Membership Drive

[SteveColes]

We need to increase our membership. Why? Because to achieve some of our primary goals, a higher rate of activity is needed.

The two areas that this affects the most are member buy and sell and local announcemnts. Right now very few people are going are going to come to this site for buy and sell becuase there is not enough activity. More members, also means more localized info. No one of us can or should be trying to supply all that info.

I figure that we need 500 members to get about 50 "active members" and it is the active members that provide the majority of info on the site. 50 active members will make this site self sustaining as far as content.

SO go out and get people. Tell them about the gallery where you actually find your pictures without waiting for the semi-annual index, tell about the good attitudes and great people here. Tell people you know personally, tell people you know from other boards send them PMs or emails, go to your WW orgainzation meetings and let them know we are here and have a lot to offer their members and to the organization itself. Let them hear about the no ads, banners, or donations. Hell, you know what to say.

Thanks,
Steve

One of the reasons I just added those special forums was not so much that I expected us to become the next WoodNet or SawMillCreek.\, but to let visitore know that we are interested in all of the aspects of WW. If you have a favorite store, in your area, invite them to post about their goods. You can't beat our fees.

 

[SteveColes]

Fyi, 75% of the newest members, got here becuase of the paid links on google. But that costs about $300 a month at the level I running them, I can;t afford to continus and I have stoped the campaign as of 9/1/2005.

Lately the biggest draw seems to be the Gallery.

If we can increase the tasteful presence of commerical members, and even one starts to provide a ncwoodworker.net discount, a la woodnet and Hartville, membership will grow.

 

[rickc]

Just an FYI - I will be sending out the TWA newsletter either tonight or tomorrow, with a link to this site. With about 190 going out, you should see some increase. I think you said there was a selection for how you heard about the site, or something else that could tie their member ship to a TWA response, correct? Good luck!

 

[SteveColes]

Let me state again that we need to increase membership. So you Know what that means.

SO go out and get people. Tell them about the gallery where you actually find your pictures without waiting for the semi-annual index, tell about the good attitudes and great people here. Tell people you know personally, tell people you know from other boards send them PMs or emails, go to your WW orgainzation meetings and let them know we are here and have a lot to offer their members and to the organization itself. Let them hear about the no ads, banners, or donations. Hell, you know what to say.

In a day or two, I'm going to send out a "news letter". While, it is intended for those people who registered and have been back a few times or even never, it will go to everyone. The idea is to get people to take another look and see the improvements and the increase of content and hopefully start to show up more often.

Additionally, I'll use the bad email address rejections to get rid of the sniff and leave's. So if you email address is not good, please update it.

Another thing you can do, if your are a frequent visitor at other sites, is put a reference to ncwoodworker.net in your signature there. You notice, I am using a new signature to show one way to do it. The logo I'm using is the logo gallery as "small logo"

 

[DaveO]

I think that a newsletter is a great idea. Last night I was looking through the members list and only 10% of members had ever posted anything. It might light a fire under those who haven't contributed anything. Dave

 

[SteveColes]

Fyi, 75% of the newest members, got here becuase of the paid links on google. But that costs about $300 a month at the level I running them, I can;t afford to continus and I have stoped the campaign as of 9/1/2005.

Just a reminder, now that we have almost 200 members, it is not time to stop actively going after new members.

When the google campaign stopped on 9/1/2005, so did growth. I restarted it and ended it on Oct 15. Again, it slowed, I restarted it again and growth started again. My budget for the ads is half of what I started and yet it stioll seems to bring in people so, I'll keep it up for awhile more.

So please readthis whole thread aand go out there and bring back members kicvking and screaming.:lol:

 

[DaveO]

Steve, I talk up the site to everyone I meet that is someone who would be interested. I think that we have a great thing going here and I hope that more people will find out about it and join in on the fun. Did the "newsletter" go out, because I think that is a great way to get the current members to spend more time here. And the more activity there is, the more attractive the site will be to new members. If there is anything you think I can do to boost membership and participation, please let me know , I am all for it. Dave

 

[SteveColes]

Yes I sent it out on 9/20/2005

www.ncwoodworker.net is now a bit over 2 months old and we have about 120 registered members.

The reason that I am sending this email is to let those registered members who visit infrequently, or those people who registered and then never came back, know about some of the changes that have taken place.

First, we changed from phpNuke to vBulletin giving us a more flexible base to work with. Then we switched to ixwebhosting as our hosting provider to give us a great deal of flexibility.

Some of the results of these changes are:

Every member can have, on request, a ncwoodworker.net based email address.

We can now host sub domain websites for user members or groups of members.

For example, rickcornell.ncwoodworker.net <http://rickcornell.ncwoodworker.net>

Your Photo Gallery can now be enabled for Bulk upload via ftp



Some Added features:

Spell Check in forums

Download libraries 94 sets of free plans and growing quickly

Chat Rooms

Calendar

Website Links Library



And of course more content. Our forums have been expanded and contain 189 threads of 886 posts.

An extra word about our Photo Galleries, The new Gallery software was designed specifically to integrate with vBulletin. Its structure is very much like a set of forums, making it very easy to navigate. It is organized in such a manner that you can easily find your pictures and organize then in any way you wish. It has a very easy upload method and has special features to make it very easy to link to your pictures from other forums.



So I invite you to visit and take another look around. If you decide that you are no longer interested in your membership, a simple request to terminate your membership sent as a reply to this message, will remove you from our lists and you will not be bothered again.



I hope I have not intruded too much and thank you very much for your time.

Steve Coles

Admin/Webmaster

www.ncwoodworker.net