Best way to get members to donate/buy premium memberships?

[Smokey]

What is the best way to have my members donate or purchase a subscription package?

I offer for premium members:
-extra forums
-more PM storage
-different group color/scheme
and more...a list along with pricing can be found here.

I need your opinions, I really need to start making money off my site so that I can actually PAY for the hosting...so please tell me, how do you get members to purchase premium memberships? 🙂

What are some of the things you offer?

 

[Leo Ghost]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

It's actually extremely simple; CwF+RtB

Connect with Fans (CwF) and give them a Reason to Buy (RtB). CwF+RtB=$$$

In this case, you need to be able to provide content to these "upgraded" users that you don't to normal members. In my case we plan to offer beta versions of our script as an example. It's all about giving a reason to buy 🙂

 

[Shahrier]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

You know, personally, I think providing an extra forum or more storage for PM is just a waste of money. Know one wants to buy something for 10 bucks for just another one of your dead forums and more storage for an empty PM Storage.

Offer some actual services depending on your sites genre.

 

[fantanoice]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

You know, personally, I think providing an extra forum or more storage for PM is just a waste of money. Know one wants to buy something for 10 bucks for just another one of your dead forums and more storage for an empty PM Storage.

Offer some actual services depending on your sites genre.

I agree with this statement.

 

[David]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

When you get to at least a 5000 member count and stats similar to FP then you can consider VIP offers. What can be found in your offer is the same as on a developed forum. So why go for your forum?

 

[Leo Ghost]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

When you get to at least a 5000 member count and stats similar to FP then you can consider VIP offers. What can be found in your offer is the same as on a developed forum. So why go for your forum?

I don't think you *must* have those stats in order to start VIP offers, it completely depends on what content you can offer. If your community develops something, a game, a script, an app, and it is widely used, people may be interested in becoming a VIP to get early grabs at beta versions. Of course you'd either need a really good app, or offer several different items.

My current plan is to have a "VIP" group setup, and keep it free for now. In the future once we have enough content to offer to these members that equals a strong "reason to buy" we'll put a yearly charge on it :great:

 

[NBK*Twitch]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

You need to have something worth buying the vip for. Like custom scripts,betas to something,etc..

 

[SIO]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

I plan to offer "VIP" memberships in the future. Features include no ads, games that normal people don't get, etc.

I don't plan on really offering/implementing it until my forum has a considerable userbase and therefor the "clout" one would need to offer paid services. For the sake of testing my payment/subscription system, I do unofficially allow people to pay $1 to remove all the ads.

I do feel that a forum needs to have considerable traffic/membership numbers to even justify paid memberships. I have seen it work. It works with offtopic.com. In fact, you *have* to pay to see the bulk of the forum. The fact they have 216,000 members is the reason it works.

 

[David]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

When you get to at least a 5000 member count and stats similar to FP then you can consider VIP offers. What can be found in your offer is the same as on a developed forum. So why go for your forum?

I don't think you *must* have those stats in order to start VIP offers, it completely depends on what content you can offer. If your community develops something, a game, a script, an app, and it is widely used, people may be interested in becoming a VIP to get early grabs at beta versions. Of course you'd either need a really good app, or offer several different items.

My current plan is to have a "VIP" group setup, and keep it free for now. In the future once we have enough content to offer to these members that equals a strong "reason to buy" we'll put a yearly charge on it :great:

Well, I based that off his title: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium memberships?

What you said about the app, if people see it as widely used, wouldn't more and more people want to join, hence going into the idea of mine?

 

[Leo Ghost]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

Well, I based that off his title: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium memberships?

What you said about the app, if people see it as widely used, wouldn't more and more people want to join, hence going into the idea of mine?

Well of course it goes into your idea, i'm just saying you don't have to start off with 5,000 users in order for it to work, it's the content that matters more than the stats.

I suppose the best way would be to present a reason to buy to a good sized memberbase, but really presenting a reason to buy to any memberbase could be a good way :great:

 

[Justin]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

I give something they would like. If it were a general forum or such, I would restrict PM, Signature and avatar space. Also some locked away forums 😛

 

[Qbone]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

It's simple, if people think your site has potential, they'll do it.

So simply continue offering your members more content on your site.

 

[Impulse]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

When you get to at least a 5000 member count and stats similar to FP then you can consider VIP offers. What can be found in your offer is the same as on a developed forum. So why go for your forum?

I agree with this, why would you start a forum and offer a premium Membership right away? If anything, it's just going to drive people away because they have to pay to have extra little perks that they can find at other sites for free.

 

[syshacks]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

Well my website is http://www.syshacks.com
Stats are at par. Activity is cool. We provide elite tricks, free premium accounts and cool tools for free... Color, larger pm box..cost is also nominal but still we are lagging on our VIP... any suggestions?

 

[merk51]

Re: Best way to get members to donate/buy premium membership

I think there is no best way to get people to donate/buy memberships.

While every webmaster/administrator hopes to be racking in the money if you don't have the members or the posts/activity it will never happen.

In saying this however I have added Paid Membership to TheMysteryDistrict which is my new venture which has just re-opened after a revamp.

What we offer in return for our paid membership is:-
Larger PM, Avatar Space all the normal things everyone else offers.

Plus:-
- HTML Username mark up / Color
- Access to our Area 51 Section which has interviews with people well known in our niche, hidden boards, and access to our downloads section.

Its just small however we charge just a small amount, and we are continuiously working on adding new and better things for the paid membership team.

While I agree with the others that if you don't have the members it wouldn't work and you shouldn't make people pay for things that should come basic the reason we put our downloads/ crime scene photos etc behind closed doors is because the last time we launched everything we had was stolen by another site and uploaded on their site and so we offer our registered members access to post, some crime scene photos etc but the ones i have had to pay for or something like that then the members have to pay for.