PAFOA has it's first paying advertiser! The Valley Forge Gun Show!

[danp]

Well this is somewhat exciting news. PAFOA has directly sold it's first advertising slot to the Valley Forge Gun Show (which is happening December 19th-21st)

I wanted to point this out because Fred and Pearl Nudy who run the Valley Forge Gun Show have been supporters of PAFOA since almost day one. Fred has bent over backwards for 2 years to constantly offer us a table at their show (which we have yet to take him up on due to time constraints but we expect to in the future)

Our community of gun owners is a very tightly knit group of people who all depend on each other. Gun Manufacturers, Gun Dealers, Gun Owners, Shooting Range/Gun Club owners. If any one of us falls, we all fall. And gun shows are one of the most important venues for us because they bring us all together.

In my opinion the Valley Forge Gun Show is one of the biggest and the best in the Commonwealth and I am (hoping) to attend the December one and pick up some stuff, I sincerely hope members in the area can make it. I say this not because they bought an ad but rather I sold them an ad first because I truly believe they are a great show.

Ultimately what I wanted to do with this post was recognize two people and an organization that has, and continues to support gun owners and what we're trying to do here at PAFOA and encourage our members to in turn support them!

[Longshot]

Great mews danp!

[GunLawyer001]

Dan, you've built something really impressive here, and you are to be congratulated. Anybody can start up a website, but only a few can get the kind of interest and volume that PAFOA achieves on a daily basis. Most of the gun boards cover the entire USA, even the world, but your Pennsylvania site beats them hands down.

Kudos, my friend.

[gunga]

Great news all around.

I for one would volunteer to man a PAFOA table for a day of the show... if we find a few other people that are willing to do the same, let's go for it.

Having done a lot of shows with the goal of 'getting the word out', here's my take on running a PAFOA table.

It would make sense to have some bright fluorescent business card sized hand-outs (that they're likely to find in a pocket or bag after the show) to give people to get them to the site, and also a laptop where people can type in their email address so we can put them on the mailing list. (it sucks to go to a show and collect 1000 emails scribbled down on paper that you have to try and decipher and key into a computer). Also need some kind of signage, but $75 at kinkos goes a long way these days for a direct-print full color vinyl banner.

Anyway, congrats and if I can help please let me know.

[-JD-]

Dan,

Great news!

I'll be happy to help if you do want to do a table this time. (Can't commit for the whole WE, but I could probably do Friday and another half a day.)

[RocketFoot]

Congrats Dan & Doug! Great news!!

[normanvin]

Thats pretty cool. Congrats.

[danp]

Dan, you've built something really impressive here, and you are to be congratulated. Anybody can start up a website, but only a few can get the kind of interest and volume that PAFOA achieves on a daily basis. Most of the gun boards cover the entire USA, even the world, but your Pennsylvania site beats them hands down.

Kudos, my friend.

Thanks GL, that means a lot. This board is by no means perfect and sometimes it makes me want to tear my hair out. But at the end of the day, I think we offer a net good to the gun-owning community in PA, and I think as the organization grows and matures we'll be able to do a lot more.

[danp]

I also want to add in why this is important:

PAFOA currently receives about 2.5-3 million page views a month. For those of you who don't know, that's A LOT of traffic, most sites could only dream of such traffic. As such that traffic is worth money because people want your eyeballs.

The beauty of this is: It offers us one more way to fund the organization without ever having to bug you guys for money.

The Brownell's affiliate ads (we get a 5% commission on any sale made through them) have generated about $6-10/day on average (we had a $50 day once) for the organization in the last month, that means our hosting is pretty much covered.

While I have no intention of selling PAFOA out to the highest bidder, I strongly believe that if we build solid relationships among the Pennsylvania Firearm Owning community of consumers and businesses who have stuff for sale, everyone can win.

We'll see how it all works out!

[mojo]

That's great news. Congrats! It's definitely exciting to see this forum grow.

And +1 to what GunLawyer001 said