A Plea to Our Readers *** PLEASE READ ***

[MUDSHARK]

How does one notify manufactures that I read about their products being discussed on AH? I seem to recall specifying AH when I purchased SVS, Outlaw, and Ascend products in the past but not the mainstream stuff which were mainly purchased from on-line retailers such as B&H Photo and One Call. I will help if I can but need to know the most effective way of doing so.

Promotion is viewed as less cost-effective in a recession and is one of the first costs to be scutinized. Most of us do all that we can to retain our best people during tough times and cut back on frills, promotion, and other general and administrative expenses in order to maintain as much of our workforce as possible.

 

[Matt34]

Gene, doesn't it also help you guys if we click on the ads on this site to go to the sponsers webpage?

 

[gene]

But there is still a distinction......paid subscribers can get special benefits.

The membership services we are working on pertain most to the main editorial website and E-Store.

Don't forget, Audioholics is really 4 websites:

• Audioholics.com - Editorial Site

• forums.audioholics.com - Forum site

• store.audioholics.com - E-commerce

• AVRANT.com - Podcast

 

[TLS Guy]

All;

These are tough times for everyone and the consumer A/V industry has really taken a hit since late last year. Normally I wouldn't be making a post like this, but I would just like to remind everyone that reads and interacts in this site to please mention our name to manufacturers (especially our advertisers) when taking the plunge to buy new gear. Many manufacturers are in panic mode and the first thing they do in an economy like this is cut advertising, even if their companies are doing well. Some manufacturers don't understand the importance of branding, especially if consumers don't tell them where they learned about their products.

I started Audioholics 10 years ago as a hobby but now its more than that and employees people with families. I'd like it to continue on doing so and with your help I am confident we will press on.

thanks to all that have helped make us a success....

I've been worried about you ever since we met at SOTU. Hopefully you can ride out the storm. I think we all need to get ready for the long haul.

We I'm sure, we will do all we can, but that might not help a lot. I understand that advertising revenue is drying up everywhere. Bill Kling, president of MPR was talking on the radio today, about sponsorship dollars drying up.

Lets all keep our fingers crossed.

This article from the Brookings Institute, helps one to really understand what is going on.

This video clip of Peter Shiff 2007 is very interesting. He was right then, and if what he says is correct we are doing exactly the opposite of what we should be doing! Every body was laughing at him then, but he, unfortunately, has had the last laugh.

 

[gene]

Gene, doesn't it also help you guys if we click on the ads on this site to go to the sponsers webpage?

Yes of course but I didn't want to flat out ask people to do that

 

[Matt34]

Yes of course but I didn't want to flat out ask people to do that

Leave it to me, I have no shame.

 

[mike c]

lol, alright people - start a clicking! or bans are gonna fly jk!

 

[majorloser]

Yes of course but I didn't want to flat out ask people to do that

Pimpin' ain't easy.

But it's something I can do.

 

[Nomo]

I'm clicking away.
I've never had a problem whoring myself out for a good cause.

 

[MidnightSensi]

Is this your full time job here gene?

I kind of figured the hosting here was a few hundred a month and the ads paid for it plus a little extra. If your in the hole, you could just ask for donations, but they would have to be kept seperate from the commercial parts of this site.

I listen to an internet radio station all day at work, and donate to it. It costs them 300 a month for the live streaming, last month they had 385 after donations. 5 bucks here and there adds up.

 

[Alex2507]

The membership services we are working on pertain most to the main editorial website and E-Store.

I can't wait to see the details. When? How much? You might extend paid member benefits to the top 5 or 10 in posts and rep. My monkey wanted me to throw that last bit in.

Edit: Actually my monkey says he doesn't care about the top 5 or 10 posters.

 

[Adam]

You might extend paid member benefits to the top 5 or 10 in posts and rep. My monkey wanted me to throw that last bit in.

Cool - I was thinking it, but didn't want to say it. Kudos to the monkey!

Edit: Actually my monkey says he doesn't care about the top 5 or 10 posters.

Hey, wait a second...

 

[Alex2507]

Cool - I was thinking it, but didn't want to say it.

I have no shame.

My monkey could write books on shameless behavior.
(example): Would somebody hurry Tom along in announcing that I won the tSc giveaway contest? I'm waiting o-vah hee-yuh.

 

[jamie2112]

How bout the top 20 in Rep.....and posts..... Just trying to help the Monkey out....

 

[Seth=L]

If you say so.

I'm not an economist obviously but I thought cutting back on advertising was like digging your own grave. Bose and Monster have done quite well with big advertising. But what do I know?

You are so right, I should support Bose and Monster cable since they advertise so heavily. J/K JUST KIDDING!!!

 

[Alex2507]

Coca-Cola cut back on their advertising once. It was then that they lost a portion of the market share to Pepsi that they have yet to reclaim AFAIK.

Just something I heard, don't ask me to back that up.

 

[MidnightSensi]

Coca-Cola cut back on their advertising once. It was then that they lost a portion of the market share to Pepsi that they have yet to reclaim AFAIK.

Just something I heard, don't ask me to back that up.

What is happening now is that companies are really looking at costs and benefits....

The following is imaginary, because I have no idea of the real numbers or even company names:

Let's say there is Home Theater Magazine with 150,000 paid subscribers, Sound & Vision with 75,000 paid subscribers, and Home Theater & Sound with 25,000 paid subscribers. All these magazines call up Velodyne and offer their advertising deals. Velodyne says "Hey, we gotta watch our spending, but we figure anyone who reads Sound & Vision will already get Home Theater Magazine, so why double advertise? Because anyone who reads Sound & Vision already gets Home Theater" ... so they say let's just choose one. They know their logic isn't 100% true, but they do know they have deminishing returns each place they advertise and that they are on a tight budget.

Then they look on the Internet and they are advertising on Audioholics and some other websites. They look on Audioholics and do a search for "Velodyne" and see all the comments on here just steering people to SVS. They figure, anyone clicking around on this site is looking at the forum responses, so if all these people not only don't recommend the Velodynes but actually steer people away from them, an advertisement on the top isn't going to do anything for them.

For Dayton, they are probably just reaaallllyyy struggling, because while I love Dayton... I think its cool stuff... thats what you buy when you are broke. It's an awesome bang for the buck and the kits are fun to assemble and not irritating or tedious. It kind of teters between DIY and assembled stuff, a bit soft for the hardcore DIYers and a bit too much of a pain for someone who wants to pull it out of the box and jam.

What used to be some extra advertising spending, people are now really looking at and deciding if its worth it.


Gene and Audioholics are in my thoughts, and if I think of anything I'll for sure post it.

 

[Exit]

Free cash flow

Gene,

In my company they preach “free cash flow” and make it everyone’s goal to achieve that and your annual performance is measured by meeting that goal. I don’t think anyone would blame you in these tough times if you cut back inventory in the Audioholics store to free cash up. I know Audioholics members want what they want right now and don’t like to wait, but I think a few backorders to preserve the business and forum would be acceptable if things are really getting tight. (Just keep buyers appraised of temporarily out of stock items before purchase.)

I think blowing out more inventory like the EMP December special might be a good idea to clear inventory. I am putting all my cash into two college tuitions now on a average middle class family income, so I can’t spend much money now on anything that’s a luxury, as much as I would like to. However, I felt the EMP December speaker special was a good enough deal that I talked my brother (a prosperous attorney) into getting a set and he was quite pleased. So even though I personally couldn’t spend money, I indirectly brought you new business. I think it was a win-win combination for both parties. Perhaps other members might be in the same position to help out indirectly, but the deals need to be really good I think before putting your reputation on the line.

I also remember that a large percentage of Audioholics members surveyed have spent $12K and over on their systems. I suspect these members are weathering the storm better than those who spend less (but I really don’t know). Maybe specials on equipment high end customers might be interested in would work well now in these times.

I also think you should mend broken ties with SVS and see if they will be an advertiser under equitable forum conditions. AVS forum sets up special sections for popular manufacturers, such as SVS, HSU, etc. where it appears they can respond to customers without saturating the other forums. Even if Audioholics doesn’t want to do business with SVS, I still think Audioholics should still do impartial reviews of SVS products when they are significant to the market. Just my 2 cents.

 

[MidnightSensi]

I think blowing out more inventory like the EMP December special might be a good idea to clear inventory.

I think part of the problem is that these speaker manufacturers have built more speaker than they can get rid of, and there is a huge inventory across the US of speakers from a wide range of manufacturers. So people say, dump them, but the problem with that is if they dump their inventory (and the manufacturers allow massive price cuts or sell new speakers at a reduced priced) then they automatically cut the value of the current inventory by that much, which makes the problem even worse for the dealers.

It's a really complicated situation, and the short term fixes can destroy the long term solutions. :/

Probably when some of these smaller speaker companies start to go broke you'll see some leftover product get blown out the door.

 

[Seth=L]

What is happening now is that companies are really looking at costs and benefits....

The following is imaginary, because I have no idea of the real numbers or even company names:

Let's say there is Home Theater Magazine with 150,000 paid subscribers, Sound & Vision with 75,000 paid subscribers, and Home Theater & Sound with 25,000 paid subscribers. All these magazines call up Velodyne and offer their advertising deals. Velodyne says "Hey, we gotta watch our spending, but we figure anyone who reads Sound & Vision will already get Home Theater Magazine, so why double advertise? Because anyone who reads Sound & Vision already gets Home Theater" ... so they say let's just choose one. They know their logic isn't 100% true, but they do know they have deminishing returns each place they advertise and that they are on a tight budget.

Then they look on the Internet and they are advertising on Audioholics and some other websites. They look on Audioholics and do a search for "Velodyne" and see all the comments on here just steering people to SVS. They figure, anyone clicking around on this site is looking at the forum responses, so if all these people not only don't recommend the Velodynes but actually steer people away from them, an advertisement on the top isn't going to do anything for them.

For Dayton, they are probably just reaaallllyyy struggling, because while I love Dayton... I think its cool stuff... thats what you buy when you are broke. It's an awesome bang for the buck and the kits are fun to assemble and not irritating or tedious. It kind of teters between DIY and assembled stuff, a bit soft for the hardcore DIYers and a bit too much of a pain for someone who wants to pull it out of the box and jam.

What used to be some extra advertising spending, people are now really looking at and deciding if its worth it.


Gene and Audioholics are in my thoughts, and if I think of anything I'll for sure post it.

This is a good reason for Internet direct companies, like Blue Jeans cables, to advertise here where their advertising means the most (hypothetically).