Hey guys I'm new here. I have had experience developing websites before, I ran a webforum with 5,300 users back in 2011 but it got big because my friend had a YouTube channel with 10,000~ subs and he advertised my site. I am trying to develop a new webforum from scratch but I have no idea how to market it and get dedicate users. Is it wrong to put my site as a forum? It's supposed to be a place where people can get guides on how to play, meet new people..etc I have no clue where to start. I've asked some friends to join but some of them won't even post an introduction. I guess the question I have is how do I get people to give a shit about my website enough to post and keep coming back? I've been trying to add database for in game match data and other stuff but it's sill a new site only been up for a month or so.
From 40,000 feet, you need to be sure that you are -- right now -- offering a webforum of interest to people with at least some high quality posts (you may need to do a bunch of them, yourself, to get things started.) If you do not have a viable product, it will be a very tough sell. Once you are sure that you have the above components in place, then you need to decide how much you can invest to find those very people for whom your webforum will be a compelling place to be. If you have little money and only time to invest, then that will only allow for certain marketing techniques. If you have some funding, that will open more marketing channels for you. However, a marketing plan will have to be quite tailored (there are A LOT of ways to market) to incorporate your answers to the questions in my second paragraph so it is hard to offer more detailed advice. We will not be able to provide much more detailed advice unless you tell us more about the actual webforum. That said, you might get posters who offer specific advice without additional information from you (have seen it happen many times before) and those are great posts to ignore.
My website is www.riotplease.com and it's supposed to be a place where new league of legends players can learn to play and meet higher ranked players. When I first started there was no resource like this so I want to offer what wasn't given to me. I also hope to host tournaments, allow users to sell game guides, and make m own personal statistic information. Are you familiar with this game?
No, I am not. However, one of the first things that I would want to do is to see what other sites are out there focused on the game by doing some targeted searches on the web. They do not have to be forums; could be cheat sites, blogs, whatever. You want to develop a list of them and then research where they show up: where are they advertising, where are they getting mentions in blogs, where do they show up in social media, etc. This will be a good initial exercise to see who is doing what in the space. I would also want to do the same type of research on the game manufacturer, itself. Their marketing campaign may be on the high end, cost-wise, but it will be helpful to know what they do, as well. I would next be thinking about an email campaign. If you seek out a legitimate list broker (there are a million fraudsters out there, of course) you may find that there are lists of recent buyers of the game. If not, there will at least be gamer lists of one sort or another.
Well it's a free game so I don't know how I would find a list of emails considering it's free to play/download from the company website. What do you mean by research? How would I find out where they advertised, get mentions...etc?
I know MOBA games and the people as well. Your idea can work but there're some other forums about the same subject, you need to think why those players or people interested in the game will be using your forum instead of something else. You can't expect to have people joining in and making posts right away. Start being active, make tutorials or make interesting threads looking for engagement, then people will start posting back to you. Reddit is a great place to start, don't promote your forum but be active, make friends and then ask them to visit your forum. Trust me, if you can offer quality value in your forum like good and original tutorials people will visit your forum and probably make a post. You also need to engage with them and make them feel confortable. For a moment think as a new user on your forum, what are the think you like to see inside a forum? what kind of content do you expect? that kind of things will be the fuel of your goal. You can also help the promotion of the forum with an active Facebook page or Twitter, you can be active on some Youtube channels or other forums and have a link in your profile. Another good way to at least make some traffic is playing the game with your URL as your nickname, like people from Twitch do when they play this kind of game. Good luck friend!
Things like match history and player statistics are almost expected by users isn't it? Thanks for the advice by the way!
There may or may not be email lists, but just because a game is free does not mean there are none to be had. Consult with a professional list broker to find out for sure. Research can be as simple as doing a Google search of one of the companies and seeing where they turn up. Some of the results will be their ads, their mentions on blogs, their social media footprint, etc.
Sure, I will PM you contact info for a list broker (in the U.S.) that I have used for 20+ years. They are free to you (customer) and make a margin from the list seller.