Forum Marketing - Bringing In The Members~

[Mr. Tech]

Hey guys,

Been a while since I've been to these forums, nice to be back

Anyhoo, did a search on this and couldn't find anything from the search results I looked at.

I'm starting up some new forums and am wondering if anyone has any good ideas on a marketing plan to get quality amount of members?

Some ideas I've ehard from other forums are:

Advertise in Google, Overture etc
Contests
Pay to post/refer
Posting good information
Signing up as a few members and reply to your own questions

Appreciate your input

Ben

[awall19]

I think many of the ideas are the same from place to place, but the implementation of the ideas is what is really important. you only need a few active members and a few curious people to create an active forum.

another great idea is creating tools like Digital Point did.

[dcristo]

I think forum post exchanges is a great way to get a forum off the ground. I think another important thing is having the Admin being very active in the forum, post stuff asking debatable questions making people want to reply etc

[digitman]

Originally Posted by awall19

another great idea is creating tools like Digital Point did.

which tool is that?

[Mike Merz]

A few more ideas ..

Do you have a newsletter?

Tie the forum into the newsletter ... and vice versa.

Show recent post topics of interest in the newsletter, and ask your subs to participate ... and archive your newsletters in the forum.

Tie both into your blog (assuming you have one).

List your forum in the Forum directories ... and if you can, ping the RSS dirs. with your RSS feed.

Write and submit forum topic related articles ... submit ... archive.

Participate in as many related topic forums as time allows, and list the URL in your sig. file.

Don't force posts to try and draw interest ... regulars will pick that up, and you'll be scorned ... be natural, helpful, and network with others.

Marketing is all about relationship building ... forum building is no different.

Quality and exposure go hand in hand.

Regards,

Mike "don't forget to optimize for the SEs, too" Merz

[HeadBuilder]

Try posting quality content that is related to the theme of the forums so that members have something to discuss, or if yours is a content site with an attached forum, have a link from the article to a forum thread that would allow readers to comment and discuss.

[cltwebs]

I've implemented a Members Rewards Program to reward active posters in my forums. I've gotten good feedback from members who are have used it and rewards members for posting so like a win win opportunity.

[Mr. Tech]

Good ideas

Thanks guys!

[DOS]

Originally Posted by cltwebs

I've implemented a Members Rewards Program to reward active posters in my forums. I've gotten good feedback from members who are have used it and rewards members for posting so like a win win opportunity.

I checked it out, your rewards program seems very well thought out and designed.

[cltwebs]

Originally Posted by DOS

I checked it out, your rewards program seems very well thought out and designed.

Thanks. I've seen a simular reward program at another site and I took the primis and added on to it.

[nextGoal100kVisitors]

Originally Posted by dcristo

I think forum post exchanges is a great way to get a forum off the ground. I think another important thing is having the Admin being very active in the forum, post stuff asking debatable questions making people want to reply etc

Here's a post exchange group. You might want to take a look into it.

[akeol]

Give away free stuffs, giving the visitors a reason to revisit the place. I've tried promoting through traffic exchanges using different techniques which works pretty well.

Using a splash page to promote the Free items in your forum, you tend to get people to scout around your forum more, rather than just dumping your forum URL in traffic exchanges.

You can try Safelists too, especially those new ones, fewer subscribers meaning a higher open & clickrate. An attractive subject is equally important too.

[nextGoal100kVisitors]

Originally Posted by akeol

Give away free stuffs, giving the visitors a reason to revisit the place. I've tried promoting through traffic exchanges using different techniques which works pretty well.

Speaking of free stuff, many forums have text link ad reward programs; you post 25 - 30 posts and you get a month of free text ad link. That's pretty attractive, and in fact, I participate in a couple of forums partly because of this reason. Some of websites that host text link ad reward programs are

http://www.seo-forums.com/about33.html
http://www.greatnexus.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=648
http://forum.ohcnetwork.com/about343.html

I think these are pretty attractive offer.

[cltwebs]

Forums are hard enough to start off in first place. I think if you can give a member or visitor some incentive to post they will. That is the strategy that I'm taking because activity is important to any forum. Since I've started the program on my forum I have gotten much more actitity and see more people post much more regular. I must say that my idea was based of the success that GreatNexus.com has had.

[Mr. Tech]

Thankls guys, some great suggestions!

I think I might give your method a try cltwebs.

Anymore ideas from anyone would be great!

Cheers

[nextGoal100kVisitors]

Originally Posted by Mr. Tech

Anymore ideas from anyone would be great!

Here's another idea. You can give credits to members. Here's a example. Search for "ants". Do you find that? That's how many credits this member foundThroughAdminSig collected. Now see this. You get free ads.

You can give out free banner ads, text link ads, cash, etc.

[Mr. Tech]

Thanks, sounds like a good idea basically the same as cltwebs idea but an easy way to track them.

Thanks mate

[altyfc]

Originally Posted by nextGoal100kVisitors

Here's a post exchange group. You might want to take a look into it.

Thanks for the mention, nextGoal... we're always on the lookout for new members.

Aaron

[altyfc]

Originally Posted by nextGoal100kVisitors

Here's another idea. You can give credits to members. Here's a example. Search for "ants". Do you find that? That's how many credits this member foundThroughAdminSig collected. Now see this. You get free ads.

You can give out free banner ads, text link ads, cash, etc.

...and thanks again. I really ought to be paying you for all these recommendations.

Aaron