I just discovered this site from a google alert talking about our affiliate program. Looks like a great site. We have an Internet based digital signage system that allows small to large companies put their own advertising, weather, news, educational content onto tv or plasma screens in customer waiting areas or employee break areas.

As you can tell by that description, it can be used for most every company. I have developed the product over the past 3 years after selling my previous 13 year old business in bar code printing software. This past year, we have brought on an ad agency, pr firm, a couple employees and spent buco bucks to get some sales happening. Right now, we have about 50 customers at $660 per year (your math is right, a losing proposition right now). We also have a few affiliates signed up but nobody active. We pay 20% of the software subscription to affiliates ($130+ is nice for a link from a web site, right?).

We have hundreds of potential customers who are interested, but it appears that the digital signage technology is too early yet. It seems to be building momentum though - which is why we keep investing!

Anyway, obviously marketing is not my expertise, so I am curious if anyone has any input on our affiliate program, the web site, digital signage in general, etc.

Thanks for any insights you can give me...

Do you have an internet address that could give more insight to your product or somewhere that we can look to "learn more?"

You mentioned paying affiliates for referrals... what would the site be that we're linking to?

I think I found your signage site at StrandVision Digital Signage-Internet Kiosk Digital Signage Software...

I think I am a little bit clearer about your concept now that I looked at your site. Your main audience would most likely be banks (displaying sales pitches, etc) or similar "lobby" entities? Somewhere that has digital displays or PC monitors that you stand, sit, or walk by?

Your product would typically be sold by meeting with a marketing director / sales manager, or the design/architect company responsible for planning the layout of a business location. It's something that may or may not be a "point-and-click" purchase and thus might be difficult to implement into WWW affiliate marketing. As a consumer, the Internet is a place where I seek out what I want to buy or I stumble across an ad for something "I didn't know I wanted." We're talking about a very niche product for a very low-population audience, with the appropriate (and beneficial) affiliates being even rarer.

If you had the opportunity to place your banner ads anywhere on the Internet, what sorts of sites do you think would be most effective in getting you your sales audience? Have you set up exhibition booths at bank industry or hotel industry conventions?

Ahh, and I think that I mentioned that I am not a marketer!!! Yes, the url is StrandVision Digital Signage-Internet Kiosk Digital Signage Software. The affiliate program description is at StrandVision Digital Signage Affiliate Program Signup.

You are right, banking seems to be a good potential industry. With banks being so conservative quite often, it gets difficult to get them to "pull the trigger". It seems that if they see a need, they have the money.

We have exhibited at a regional banking show with great interest in our product, and lots of new branches being built or acquired. We learned that they are trying to find innovative ways to reach the millium generation who have grown up with computers and are entering getting nice cash in the job market and needing house and car loans. We know that their posters cost them over $75 each to print and install, only to be missed by everyone walking into the lobby. We know that there are times when a banking transaction can take several minutes - a perfect time to let customers know about their other products, while making the wait seem significantly less for the customer. We know of one main competitor in that industry which is $12,000 per screen for the first year (without the screen) and $5,000 per year maintenance fees. It is much more difficult to setup and update, but of course does have a few more capabilities (which is what makes it difficult).

Financial institutions are great targets because they typically have many branches which our Internet based system allows them to share content among all of them as easily as targeting a message to an individual one.

The stumbling block seems to be that digital signage is an early market product - and they can't see themselves using it - or it takes too much time to think about it - I guess I really dont know for sure.

Other industries that we have got customers installed include houses of worship, industrial distributors (plumbing, electrical, heavy equipment), high schools, colleges, denists, chiropractors, automotive dealers and service centers, chamber of commerce, aerospace, food manufacturing, auto parts. The last three are used for employee communications, the rest are talking to their customers. We have had interest from many other industries as well. We have background information on various industries that have expressed interest at Standard Product Uses.

We are purposely staying out of the big retail arena because we have lots of high end digital signage systems that are focusing on the "big" opportunities. My experience is that Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and the like take two years to do a deal, then nickel and dime the manufacturer to death.

We are targeting the smaller opportunities because there are so many of them.

The nice part about our affiliate program is that you are "locked in" to get paid the 20% commission as soon as your referral visitor signs up for a free trial on our system. That becomes a lead that we work and pass on to a reseller in our network. It may take months or years before they are closed, but you receive the commission when it happens. We also have a monthly report to show your activity of links, views of your page showing our link, people who have subscribed and people who have bought.

So far, we have only had one company that bought within a 24 hour period (a popular auto parts store for employee communication). The rest have taken two months to over a year (largely due to the fact that it is such an early market product). I suspect that once it starts going, it will go nuts (and obviously I'm putting lots of my gambling money into that one).

That is a very good point about which sites I would want as affiliates. It could make us look worse if on the wrong sites. Obviously any business to business sites that talk about marketing products to other businesses or consumers would makes sense. Business press or blogs may be viable candidates. For employee communications, that again targets medium to large sized businesses but in a different angle. I think that most HR types of sites would be good targets. Also manufacturing seems to be very interested in communicating safety and production stats, upcoming employee events, employee cudos along with weather, news and traffic info. So sites that target manufacturers (or maybe where manufacturers place orders) may be good candidates (probably not many of those).

anyway, a whole bunch more info - probably too much for a forum so I will quit for now.

I recommend you hire a company to create a press release regarding your company and distribute it to the appropriate channels. If your product is as innovative as you think, it will be picked up by publications and radio stations. You may also have some success by creating a little bit of "buzz" via PayPerPost :: Get Paid for Blogging, Blog Advertising, Advertise on Blogs and related marketing firms.

I still think you're going to have the most success by displaying at the industry conventions like I mentioned above. Get your contacts there and follow-up, follow-up, follow-up 'til you close the sales.

My PR firm has done an awesome job over the past year and a half. We even got a cover story for a 30,000 reader pub (sound and video contractor). We get about half a dozen stories in print and internet press per week, so adds a lot to our traffic which is nice too. Yes, the tradeshows are very important as well. We did half a dozen this year and found that 3 of them were not worthwhile. Expensive lessons, but what else is new. I also hired a sales person for our first year who didnt follow your rule about follow-up then follow up again. That too has been corrected. Oh the joys of entrepreneurship (however you spell it).

congrats on your site too. nice job on it and you are running it very well. Looks like it might be a phpbb foundation? which plugin did you put on for your non-robot confirmation on registration? I like the cloud background way better than the one we just put on our forum. That is also a great idea to put the google adsense system randomly on your site. Very ingenious.

Anyway, thanks so much for your insights and I will definately check out the PayPerPost site.