Have you ever had success as a direct result of placing a blatant ad?

I know I haven't, well not really (the only time has come as a result of a previous enquiry remembering he meant to contact me). 

Is the blatant ads forum there purely to give would-be direct sellers an outlet to promote sales literature? Or as a forum to "place spam"?

How many people actually read through it unless a known face (to you) makes a post? (or even then?) << I tend to read posts from people I "know" or have seen in meetings or in and around the forum i.e. some bloke called Gareth Coxon, whose "ad" I read today. 

I also get that it can be used to promote a business directly without diving straight into the "buy my stuff" pitch, but 90% of what I read in there is "direct". 

Thought I would put a blatant add  as I haven't done one yet and measure the response - let me know what you think - http://www.4networking.biz/Forum/ViewTopic/120212

I have and I believe JAM have in the past as well.

The "problem" with most of the blatant ads is that they are from people who don't use the forum generally. When I used to place blatant ads, people read them because a) I was a regular forum user and part of the community and b) I have a social media footprint and used that to point at the ads too.

Just pitching up here, posting an ad (or one a day on exactly the same subject) is misunderstanding how forums and social media at large work.

I have had a couple of wins from that section. The most successful was one I did for insurance for solar panel installers. I had a couple of enquiries from people who had stumbled across the ad from google.

A well tweeted blatant ad can work, but the secret is don't do them too often.

I've bought through a blatant ad (HR start up pack type thing)...though I didn't see it when it was put up, it ranked highly on a Google search I did many months later.  So I reckon think carefully about the title of the ad, and you might be pleasantly surprised to get some sales 3+ months down the line.

Never sold from one myself, think I put one up in my early days and I can fully understand now why it didn't attract any attention.  Planning on putting one up about a new venture reasonably soon, though more for Googlers over the following months than 4Ners reading it on the day or so it's page one of the blatant ads forum.

Yes I got a couple of deals in via Blatant Ads when I started back in July, I was desperate to get work in on the first day so got straight to it with a ludicrously cheap web design offer. It worked but I couldn't afford to do the same now.

I heard in a 4sight recently that people should put up at 2 - 4 a month purely for seo / google rankings and the feedback was that 'generally no one will read them' but you'll come up in google for others to view.

I never did get round to posting any, although it would be interesting to hear your feedback on this Gareth :)

yep have done quite a bit - through tweeting/facebooking and promoting it - as well as people posting on it which made most ads on the forum preview posts (which are now gone) for quite a while.

It does work you just have to work at making it work. The older style forum made it work slightly easier though.

I have done with my signature offers - having lots of happy clients who promote my page for me helps as well. The basics of having an offer that works are:

Right product - right price - promotion of said post and being visible on the forums.

You need to actively promote the deal, but also be a visible forum member to get it seen and have the right product for the audience.

Perhaps if blatant ads was a reserved section purely for paid up members ...

After doing an analysis of my blatent add here http://www.4networking.biz/Forum/ViewTopic/120212 this video pretty much sums up its performance (just the first bit of the video)..

As it was me that Chris bought the HR starter Pack from I'd say yes!  Interesting that it was months later that a google search brought our offer to Chris's attention though so perhaps there is something in the advice Jane refers to about posting ads reasonably regularly in case they come up in searches later?

Sounds like a good idea and makes sense (not that I have the first clue about SEO) ,  just have to make sure you post elsewhere on the forum as well otherwise you'll end up a blatant ad zombie.  (I know you do Jane, general observation, not mean at anyone directly)