Ways that We're Alive can make money.

[Teethingbiscuit]

WA logo on MRE's!
I need a box for my bunker!

[nikvoodoo]

WA logo on MRE's!
I need a box for my bunker!

I love that one! Excellent product tie in!

Another "Bonus Content" thing I thought of would be have Michael Swan record an outgoing voicemail/answering machine message that people could then put on their phones. How cool would it be to have that voice as your outgoing message? You could sell it out of the store and post the script used for the message so people would know what its going to be.

And I will admit I completely stole this idea from "Wait...Wait...Don't Tell Me" from NPR. But Mr. Swan and Carl Castle have the same kick ass vocal awesomeness.

[StepLaugh]

Nikvoodoo, I love that idea, if Kc could arrange it.

[wooly]

I have a couple ideas that I have seen used with success on other fan sites & forums. I don't know if these forums generate the required traffic to make two of them worthwhile, but AFAIK these don't cost anything to start up, so any positive income is a gain. Another forum I am associated with uses these first several to cover all of their bandwidth costs + yearly server upgrades + running multiple side projects for the members like servers for IRC/Teamspeak/personal web pages/member blogs/etc. along with a nice emergency fund.

(1) A Cafe Press merchandise store. Everything from T-shirts to coffee cups & mouse pads, customized with WA logos & artwork.
(2) Forum & site ads. Project Wonderful is one of the better systems. Pays decently and gives the site admin control over what ads get displayed.
(3) Forum subscriptions/donations. Allows members to show their support and gets a few perks like larger inbox, turns ads off, and a fancy "subscriber" or "team member" badge.
(4) A tie-in book store to Amazon, using coded referrer links that credit the referring site with a percentage. In this case it could be links to members' favorite zombie/survival/whatever books/movies/dvd with members here supplying reviews and lists.

Just a start. I'm still thinking about it. Never considered how to make money with an audio drama

In my experience listening to podcasts and old-time radio, it seems that sponsorship is the typical funding method, with the intro/outro ads coming from corporations that reflect the content, i.e. BMW ads in a show about cars. I have no idea who the related "industry" would be for a zombie-cast. Retailers of survival gear?

Maybe an ad like "We're Alive is sponsored by CheaperThanDirt.com, retailer of weapons, ammo, and survival gear. If you hear Angel or Saul using (a specific weapon or piece of gear) you can find it on our website and own it yourselves!"

Is product placement a thought here? Find an advertiser that makes 36-hr energy drinks and make mention of how a character uses it to stay awake on watch, and looks for it specifically during scrounging missions. Things like that. (and edit the placement out for the retail CD sets).

I know that's a horrible example. I m not an ad exec. But you get the idea. Movies do it. Why not audio dramas?

[wooly]

Collectibles. Geeks (me included) love collectibles. Figures, autographed scripts, behind-the-scenes documentaries, wall maps (sold in sections as the WA world is revealed with the rest showing a vague "here be zombies" lol), CD inserts, limited-edition CD sets, baseball-style card sets, books of fan art, posters, iron-on patches, you name it.

An 8x10 glossy poster for each episode (using the existing episode art), autographed by each voice actor who is in that episode. Add in a binder with page protectors and CD holders and you have a an excellent custom way to store your season CD's. Collect the whole set, kids!

Put together enough and run a vendor table at Dragoncon/PAX/Comic-Con along with the online store.

Just more rambling ideas. Eventually I might have a winner

I normally hate to be so commercially-minded, but I do not wish WA to fail over money. It's just too good.

[Onslaught]

Well now I'm gonna have to type this up again. Oh well... Well as I said before you could have a drawing and you get your name put in the drawing everytime you donate a certain amount of money and the prize for the drawing could be like you could go and see an episode be made and you could meet all of the actors. Longest runon ever.

[Onslaught]

But then again... the person would have to pay for plane tickets if they didn't live close by. Well it was worth a shot.

[SleepyGlenn]

In my experience listening to podcasts and old-time radio, it seems that sponsorship is the typical funding method, with the intro/outro ads coming from corporations that reflect the content, i.e. BMW ads in a show about cars. I have no idea who the related "industry" would be for a zombie-cast. Retailers of survival gear?

Maybe an ad like "We're Alive is sponsored by CheaperThanDirt.com, retailer of weapons, ammo, and survival gear. If you hear Angel or Saul using (a specific weapon or piece of gear) you can find it on our website and own it yourselves!"

They could do that for Fishtanks! ... oh no wait.

[StepLaugh]

@wooly

That's some great ideas.

I do like the custom tags about being a team member/subscriber.

[fraggot]

I think all the people behind We're Alive should just start whoring themselves out, big bucks there