We feel we have a innovative idea and have put together a new website at www.iwonitlive.com . It is a game site that is based on advertisers products and pricing. Advertisers can post up to 100 products include their pricing and a description. We currently have 16 games for them to choose from in which those products will be part of the game. Problem we have run into is this, our membership is low since our games rely on sponsorship and have found it hard to market without members. We were hoping the IDEA of the site would sell it to advertisers but have come to find out this is not the case. Any ideas or input would be helpful.

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Jay’s Answer: Advertisers are looking for targeted people to advertise to. The first questions they’ll ask are, “How many people visit your site? And who are they?” The better your statistics, the more your potential advertisers may be interested.

As for the gamers coming to your site, I think you have a problem. First, I can’t play a game without first registering. And to register, I have to provide my email address. So, you’ve lost me at the start.

But let’s say I’m willing to register. What’s in it for me (WIIFM)? Playing games to see advertiser’s products for an unknown chance to play an online game to compete to maybe win something? Unless the games are strong enough to keep me coming back to build my skills, you’re going to have few returning visitors.

Ideas don’t sell. Action sells. While it seems that you have a chicken and egg problem (you need advertisers to feature to get players) you could simply offer free advertising for 6 months just to build your site and test out your idea. At the end of 6 months (or 3 months), you should have sufficient data (and time to tweak things) to decide how to proceed, if you can charge advertisers, etc.