Is My Business Model Flawed?

Are e-cards an anti-purchase potion?

[pab1953]

Well, my first error was a doozy: going with my "gut" about an idea and conducting no research concerning the viability of my website as a money maker.

The focus of my site is free entertainment e-cards. And folks like the cards. But few stick around to click any ads -- most grab their card and go (I've made under $100 in nine months with AdSense).

So ...

- Any chance folks would pay to subscribe to an entertainment e-cards site? Yahoo (partnering with American Greetings) charges people $13.95/yr to access their premium e-card content.
- Any chance I can shift my focus, make the site more informational and make e-cards less the heart of the site and so generate sales that way?
- If I can get my uniques "up there" -- say 100k/mo+ -- would I be able to approach someone like Tribal Fusion (they require 60k uniques a month) and say I have all these eyeballs interested in entertainment? Or are "eyeballs" not enough without clickthroughs?

Thanks for your thoughts.

[caseyceen]

Maybe folks can buy a premium card by phone (pay per call) or paypal. Wether use all your collected mailadresses to send a newsletter with offers. ;)

[jleane]

This might be a stupid suggestion - but can you put ads in the ecards themselves? Not all over the place, maybe just one at the beginning or end. It surely wouldnt be that hard to implement?

[jleane]

I'd also like to add that I could never envisage myself paying for ecards. They are just something that I consider 'free'. Thats just me though, dont know about the rest.

[pab1953]

Jleane, I like the idea of ads in cards although I'm not sure how much of a turn-off it would be for a user or how attractive an audience of 1 or 2 would be to an advertiser.

[jleane]

Hi Pab, I think if you play your cards right you could stick an ad in your ecards and not irritate too many users. Are your cards flash based or animated/still .gifs? If flash maybe after the animation has played out you could stick in an affiliate banner above a 'replay this ecard' link. Also maybe you could incorporate some ads into a 'confirmation email' that gets sent to someone to confirm their card has been sent.

Also, have you looked into any affiliate programs? Maybe that could be the way to go - things like sending flowers or something. I saw an an ecard site where you could 'attach' an online gift voucher for 5-100$. This just seems like a really clever idea to me.