Space Website Marketing

Hi All,

I am new to the group and appreciate whatever comments and suggestions you
can give. I hope to be a regular here. I apologize for the length, but it's
a long story.

On the coaxing of a friend who is a diver at NASA, and astronaut trainer, I
decided to build a website selling space memorabilia. A long-time friend of
mine decided to fund the project.

While doing market research, I discovered that the majority of the
demographic was going to NASA sites to see the incredible imagery. I also
discovered that the top players in the space memorabilia field were only
getting 1500 to 3500 page views per day.

My research showed just one of the NASA image archives of over 40 I reviewed
was receiving 7-10 Million page views per month. So I decided to take on a
bold project. Create the single largest database of space imagery in the
world. Take all of the NASA image archives and combine them into 1 large
website. When folks viewed the imagery, I would deliver associated products
for them to purchase.

My partner and felt it made sense to put up the revenue generating part
first, so I built a memorabilia website and put it up for business. This
was a mistake as it lost money instead of making it, and after only 3 months
up, my partner ran scared leaving me with no income.

I decided to finish what I started, and although still rough around the
edges, I just launched the new website. I have combined the imagery from 4
different NASA archives into one single archive. Over 50,000 images, video,
sound that cover pretty much the entire history of the Space program from
1922 to Present. It also includes live news feeds, and forums.

I have built a product delivery system that allows me to associate products
or groups of products to a category of images, image group, or an individual
image. This means when you view Hubble imagery, I can show you Hubble
Posters or other Hubble memorabilia, or I can actually show you the exact
poster, toy, mission patch associated to that exact image etc...

Additionally I have built the system with the ability to tap into others
databases dynamically. So, I could go to someone who carries space related
products and tap into their database and deliver their products for a cut of
the profits.

Here is the website: http://www.spaceuniverse.com

Revenue can be generated in several different ways, I would like to hear
others if anyone can think of some others..

1. Product Sales

2. Subscription fees for "premium site features" (hi-res imagery, gallery
creation etc..)

3. Advertising Revenue

4. Email address collection and marketing


My problem is this.

I have no money for marketing. I was able to drive about 1000 folks to the
website with Google with the last little bit of cash I had, and I had about
a 4% email signup rate which is fantastic, and 1 $45 sale which is not.
But- The website is built to attract millions in traffic, so I wouldn't need
2% making purchases. My rankings in the search engines dropped quite a bit
because the website changed so drastically.

What can I do? The site is far from perfect, I know that, but it's worthy
of success and will only improve in the future. I need to generate income
now, and have 0 cash flow to do it. Suggestions?

Allright. End of the long story...

Thanks!

Scott
www.spaceuniverse.com

Hello,

Let me comment some parts of your website.

-They say that there is only one first imperssion. And I think that you
should redesign the website so you could impress the users.

-You should explain what is your website doing briefly, instead of saying
you have the complete unique ...

I guess when you have been designing the website you have made it as small
parts and then joined them. you better design all the website all in one.

It took me a while to figure out where is the link to see the products.

The products category listing should be shown on the first page.

the menu "nasa images library ... Gifts ... user forums ... .." is kind of
hidden because it in high position that users normally don't look at.

you should put the menu on the left part or below the subscription buttons.

You should have all the information available from the first page without
scrolling down.

I suggest that the random table of products will be substituded with
products related to the product i am watching. let say I am interested in
africa from space, i might be also interestd in australia from spave or
europe from spain ... these related product should show up on the right
table. this might help you increase your revenues.

I suggest that you redesign completly the website. and prepare it very well
before coding. and at to have inspiration go and see similar succesful
websites and copy their idea. don't do the same website but just use their
ideas.

Do you use any statistics software? that analyze your logs. you can see for
example how many pages are your users seeing. and wich was the exit page.

If you have a high page view per user than you should have everything ok,
but if the main exit page is the home page and your the page view rate is
low then your users are leaving from the first page.

I can help you more, but the first thing you should do is: Redesign the
website.

you can't sell with the site like this. you'll be spending more money and
time.

once you have the website redesigned. you'll love that the magazines and
news papers specialized on space talk about your website and how good it is.
and that it has the most complete image database ever collected on the
internet with high quality...

It will increase your users thus your revenue. and it is free.


you might ask, how to convince the magazines to talk about me. I don't know.
i am still looking for a way to do that, because magazines will not accept
that you suggest an article, if you have a friend who works in a magazine it
might help.

Hope my ideas will help you.

Ali Lakrakbi.


"Scott" <rspolk@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:bel9af02ahs@enews1.newsguy.com...
>
> Hi All,
>
> I am new to the group and appreciate whatever comments and suggestions you
> can give. I hope to be a regular here. I apologize for the length, but
it's
> a long story.
>
> On the coaxing of a friend who is a diver at NASA, and astronaut trainer,
I
> decided to build a website selling space memorabilia. A long-time friend
of
> mine decided to fund the project.
>
> While doing market research, I discovered that the majority of the
> demographic was going to NASA sites to see the incredible imagery. I also
> discovered that the top players in the space memorabilia field were only
> getting 1500 to 3500 page views per day.
>
> My research showed just one of the NASA image archives of over 40 I
reviewed
> was receiving 7-10 Million page views per month. So I decided to take on
a
> bold project. Create the single largest database of space imagery in the
> world. Take all of the NASA image archives and combine them into 1 large
> website. When folks viewed the imagery, I would deliver associated
products
> for them to purchase.
>
> My partner and felt it made sense to put up the revenue generating part
> first, so I built a memorabilia website and put it up for business. This
> was a mistake as it lost money instead of making it, and after only 3
months
> up, my partner ran scared leaving me with no income.
>
> I decided to finish what I started, and although still rough around the
> edges, I just launched the new website. I have combined the imagery from
4
> different NASA archives into one single archive. Over 50,000 images,
video,
> sound that cover pretty much the entire history of the Space program from
> 1922 to Present. It also includes live news feeds, and forums.
>
> I have built a product delivery system that allows me to associate
products
> or groups of products to a category of images, image group, or an
individual
> image. This means when you view Hubble imagery, I can show you Hubble
> Posters or other Hubble memorabilia, or I can actually show you the exact
> poster, toy, mission patch associated to that exact image etc...
>
> Additionally I have built the system with the ability to tap into others
> databases dynamically. So, I could go to someone who carries space
related
> products and tap into their database and deliver their products for a cut
of
> the profits.
>
> Here is the website: http://www.spaceuniverse.com
>
> Revenue can be generated in several different ways, I would like to hear
> others if anyone can think of some others..
>
> 1. Product Sales
>
> 2. Subscription fees for "premium site features" (hi-res imagery, gallery
> creation etc..)
>
> 3. Advertising Revenue
>
> 4. Email address collection and marketing
>
>
> My problem is this.
>
> I have no money for marketing. I was able to drive about 1000 folks to the
> website with Google with the last little bit of cash I had, and I had
about
> a 4% email signup rate which is fantastic, and 1 $45 sale which is not.
> But- The website is built to attract millions in traffic, so I wouldn't
need
> 2% making purchases. My rankings in the search engines dropped quite a
bit
> because the website changed so drastically.
>
> What can I do? The site is far from perfect, I know that, but it's worthy
> of success and will only improve in the future. I need to generate income
> now, and have 0 cash flow to do it. Suggestions?
>
> Allright. End of the long story...
>
> Thanks!
>
> Scott
> www.spaceuniverse.com
>

Hiya. I have a few thoughts on your web page that you might think about.

1) Your entrance page would be fine but the later pages really need to be
streamlined with a link to the main page instead of having to scroll wayyyyy
down past the same links/stuff over and over again to see what you're
looking for. And you can't tell what page you're on until you scroll down to
the offscreen part which is annoying.

2) Overall I feel the site is too busy. Too many things crammed together on
each page so its hard to sift through. Check out Amazon com for a similar
kind of page that manages to not look so busy (smaller menus along the top
for instance) . For instance, having a news link box on the first page is
fine but it shouldn't be on every page. And a single subscribe button
(linked to a page with different options) on the top row would be better
than that wide row of buttons across the screen on every page.

3) Personally I'd have your thumbnail pages on a different kind of page,
one without the borders on both sides so you can use bigger thumbnails
and/or have more in a row. And it seemed to take an extra page than
necessary to get to the thumbnail page. I seem to recall reading somewhere
that every page a visitor has to click to get to what they want means the
more of them that drop out before the last page.


Good luck to you,

Dave

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