Newsletter or bulletin board

pjean · 04-13-2006, 03:01 PM

New at this website building. Does anyone have advice on having visitors return to your site? What would be better with my site. A newsletter or a discussion board? My webiste is http//www.thelookoffame.com. Any suggestions? Thanks.
pjean

John Scott · 04-13-2006, 06:38 PM

Both are good for bringing people back. Newsletters are harder to get people to subscribe to, though.

If you choose to set up a forum, just remember to set the default registration setting to subscribe members to threads they post with topic reply notification by email.

etech-peter · 04-14-2006, 04:19 AM

A forum would be a better choice in getting repeat visitors, as John mentioned newsletters are hard to get people to subscribe to. Alongwith the topic reply notification by email, get some interesting threads and conversations going to make the visitors come back.

**LazyJim** · 04-14-2006, 06:28 AM

Yeah I reckon having most of the content visble helps as well as avoiding the fear of signing up to email lists.

If your forum requires signup with email address then it is still better to be a forum than a newsletter because all the past content remains visible for potential new subscribers.

Plus of course having the content visible will help draw in new people.

And now, why did you post this in Web Usability forum???
- moved to Web Design Lobby

cimmeron · 04-18-2006, 08:55 AM

Personally, I think offering both is a good idea. I think that once people take a look at the information you are providing and if it's good, they'll sign up. But without 'sampling' what you got, they aren't going to sign up.

But a newsletter can be a chore in itself, too, because you have to write it and send it out on a regular basis.

webzenstar · 04-19-2006, 02:03 PM

I also suggest you implement both a forum as your foundation and a newsletter (through the forum would be best) to keep the members informed of the latest and greatest.

Most forum scripts also make it -relatively- easy to add more features, like links or "community-like" options to help your members socialize.

It all depends what you -really- want to do...

petertdavis · 04-20-2006, 09:43 AM

I agree, do both, they're not mutually exclusive.