Looking for an ad opportunity to reach informed English-speaking cycling fans around the world? There is space for one advert. Read on if you’d like to know more.
What do you get? See the box on the top right occupied by the ad for Seven Cycles, a past sponsor. Unlike other sites or the Androni team jersey there’s just one ad on here so your image can make more of an impact than José Serpa’s sponsors.
The spec is as follows:
- A 240x240px ad across all pages
- It’s your space for static or dynamic content
- Content can be rotated as often as you like
- Similar content on the mobile version the site
- The RSS and email feed gets a “sponsored by” footer with your branding
- Monthly booking is preferred, longer periods available
- An advertorial message on the blog and Twitter to say thanks for sponsoring
Above all you get to support this blog. There are no oligarchs funding things but there are tech costs, photo accounts and bandwith. Just as a bicycle needs to move forward to stay up, this site needs income to keep going.
Who do you reach?
- 100,000 unique users and 500,000 page loads a month coming for pro cycling news, comment and chat
- Nearly 40,000 followers on Twitter
- Over 6,000 subscribers via RSS and email
- English-speaking readers in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada, then various European nations
Past sponsors include Cycle Mallorca, Prendas.co.uk, Trek, Selle Italia, Velo Veneto, Ride Cycle Review, Competitive Cyclist, NeilPryde Bikes, Strada Wheels and Seven Cycles.
If you or your business are interested and would like to learn more or make a booking, please get in touch by email and we’ll take things from there.
As Bob Geldof said, give him your bloody money!
come on Rapha – you know you want to!
Ha! +1. Perfect fit.
Any updates on the t-shirt plans? I reckon you could make some income this way
Two problems:
a) I want a quality product
b) readers are split between the UK and US with more in Australia, Canada and Europe. So if I opt for a US supplier there are higher shipping charges for those in the UK and vice versa.
I haven’t solved a) and b) yet but I’ve not looked extensively
Would it be a massive problem to have a separate UK supplier and US supplier?
Shipping to Europe is quite cheap from the UK and, I would imagine, cheap to Canada from USA.
The Australians lose out but I suspect they’re used to paying big shipping charges for online purchases.
Reduced shipping costs can then allow you to offer a better quality shirt without an increased overall cost.
It’s one way but means twice as much work. If there was a simpler solution it’d be great.
Use a South African supplier, super expensive shipping for everybody. Everyone can be equally unhappy.
Surely a manufacturer like Castelli / Sportful could come to the rescue – they can then distribute through their usual channels. A cycling clothing company with credibility would leap at the chance of the association. Loads of pros and people in the industry follow you – one of them would be sure to help. At a lower level Champ Systems could do a whole suite of stuff that customers then purchase directly without you having to worry about the admin but with you then getting a skim?
I agree that sponsoring you is highly appreciated by the readership. I don’t see the ‘model ad’ in the top right corner on this page though…
It should be visible to all now. The blog uses a cache system and I’ve flushed this out so it should work for all.
I know it’s been mentioned before but this is about the only website or blog on any subject that I would happily pay a subsciption to.
A different medium but the podcasts The Bugle and 99% Invisible are voluntarily listener funded (via some form of direct debit and kickstarter respectively). You don’t need to donate to listen to either – but you can choose to if you want them to continue. My donation to The Bugle is a miserly £1 a month, but presumably it all adds up. For 99% Invisible different levels of donation earn different rewards including t-shirts etc.
Either way, I echo the other comments on the quality of the blog. Thank you INRNG.
I’m still thinking about it. But I don’t want charity instead of a regular flow and one of the enjoyments of is discussions with readers, sharing info and more so a paywall is awkward. Next I’d bore readers pointing to the donate button. If it’s possible to rent out a few pixels then it should provide a regular income for the blog which is more stable but the hard part here is sales, writing stuff for the blog doesn’t take much time but hunting for ads does.
+1
Perhaps “and” instead of “or”? Allow readers to make donations via paypal or similar as well as continuing to have a primary ad sponsor. You offer more quality content than just about any cycling site IMO. Considering you do this as a labor of love primarily, that’s even more eyebrow raising.
Very much appreciated .
A paypal would be a great idea. It’s nothing to donate $10, $15 every now and then.
As far as T-shirts go, anywhere but the US is fine with this Australian. US postage costs are obscene, UK not so much.
I agree with the other folks here; you’ve a captive market, and continue to provide great content. I paid for the online version of Cyclist magazine, which was a waste of money – I would happily pay for this.
(the only other web apps I pay for are Trello for work, and Strava for fun).
Viz the tee shirt issue would using Prendas as a supplier / distributer be an option? They ship world wide, regularly support the blog and provide a trusted and respected quality productto many readers already. Some sort of simple licencing agreement would cover the cash side between you and them assuming both parties were interested.
INRG, I think you’ve misunderstood what Olmo meant. Voluntary reader contributions can be a regular income and not require a Paywall. If you had just 1000 of your readers choosing to pay $5 per month, that would be a good start, right? Have a look at http://justinguitar.com (the only other site I use that I’d happily pay for) – he uses this business model. No one has to pay, but people can choose to do one off payments or monthlys.
Re-reading my comment I probably didn’t get the tone right but the concern is a donation button brings generosity one month and then not much more the next. Now I’d welcome any support at any time. Also as this is blog done pseudonymously it feels a bit at the limits of this situation to ask for donations but we’ll see, I’ll think about it.