Great Niche Advertising Deals

Work at Home Moms are always looking for affordable advertising opportunities and I can tell you from experience that spotting good ones isn’t always easy.

I have spent fists of cash on big market ads only to see no obvious return on my investment.

Then I’ve spent $10 on a small niche ad spot and won new customers who spent $500 or more in the next month.

I decided pretty quickly that niche ads are the way to go but these shiny diamonds are usually buried deep and sometimes the great deals disappear too soon. (Niche sites owners get wise to the value of their ad space and begin to charge accordingly.) Not that paying a higher price is a deal killer of course - but a girl likes to be frugal where she can

There are three kinds of niche ads that I keep my eye out for.

First, I like graphic ad space that appears above the fold on the main page and through out the website - and that doesn’t have to compete with dozens of other graphical ads. (Doesn’t it drive you bonkers when you see a website with 20 buttons down either outside column plus a few more ‘Your Ad Here!’ buttons?)

Second, I look for inexpensive long term text listing ads on established websites ran by a stable owner. I like lifetime listings best of course but I will purchase one year listings if the price is right. I prefer clean, hand tended niche directories with topical listing pages that have content on them, not just links.

Third, I love podcast advertising on related programs. Nothing beats having the ear of your target market over and over again for a month or so.

Where do you find niche ad space?

• Try a google search for your niche plus the word directory, advertising, blog or podcast.
• Ask around. Tweet your need, post on a forum, etc.

If you find a great site you’d like to advertise on, but you don’t see an ad space, shoot the owner an email and make em an offer. Be clear that you’re offering straight payment, not a JV.

One idea I plan to try is to contact a blogger who is getting quite a bit of action on her blog and ask if I could ’sponsor’ a week of blog posts for $XX. If she’ll place my ad graphic at the bottom of each post and say ‘Thanks to _____ for Sponsoring the blog this week‘, I’d be thrilled.

Here are a few Nuggets…

• Lifetime directory listings for $10: CrafterCast, USAWAHM, Mom’s Talk Radio
• The Household Helper - Cara gets thousands of downloads per show and is only asking a little over $40 a month for podcast/website ads. That’s a freaky good deal!
• Parenting My Teen - Aurelia is offering some sale prices this summer. Want to reach parents of teens?
• Sparkplugging Yep, Wendy offers some very affordable ad spaces right here.

Do you know of similar low cost niche ad spaces? Please leave them in the comment section and help someone else out.

By the way, you can find more mom focused Advertising sources here.