on why atm.

I kinda know about marketing and sponsorship. Over the last decade I've been resonsible for marketing several multi-million pound membership based businesses and have negotiated multiple sponsorships and affiliations for those businesses. In my experience sponsors place a higher value on the proven ability to drive large numbers of traffic to their product rather than a notion of "community spirit". If I was a potential investor I wouldn't be able to quantify how this "community spirit" would benefit my buisness financially tbh. I don't agree that spirit is commercial. But that is just my opinion. What's more if I was a potential sponsor reading this thread I wouldn't see much tangible evidence of this "great community spirit". On the day a member is nominated on the advent calendar for being what Blonde is all about his only contribution to is to call another member an absolute mug for submitting an idea. Personally I would be quite embarrased by that member's behaviour and the sense of community spirit on display. That was the second advent calendar nominee of the day who called me a mug in questionable circumstances so I figure the added pressure must do something to anxiety levels. I intend to avoid mondatoo today.

However, you may well be right and I was only throwing an idea into the mix. One resource Blonde does benefit from is a real diversity of community with lots of people from different walks of life, so any brain stroming session for new ideas and marketing strats should be encouraged rather than discouraged with personal abuse. But again that's just my opinion.

[TightEnd]

It would really help me if everyone could accentuate the positives on this thread please, thanks!

I'd imagine potential sponsors, partners will read it

[vegaslover]

Tightly
I know blonde have an online shopping link for other sites but could you not make it easier to find, like a link at the top of the forum page, ala the news box.
plenty of people shop online, myself included, but at present I just use these sites when I could be using your links.

[TightEnd]

Tightly
I know blonde have an online shopping link for other sites but could you not make it easier to find, like a link at the top of the forum page, ala the news box.
plenty of people shop online, myself included, but at present I just use these sites when I could be using your links.

Yes good point

We have Amazon and Late Rooms links, will put them in the news box

[cambridgealex]

Tightly
I know blonde have an online shopping link for other sites but could you not make it easier to find, like a link at the top of the forum page, ala the news box.
plenty of people shop online, myself included, but at present I just use these sites when I could be using your links.

Never even seen them before. I assume many, like me, have the forum home page bookmarked so never see the actual home page.

[pleno1]

yeh was ging to mention the homepage too, is it worth the time writing the articles etc? ofc they are done well as you're a very good writer, but doubt many people actually have www.blondepoker.com as a bookmark rather than www.blondepoker.com/forum.

[pokerfan]

yeh was ging to mention the homepage too, is it worth the time writing the articles etc? ofc they are done well as you're a very good writer, but doubt many people actually have www.blondepoker.com as a bookmark rather than www.blondepoker.com/forum.

I do, but i imagine you're right Pleno, only 1 extra click to get here fwiw.

[TightEnd]

yeh was ging to mention the homepage too, is it worth the time writing the articles etc? ofc they are done well as you're a very good writer, but doubt many people actually have www.blondepoker.com as a bookmark rather than www.blondepoker.com/forum.

It's a fair point but I keep them going for the completeness of the site, some SEO, really. Given IT resource I'd revamp it, bring it up to date etc but that is not a priority, and no resource anyway

[mulhuzz]

There is obviously a lottttt of good that blonde can offer to a potential partner.

You have direct access to a large community of very targeted individuals who are, in many many cases, far above the national average for disposable income and who are experienced in the betting and gaming markets.

What's more, I would imagine that they are people who are very open to innovation and an innovative offering would go down well with the community as a whole.

There exists an great opportunity for a small early start-up to come on board and get access to everything  blonde has to offer, which is, when you boil it down, their customers. I think a simple sponsorship *could* make sense for some partners (although not someone like Sky with a high penetration of existing customers and a really well known brand name with better direct channel marketing opportunities available to them in general - like their own TV channels...) but there is an even greater opportunity for a closer integration with a small start up.

They would effectively receive free consulting on their business from blonde, who we note are an incredibly vocal community, in addition to the usual stuff that a sponsorship would bring. Working or focus groups (which you pay marketing companies over 900000000 for) are an exceptionally good value add which blonde can offer, given the clientele.

[leethefish]

On the home page there are advertising banners for sky poker ,sky bet etc ....but nothing else there is a lot of advertising space for more.... maybe ...even non poker related businesses
IE in the lounge you could have any number of business advertised?

just sayin