Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked?

#41

Post by mkramlich » Mon, Jun 28, 2010, 9:06 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #28

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Astroturfing == posting fake "grassroots" testimonials about the product/idea/company in question to make it seem like a lot of people care about it. This is actually illegal in the EU now under EU's Unfair Commercial Practices Directive; eg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/08/eu_consumer_protecti...

You might get away with just mentioning your product in these forums, but also mention that you are related with the product. If you are humble enough and the product really fits the audience of the forum, you might generate some interest. And you don't need to fear any backlash from somebody uncovering your astroturfing.

That's what I've done with Dead By Zombie. So I don't truly astroturf. But I do chime in. I believe the guy behind Balsamiq used this technique when he was just starting out. Making comments and doing mini-pitches in various web forums that had the demographic who might be interested in his new tool.

Re: Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked?

#42

Post by thefool » Tue, Jun 29, 2010, 3:06 AM UTC

leftnode wrote: post #25

Advertising on forums that are specific to what you're selling. I sell firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition, so I spend a great deal of time on forums. One of the best is SomethingAwful. They have a sub-forum dedicated to firearms, and a very close knit community. An ad on SA costs $30 for a month (which is insanely cheap) and I started a thread advertising my company. We've done incredibly well that way, ha…

Doesn't doing this kill your SEO?

Re: Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked?

#43

Post by jellisnyc » Tue, Jun 29, 2010, 12:12 PM UTC

vrikhter wrote: post #39

jellisnyc wrote: post #8

We just ran a few campaigns. Here's what we found. The Deck - http://decknetwork.net/ We received roughly 4300 uniques across 2 weeks. We got about 9x the clicks from daringfireball than any of the other sites in the network (37signals, A List Apart, Kottke, FFFFound, etc.) If you email them they are open to negotiating. Fusion Ads - http://fusionads.net/ Very similar model as The Deck. We ran one of the $400 one-wee…

Did you run it for Actual Objects? We have a B2B product, wondering if this will have a similar return for us.

Yes, we ran this for AO, which is for the most part a B2B product (most of our customers are ad agencies and design firms). I'm not sure how this compares to your product.

Re: Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked?

#44

Post by vrikhter » Tue, Jun 29, 2010, 3:54 PM UTC

jellisnyc wrote: post #43

vrikhter wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you run it for Actual Objects? We have a B2B product, wondering if this will have a similar return for us.

Yes, we ran this for AO, which is for the most part a B2B product (most of our customers are ad agencies and design firms). I'm not sure how this compares to your product.

We have a B2B product focused on small businesses.