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10 ways blogging has helped me to run an advertising network

Posted by Ben on March 02, 2009 | Permalink | Hits: 536 

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As you may be aware, I'm the lead developer at CMF Ads. I'm one of three admins responsible for running the site. You might expect me to say "it's not an easy job". But I'm going in a different direction with this post - let me explain how blogging has helped me to run CMF Ads in the best possible way.

1. Relationships matter.

As a blogger, networking is very important. Whenever a reader posts a comment or contacts you directly, you need to respond accordingly. Some blogs have communities where people answer each other's questions - however, this doesn't usually happen from the start. You don't have to reply to every comment, but don't ignore people.

At CMF Ads, I've started numerous discussions and replied to many others. I've established good relationships with the forum members and I've also contributed to a solid support service both in terms of day to day queries and coding changes. As with blogging, you can't ignore the people who matter most. They are your customers, and without them you would not be around. Either that, or you'd be paying to host a site that nobody uses. Can you justify doing that forever?

2. People need a good reason to come back.

If you want people to read your blog, you have to write compelling content. If you want them to keep coming back, you have to give them a reason to subscribe. Subscription should be an offer your readers can't refuse - you shouldn't have to force them to subscribe as part of a contest.

With a business, repeat customers are very valuable. You want people to keep coming back again and again. At CMF Ads, advertising is so easy, members hardly need to think about it. This allows them to spend more time using the CMF Forums, and therefore they spend more time helping us to build the best blogging forums on the web.

Advertising is the main focus of CMF Ads, but the forums are very much at the core. We all put our heart and soul into the forums. There's more to running a successful forum than installing vbulletin. With blogging, you can't expect to install WordPress or Injader and have a popular blog just because it loads (although a non-loading blog is definitely going to be a tough sell!). You have to engage the community.

The CMF Forums are one of the main reasons why people keep coming back.

3. A little careful planning goes a long way.

If you decide to start a new blog (or maybe start your first blog), I wouldn't recommend jumping straight in without thinking about your goals. The very first question you should be asking yourself is why do you want to blog? Beyond that, you should also plan your posts.

With CMF Ads, we didn't want to be "just another social network". We thought carefully about what our focus should be, and how we would execute our plan effectively. We built the site slowly but steadily, sticking to our plan and resolving the issues we encountered along the way. A few of the finer details had to change, but our plan didn't change. We've always had a clear objective for the site - to provide low cost, no-nonsense advertising. Simple!

4. Everyone has an idea, but not every idea will work for you.

From time to time you may get suggestions posted in your blog comments. Maybe your readers want to see more posts like the one you just published. Maybe they don't like the colour combinations on your site. Or perhaps they can see a way for you to take your blog to the next level.

While I do think you should listen to this kind of feedback, be careful not to fall into the trap of saying "Yes" to everyone. For every reader who thinks your colour scheme is too dark, another might complain it's too bright if you change it. (Although I do prefer sites where the content section is black text on a white background!)

At CMF Ads, we've had plenty of suggestions - but we can't do them all. If we added every possible feature, especially if most of them are settings that can be turned on or off, the system would become horribly complex both to use and to develop further.

The key is to not be afraid to say "No" if an idea doesn't sound beneficial.

5. Even the best ideas take time.

You might have found a great domain name and a great blog concept - but you've got to work hard to get your idea off the ground. You may well get a few people checking out your site and thinking it's a good idea, but you're not going to get them to come back unless you add plenty of high quality content.

Meanwhile, CMF Ads had some great growth from January to February. It would be all too easy to look at these stats and say "Hang on, that's lower than your competitors!" But that's not the full story. We haven't been around as long for a start. Even the biggest companies had humble beginnings. You have to be patient. That said, I think we've done very well for our first full month.

6. Stats are not the be all and end all - but they do help.

Comments and subscribers are two statistics that may be used when measuring how active a blog is. But they don't guarantee anything. Subscribers can fluctuate, certain posts can get more comments than others, and traffic spikes are common.

Larger sites may boast huge numbers of unique visitors, pageviews and the like - but what does that actually mean for the blog's readers? How about advertisers?

When you're looking to advertise, CMF Ads allows you to sort the blogs in a number of different ways. Suddenly the biggest sites are no longer at the top. This means it's much easier to suit the needs of many different people, than try and depend on a single metric to measure popularity.

7. Don't take on too much.

As a blogger, we need to be focused and find a niche that works for the blog's readers as well as the author. In some of my blog comments, a few people mention that personal blogs don't really have a niche so this doesn't apply to them. I disagree - if you write a personal blog, you are the niche.

The point here is that you can't write about every possible topic nor should you try to. Nor should you try to run more blogs than you have the time to post on. (I've made this mistake, and you'd be forgiven for thinking I'm still making the same mistake, but actually I'm not - I've figured it out!)

At CMF Ads, the focus is advertising. (And the blogging forum.) We're not trying to be everything to everyone. The objective is to do one thing, and do it really well.

8. Figure out what you're doing before you spread the word.

When starting a new blog, get a few posts up and sort out the design before sharing the link. By all means show a few of your friends what you've been working on so they can let you know if you've made any big mistakes. But don't go crazy on promotion until you're sure the site will be around within a month or two.

CMF Ads started as a small idea using third party software and only 20 members were allowed in. It later grew into a custom-built ad network with a group of beta testers, before finally allowing ads to be placed from January 23rd onwards. We did promote it as we went, but didn't really do all that much promotion until everything was in place. There wasn't much point shouting about a site that we knew was going to change as it grew.

9. By working with others, you can achieve more.

Writing guest posts or even writing for a group blog can really achieve great results. Not working alone means you have other people to share ideas with, and each of you can contribute posts to build a much bigger blog with richer content and more variety in terms of writing styles.

Long-term readers of my blog may remember that the CMF Forums used to be hosted at Top Ten Blog Tips, and prior to that they lived over at benbarden.com. Turnip and I discussed the possibly of merging the forums into CMF Ads, and the rest is history. Had I not agreed to collaborate, CMF Ads would've set up their own forums and I'd be in competition with them. Why work against each other when you can work together?

10. The best way to know your audience is to be part of that audience!

I cannot emphasise this enough! Write what you know and like. Blogging is a topic I enjoy writing about and that I know. It's a good topic for me to write about.

With CMF Ads it goes further than that. We are providing low cost advertising where the publishers are bloggers. We know what bloggers expect, plus we have our own expectations, because CMF Ads is run by bloggers. We are also advertisers and we understand the needs of other advertisers. We've built a great ad network because we know the audience, we care, we listen, we act. We're passionate about what we do and we want to give you the best possible experience.

Has blogging taught you things that you can use elsewhere? Have you joined CMF Ads yet?

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