Align yourself with a winner - become an SCMO sponsor!!

SCMO is not your typical commercial website. You won't find a glut of banner ads filling your cache every time you visit, or wasting your valuable bandwidth when all you really want is the latest fishing news. That's because our primary mission has always been to serve the fishing community rather than line our pockets. But we're not opposed to generating revenue for the site to reimburse costs and finance improvements.

We're often approached by individuals and organizations who want to know how they can best support SCMO. The best way, of course, is to provide new content for the site. But not everyone has the time, talent or inclination to write articles or submit pictures. Sometimes, it's just easier to donate financially. For that reason, we have established SCMO sponsorships.

In a lot of ways, SCMO is just like PBS. Both provide superior content, both cost money to make, and both are free to their users and committed to stay that way. PBS viewers donate to their local stations not because they have to, or because they expect some tangible reward. They make thier pledges because they recognize a superior product, and feel compelled to show their support. In that same way, we hope you will see SCMO as head and shoulders above its competition, and will want to help keep it that way.

Here's how the sponsorships work: We have created a Sponsor's Page, accessable via graphical link from every page in the site and the main navigation bar. On the Sponsor's Page are blocks for each sponsor. That block can be used to advertise a product, give credit to an organization, or simply list the name of the sponsor.

We have established two kinds of SCMO sponsorships:

Commercial sponsorships (those which will be advertising a product) cost $75 for one year. You can use your business name or, if you have one, a logo can go in the block. If your business has a website, we'll be happy to link your block to your site as a way of saying "thank you" for your support.

Individual sponsorships (just your name) are $25, and if you have a home page, we'll link your block to that if you wish. The same renewal rate freeze applies.

You'll notice that I call these "sponsorships" and not "advertisements", and I trust you will, too. Unlike most commercial sites, visitors will only see these blocks if they choose to by selecting a link - they will never be forced to see them. I suspect that the nature of the SCMO visitor is such that they will want to visit the page and see who the sponsors are. But, because we cannot guarantee a certain number of "viewings" like other sites, they are not true advertisements.

That's where the big difference is, I guess. While other sites solicit advertisements to make money, with the advertiser's sole purpose being to sell product, we offer sponsorships to defray site costs, with our sponsor's purpose being a desire to associate themselves with something that is worthy of support.

In the end, I don't expect anyone to become a sponsor because they think it will make their business successful (although, being able to associate yourself with SCMO can't help but be seen as a good thing). Instead, I am hoping that individuals and businesses who visit SCMO and see it as an asset to the fishing community will want to become sponsors because they see it as the right thing to do.

If you are interested in becoming a sponsor, or simply have questions about sponsorships, please contact us at sponsors@marlinnut.com.

Thank you once again for your continued support of Southern California Marlin Online.