Would you say this is a good or bad idea?

I am thinking about launching my webmaster forum very soon (once it's ready of course), and I don't want it to be dead all the time. So I have been thinking of some webmaster related marketing strategies, tell me what you think of them;

• Once you reach the 150 post mark you get a free 1-year .com registration
• 300 posts and you recieve either another free 1-year .com registration or $10 PayPal credit
• 500 posts and you get either 2-year .com registration or $15
• First 5 people 1,000 post mark will recieve $50 PayPal credit

Now I know this could be pretty expensive for a while, but I personally think this would be a very clever and good way to tell people I am serious about my forum. And...at the same time, reap in some benefits for helping my forum grow.

With AdSense and possibility for advertising revenue on my website, would you say this is a good or bad idea? Please comment on your answers, and thank you.

 

Getting a forum going is tough. Especially in your genre with many well established webmaster forums already available.

Your idea souds good in theory but the downside is that the quality of content may suffer if posting is incentivised.

 

I think that the problem is that people don't want to wait the time it takes to get one going decent!! You have to remember that getting the members is of course 60% of your task but proper SEO and search term positioning is the other, not to mention creating word of mouth!!

Great plan, I hope it works for you!!

Good luck!!

 

Thanks. Oh don't get me wrong I will have to set up some protocols for the users to follow so their post count isn't built up from irrelevent content and spam. And you hit the nail on the head here;

That is why I am running such a campaign, because there are also many failed forums as well. Thanks for your fast reply much appreciated.

 

Allowing signature links and having good Pr will also get members.

 

Yes, I can see the members seeing that as appealing too. Good suggestion, I was considering allowing 4 signature links anyway, with some spam prevention rule.

But with my first post, if I was offering that, would you join? Now that's mainly what I'd like to know, because this campaign is going to cost a few quid.

 

Yes it is a very good idea. I will join your forum once it is up. Keep me informed

 

hi

i'm wish you the best luck , it is very hard to gain people

cheers
david

 

Seems a good idea, I had a Gaming Forum and offered a free game to the three members who got the most referrals. The idea you have is good, but you need a way of getting the members there to make the posts in the first place.

It may sound like cheating, but you could set up say ten accounts and make the forum look a little busier, create threads, posts, etc. The problem I always faced was, why would people join if there's no members to reply to their questions? If you have a good group of people to help build up the posts then there may be no need to do that, I just think it helps at the start!

Good Luck, and let me know when its up - I'll try put some posts in for you!

 

Hi ,

do you have a community base already on your site?
Its v hard to build a forum from scratch , especically a webmaster one , when DP is right here.

But I like your ideas! Will register an account when your live!

Best of luck mate!

 

It's a good idea in theory, but to reach 150 posts on a brand new forum would be pretty hard to do unless someone was desperate for a free domain. You might try incentives for lesser posts if you are going to go that route?

 

You could start by building a site/ blog for Webmasters, with news, tutorials, advice, etc. Get a reasonable amount of traffic from that and then launch a forum. Say your getting 5,000 unique visitors PCM from the site/ blog, you can then filter than through to your forum. I think this is a safer route to take, setting up a blog requires very little start-up. However, VB Licences don't come cheap! Your entering a very competitive market amongst forums, and as you said many do fail.

Another benefit of doing this would be that; people see you write quality advice on your blog. So, they see that the forum will be just as useful and definitely worth signing up for.

This would be the route I would take, If I were to set up another forum.

 

I think its a great idea! I would really like to be apart of this, please PM me the link.

 

OK, I will do.

Thank you and yes it is very hard .

Thank you for providing past expierience and I'll get some of my friends to join and get some discussions going so the forum has some content. I'll let you know when we launch.

No not community yet I haven't even launched yet, but I think beating DP is out of my league altogether, I am optomistic, but I am also realistic . But I know people like to be part of more than 1 webmaster community (like myself). I'll notify you through PM too when it is ready. Thanks for your feedback.

I know I could maybe lower that count to let's say 80 posts or something, but if I lower it too much my forum will be very popular with people just after a domain, coming and posting the requirements then leaving. But I get what you are saying.

Very, very good idea, plus I could still keep the blog running when the forum has launched too. Like a technology & computing blog. I did think about this, but for in the future after the forum has launched, but your idea makes more sense. Thank you.

OK I will do my friend.

And, thanks to all you guys, there is such a good community down at Digital Point, I only hope my forum has at least half of the great members here. Reputation for you all.

 

If you have the budget, I would advise you to hire some professionals to constantly post good content in your forums. You can also spend the budget to have unique website templates (for example) designed for the members to download.

 

You mean for me to pay people per post (that's a tongue twister ) ? Yes I could pay a proper established firm to do it for me so that I know they won't just fill my forum full of sh**. Good advice.

 

Sounds great. If you hire a poster, one post costs $0.10. 150 posts work out to $15 which is more expensive than a .com domain. Plus the advantage is these people are more "voluntary".

 

Might get a mix of the 2 then . But, yes I get what you are saying.

 

Guess the whole idea is to create some buzz in the internet community. Try social bookmarking and other web 2.0 media. Works best for forum based websites.

 

I think its a bad idea.. you can do it at first but what if the forum grows really fast, would you still be able to stick to giving away free .coms?
Instead of doing that why don't you get somebody to write quality articles about things that interest webmasters.. I guess that's a lot more effective.