Niche Website Monetization

Case Study #1: What Can Be Learned From PopWatch
It's not either/or. It's either/and. The PopWatch blog is a niche blog within EW.com not re-hashed content. But what also makes this site lively is the comments. The site engages entertainment fans by dishing on celebrities with well written articles. Users are driven deeper into the content with a sidebar which lists the latest commented articles. For example: irate fans want to vent with other Bachelor fans about the season's shocking finale. Though an editor kicked off the discussion, 863 comments later, it's a textbook long tail, proof Bachelor fans want to gossip with each other resulting in recurring site visits.

Stale Content Continues To Generate Page Views
Even on a site where celebrity gossip gets old quickly, articles that are even 3 months old are still generating page views because users have the chance to leave comments, engage others and check back to read not only what's being said but to check if anyone has commented on their comment and to comment on someone else's comments. E.G. "'Twilight Director Catherine Hardwicke Won't Do Sequel", Dec 7, 2008, EW.com

Lessons Learned: Enable Instant Article Comments & Allow HTML
Make it easy to interact, avoid sign-ons. Eliminate barriers to instant participation. Allow users to include relevant links in their comments. Typepad & WordPress offer some measure of security by requiring users to enter their e-mail address and WordPress allows users to enter their website to encourage backlinks. All comments are ultimately moderated to allow spam & offensive comments to be deleted. Enable permalinks & trackbacks.

Case Study #2: The Baltimore Sun Sports Forum
Looking through the high school sports forum threads on the Baltimore Sun, there are sports fans offering in depth sports coverage at even the high school level, generating discussion on game upsets, parents ask other parents about college scholarship questions and coaches share issues like "If a student athlete fails a class should they be able to challenge the policy in order to play?"

Lessons Learned: Users Determine Relevant Content in Forums
Forums allow users to lead discussions which in turn helps to generate robust page views. Reading active threads can also help shape editorial content by offering ideas for evergreen articles and answers to frequently asked questions and concerns. If establishing a social networking forum seems cost prohibitive, you can investigate Facebook Groups or Ning to see if these applications will work for you to get your users interacting right away.

Case Study #3: Obama's Online Campaign
"The Huffington Post will always outperform a traditional news site because they have 3,000 contributors, not a few dozen", notes Seth Godin on a blog post about how parallel projects allow rapid growth where thousands of people can work simultaneously creating significant ripples. In the case of Obama's Presidential campaign, the April 2009 issue of Fast Company details how Facebook cofounder, Chris Hughes tapped into technology as a way to not only communicate information but to support community involvement.

Lessons Learned: Build A Scalable Platform to Support the Community
My.BarackObama.com according to Fast Company was "a surprisingly intuitive and fun-to-use networking Web site that allowed Obama supporters to create groups, plan events, raise funds, download tools, and connect with one another- not unlike a more focused, Facebook. Volunteers had created more than 2 million profiles, planned 200,000 offline events, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blogs, and raised $30 million on 70,000 personal fund-raising pages". Read more about the Fast Company article here. How can your website actively engage your readers?

Case Study #4: Capital Community News - Hill Rag
At a time when large newspapers like Seattle's oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announces its demise, how does a small monthly community newspaper like the Hill Rag whose primary market is Capitol Hill in Washington, DC continue to thrive with 160 pages filled with editorial and sold-out advertising space?

Lessons Learned: Highly Relevant Information
This monthly community newspaper is distributed at newspaper boxes in highly trafficked locations including retail stores ensuring efficient distribution to targetted readers. Both editorial, advertising and classified content is relevant as consumers use the newspaper to find local services, products and shop in the area. The editorial content is produced primarily by people in the community and it is local content that cannot be found offline or online.

Case Study #5: Lululemon Athletica
Lululemon is a 10 year old Vancouver based athletic clothing company which focuses primarily on the retailing of yoga inspired clothing. In recent years they have faced rapid expansion with over 100 stores worldwide. They are often compared to another Westcoast phenomenon, Starbucks. Both companies offer premium products marketed specifically based on lifestyle.

Lessons Learned: Engage With the Community
Lululemon is more than just about a promoting a yoga lifestyle. Instead of expensive advertising campaigns, Lululemon reaches out to product evangelists. Yoga-instructors or "ambassadors" get free clothing, a chance to promote their yoga classes on a community bulletin board and to meet customers by offering free in-store yoga classes. It's a symbiotic relationship that benefits customers, the yoga community and the store. What potential power users can you identify on your niche website and what meaningful benefits can you offer them?