Starting a internet marketing forum

OP, I do like to see people coming up with new ideas, and creating new sites, however, this does not sound like it will be a good idea on your behalf. But tell me, why did you come to *this* forum to ask your question? What is it that this forum has that attracts you? then ask yourself, will your site be able to be draw in other people, and have them asking similar questions? What answers will you give them?

Too many people attempt to start forums, and it is *alot* of work, not just in creating the site, but in moderating the site and keeping the spam, and duplicate content down. Forums are unlike normal sites. In a normal site, you might just be aiming to try to gain visitors and earn from ad clicks, But with a forum, your trying to get users to engage and interact and the survival of the forum is based on this and this alone.
Doing this successfully requires ALOT of work to kickstart, and you need to be able to convert those casual visitors from visitors to contributors... which is easier said then done.
Lets say I visit your forum, and theres no content, why should I join? lets say you have lots of content, and I decide to join, and I post in a couple of threads, but there is no other members to reply, then why should I return?
Most likely to help to GAIN and RETAIN members, you will need to look into postloop to give you a fake user base until a real one is established. And guess what, others have done this and FAILED, with nothing but massive bills to show for it. But without this strategy, you have very little chance for success, and with this strategy, well, you still have very little chance for success.

The odd thing is that the people that worked on postloop have earnt more then most of the forums that hired them, they exchange their time for money. Guess what, when running a forum, you wont be that lucky. You will have to work hard everyday to moderate the forum, police it for spam and unacceptable content. Even if you do start earning, it might be so low that it is not worth your time to continue.

simply having the funds for a forum license, is not the same as having the money to start a forum. What happens if you spend $1k on advertising, content (such as postloop), hosting, SEO and then if that fails to ignite a community what will you do then? I will be honest, I do not think you can succeed with $1k, as I have seen others fail after spending more then this. How much are you willing to burn on this project?
Maybe its possible that if you work hard, with friends, with a $5k budget (for content, advertising and seo) that you might be able to be successful in creating a community. But I cannot guarantee it.
And even if you did succeed, how do you measure your success? with amount of active members or with how much income you earn?
One thing to note is that DP has revenue from premium membership and from advertisements, but offers something attractive to encourage people to pay for the premium membership. And unless your forum can offer something really unique to encourage premium membership, then you will be reliant on ad revenue alone. And if you burn up $5k to get started... theres no telling how long it would take to recover that from ad revenue. Just keep in mind that if you get cold feet before income comes in, you will never be able to sell the forum for what it cost to build. You will be lucky to get back 50% of the forum license cost.
I will repeat this, if you build it and later try to sell it, noone here cares how much you spent on content, and time. All we look at is pretty much profit per month x 10. So this will be a massive gamble, and once you start investing in it, you *have to* continue it until it starts to be successful.

As another forum webmaster put it, as soon as the money ran out, he couldnt keep hiring the postloop posters, so as soon as the money ran out, the forum died. Now that guy is here on the forum somewhere, I cant find that post right now, but it summed it up perfectly. Even *if* there was a tiny chance of success for his forum, everything he spent became a complete and utter waste the instant he stopped investing in it. So, it comes down to what is your business plan and just how deep are your pockets.

Please, before you do anything, come up with a business plan.

Oh, and the last time I advised someone from DP not to start a forum, 6 months later they were selling their VB license in the DP bargain bin. I cant help but wonder, how much time, and money he lost.

 

Not to beat a dead horse, but I really, really like the idea of starting a forum in the OP's native language. When I think of all of the posts right here on DP with marketing questions from posters for whom English is obviously not their primary language, it seems like there is a reasonable need for people looking for help in their native language. Makes me wish that I could speak a language besides English!

 

You could be onto something there, Perhaps a forum in "Gibberish" would do really well judging by some of the nonsense that gets posted on this forum

 

Excellent idea! Why?.......Because to *many* members, Gibberish is their primary language.

 

LOL...you know, as a sales and marketing guy, I listen to Gibberish all day long right here in the US. It is obviously a sub-dialect of English, as well. And people thought that Esperanto was the unifying language of the world. It is indeed Gibberish because it is used by a much larger group of people!

 

I want to learn some Gibberish too ... It would help me understand my clients I`ll be the biggest fan of the Gibberish forum

 

thank you man i got it

 

No problem! But you should feel free to use to Like button to express agreement and thanks. It is right next to the reply button, and it makes your thanks count for more.

 

He can't like other posts until he has 3 likes himself (established status).