Thursday, August 22, 2013

Advertise on Hover Motor Company

You know I try to reserve these posts for car show coverage, car event calendars, museum visits, auto reviews, and automotive history.  But today, I’m going to do a little business.  Don’t be scared away, though.  I swear I won’t make it a habit.  I just don’t have a car show story lined up for today, so it seemed like a good time to bring this up.

You may have noticed a few ads over there to the right of this story.  Those are there because the folks that run those companies made a choice to support this blog.  They’re trying to reach  automotive enthusiasts.  And they realize that this website, www.hovermotorco.com, is one of the best ways to do that.

Think about it.  You are an automotive enthusiast, and you are reading this.  Ask a few of your friends.  If they go to car shows, there’s a pretty good chance that they visit this page too.  The fact is, this website has had more than a million pageviews (and an incredible bounce rate of only 22-percent).  And these aren’t random pageviews.  They are targeted, hard core automotive enthusiasts.  Furthermore, those pageviews came from more than 123,000 unique visitors.  That’s almost double the number of people that attended the Super Bowl last year.  This is a big audience, but it is a specific audience.

You may have also noticed that there really aren’t tons of ads there right now.  That’s because this entire website is marketed, arranged, and written by one guy: me.  I have a “real job” during the day, so I can’t go out there and solicit advertisers.  It isn’t because I don’t have something worthwhile to sell.  It’s just that I don’t have time to sell it.

The reality is that it costs money to keep doing this.  So far this year alone, I have covered 60 different car events.  That means I got in my car, drove to all of these things, used my camera to take thousands of pictures, drove home, and spent hours formatting the pictures and writing the articles.  I pay for this domain name, my photo storage, and even car show entry fees.  Don’t get me wrong—I do this because I love cars.  But I don’t have any problem with trying to reimburse myself either.

Advertising here is really simple.  It’s also really cheap.  You just e-mail a logo and a link, and I’ll make it into a cool-lookin’ 188 X 140-or-so pixel ad like the other ones over there.  Each new ad will go right above the little Hover Motor Company American flag truck ad, so the sooner you commit, the higher your ad will be on the page.  Every ad, regardless of where it ends up on the totem pole, is a cool $200/year, and I prefer to have them paid by PayPal.  I really don’t know how to make it any easier.

Do you want one of these advertisements?  Of course, you do.  Just send me an e-mail at craig@hovermotorco.com, and we’ll get it taken care of.

One more thing while I’m begging for money.  If you don’t have a company to advertise, but you have a big heart and want to donate something, my PayPal account is craig@hovermotorco.com.  I really don’t expect you to donate anything, but I read on some blogging advice column that it doesn’t hurt to let your readers know about that.

And whether you decide to advertise, donate, or just stop by and read the articles, I really appreciate everyone who visits this page.  I genuinely enjoy meeting readers at car shows, on the HMC Facebook page, and in the comments section.  And it really does mean a lot to me that people think enough of this place to keep coming back.  Thank you—and I promise we’ll be back to our regular automotive programming after this.

6 comments:

  1. If I had something to advertise, I'd be all over this. Every car person I know comes here.

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  2. Why don't you put in a section for those looking to sell their cars and charge a small fee to list it. You can disclaim your involvement and state you are simply hooking people up with potential cars for sale at their own risk. The fee would be minimal, but worth your time!

    Just a thought!

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  3. Thanks, guys!

    Yeah, a classified section might be an idea. I have actually thought about that before. I guess I need to look into it more. My main concern is with how much time it would take to keep that up too. But it is definitely something worth considering ...

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  4. Charge a one time fee for 30 day ad simple enough.

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  5. Craig thinking about advertising our upcoming car show with you. Need to talk to you about this. If you are going to Royals car show look up the chevelle guys and ask for Roger

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