Marketing question

I just started getting serious about my marketing, I have a opp. to be the first person to place banners on a semi-busy yet small forum/regional site.

The owner is asking $500 for the month for one banner that will show on every page. The forum has about 1000, registered users, but maybe only 200 login in daily(He claims to be getting 5-8 new registrants a day).

He also has offered to include my banner/link into his email list he has for his social club which is approx. 5000 unique names. He sends one email per day to regular players and one email per week to his general players.

First I would like to know does $500 seem to be a good deal, I really don't know if this place could even generate one or two good signups. Also since the email lists are opt-in am I safe from any spamming problems?

If $500 seems too high what should I maybe offer for this?

T

Tray,

It sounds like a good opportunity however for only having 200 people logging in every day I think 500 may be a little high. For obvious reasons your not going to say the url of the site here, but what type of forum is it? In order to generate over $500 in revenue you will need to get alot of sign-ups in that 30 days.

I would also look at any other advertisers on the site (if any) and contact them to get a feel for their conversion ratios. If you are the first one and only advertiser, then you are essentially the guinea pig. I would tell the guy that you will pay half of that $250 for the first month to get a feel for how much traffic he generates and what your conversions are. If after a month you see good conversions and sign ups then tell him you will continue to advertise and pay the full price of $500.

If he is a savvy business person he is obviously trying to see if he can get top dollar from you. Also if he doesn't have any other advertisers right now then he would be silly to pass on that opportunity.

Feel free to PM me if you want to chat further about this in a more private setting.