Yeah, you can subscribe to a forum. In vB3, go to the forumhome of the forum you wish to subscribe to, choose "Subscribe to this forum" from the Forum Tools dropdown menu, select your notification preference, and click "Add Subscription". I think that Sarah was referring to setting the default registration option for thread subscriptions to daily email notification so that replies to any threads they post will generate email beckoning them back.
Thanks for the replies, folks. Ah, I see. I've tried different settings for that, but it's hard to tell what works best. Are there any good, easy ways to tell how well this works? That is, without going through your logs?
I look at it this way - if you turn off the notification by default, then most members leave it off and you lose that avenue of enticing them to return. OTOH, if you set it for instant email notification it annoys many people and they turn it off, often posting about it publicly causing others to shut it as well. Daily notification seems to be the best compromise - most members don't mind it and it actually works to lure some back.
I've actually just changed mine from instant to daily as a result of this thread. I had it on instant for a few weeks because I had a lot of hit-and-run one-posters who never came back, so I was thinking perhaps they didn't know how to come back to see their own posts. We'll see how it goes. I personally don't like instant or daily, but that's because I know how to use vB's subscriptions feature. Thanks for the input, Sandman. And TAZ rocks!
I was talking about subscribing to an entire section of a forum - such as general marketing, link exchanges, programming help. That way I don't have to revisit - I can get told. Personally I don't find the newsletters as useful because they cover all the topics, not just the ones that interest me. And in some cases Content is King, even forum content. When I search for answers to oddball problems I'll frequently find forums where others are asking the same question - and getting answers - and not tutorials and articles for the same thing. The problem the forum owner has is getting the content - and with forums the best content is that given by other people Sarah
Yeah, that's great, but I think a lot of people don't know how to subscribe to an entire forum. I think a button right at the top of the forum works a lot better than a link in a drop-down menu.
quite possibly. However I was just clarifying the type of subscription. It's up to each forum owner to decide on the user interface. Sarah
I'm using PHPBB and have several techniques of my own... Since I have several already established and aged forums with a large member base to compete with... when i first started out I offered free raffles for car parts ( the forum is for mitsubishi eclipses ). I sent out a newsletter every month to all my members letting them know anytime something great was being discussed, or in my case, when a nationwide car meeting was happening. After my member base grew to over 700 (just recently) I added a V.I.P. forum and special features like putting a big picture in your profile, and making your own user rank, and sold 6-month to 1 year subscriptions to access those features. Another thing I've noticed that keeps a lot of people coming back daily is an "off topic" forum where anything can be posted.. people love those.
And that puts use right back to my point. You need marketing to make that plan work. Marketing is King. Content is not important in your example, getting members to post content is. That requires them being able to find the place to get there and post, marketing.
To me this is catch 22. You need one then the other will follow. Ideally I'd go big on one (content or marketing) but also go semi big on the other to support the one you concentrated on.
Just when I thought we had this all straightened out... you pull out the old "which came first, the chicken or the egg" routine. Marketing is not king. Content is king. Marketing crap may work, but isn't a good thing overall because it's not built on a solid foundation. Crap marketing of good content may work, but isn't a good thing because you are not meeting your potential. Proper marketing of strong content - that's the holy grail. But between the two, content is king, because it's real, not hype.
My Forum is growing quite nicely....approx 50 new members join each month...currently 515 members, and there can be as many as 100 guests online at any given time. Their is content, 618 threads and 2500 posts. The problem I have is that not many members actually post, in fact I wonder why they sign up in the first place......seems pointless to join then not post anything. I keep thinking that a small group will form and they will reply to each others posts getting some momentom going but it hasn't really happened.....so the forum continues to stutter along. The reason I get so much traffic is that it is primarily about free hosting and it does rank quite highly on MSN and Yahoo for terms related to that. Google is starting to send quite a bit of traffic as well. To answer my own question I guess there is only so much to say about that subject but it does/could have much more to offer. I don't pay people to post, I don't have contests or prizes, whats the point of it being there if you have to bribe people to join and make posts, I think a forum should have to stand on it's own merits.
Let me ask you this, if that is true, why are you here then? You must be wasting your time? I mean come on, you are here cause I showed you how well good marketing works. This has gone full circle now and that is point set and match. Your content didn't carry you and you posted so on your own forum. Good day.
It is very simple. If I own a pizza place, I can make the best damn pizza in town, but if nobody knows I exist, then I will go out of business sooner or later because I wont sell any. -and- If I make the crappiest pizza, but market it well to everyone, im still likely to fail, but I will make some money in the meantime, and maybe I'll get enough feedback to improve my product along the way. Content is crucial, but its actually second banana. You need a reason for your site visitors to hang around, but first, you got to get them there. You could have the best content, but without marketing, nobody will know it and you will fail.. A good webmaster knows you need a good balance of both. Noppid knows this and knows it well.
Where I come from, everyone knows where the best damn pizza in town is. If you aren't getting customers for your pizza, maybe it's not that good after all.