Increasing Gold Membership numbers?

[Bruce Pennington]

Brian, I think you can forget about worrying about us.  We're here because we love doing this.  It's a hobby, not a profession.  The guys that like making money at this are already running their own businesses.  Do whatever you need to do to Make NMB Great Again, and don't spend another second worrying about compensating us.  Complimentary Gold memberships are an honor to receive and quite sufficient.  Warrelics does the same thing.  Don't know about other sites. 

[Kmad]

Hi all,

I think if you want to sell more than 1 item at any 1 time you should have to have gold membership

Regards

Ken 

[CaptainKevo]

Greetings Gentlemen,

Granted I am a boomer and new to this hobby and site, I wanted to inform you that it took a good five or six minutes for me to discover how to join and ma

ke my payment ( a very reasonable payment in my opinion ).  By the time that I was finished I had come to the conclusion that a little reworking of your leader board would be a big improvement. New users should immediately see how they can join, what their contributions do and how reasonable it is for the vast amount of info and support that they can access.  It should be short, sweet and unavoidable ( not just plain lines of text like that which appeared when I opened this site and Did Not Read). This might give you a small uptick in subscriptions for no cost and little effort...

[Mark]

welcome Kevin

[CaptainKevo]

Thank you sir.

 

It's nice to be here!

[kissakai]

I've of the same opinion as Kevin

 

[Brian]

Welcome Kevin, and thank you very much for the support. It helps a lot, as we are about to consider upgrading to the new software (A major upgrade) and the quote for that alone is over $500.
Do you mean finding where to look at the Gold membership options? 
Yeah, currently by default it is under the STORE tab at the top. If you are saying that is too hidden, I'll look tomorrow if I can make it more obvious and findable. 
The link is here for anyone who wants to see the benefits: https://www.militaria.co.za/nmb/subscriptions/

I'll see if I can make it more intuitive. 

Thanks,
Brian

[CaptainKevo]

Hello Brian,

Absolutely! Make it one of the first things a newcomer would see to get them on track. Also, I would suggest using Subscribe instead of Donate since the younger generations are more tuned into that for obvious reasons. Just a suggestion.

 

I apologize for posting in the wrong forum. Please move my post if you can or delete it if that is easier.

 

Best wishes

Kevin 

[eternal_newbie]

55 minutes ago, CaptainKevo said:

Also, I would suggest using Subscribe instead of Donate since the younger generations are more tuned into that for obvious reasons.

 

Donate is probably fine as is but "Subscribe" or "Subscriptions" instead of "Store" makes more sense since they're the only thing you can "purchase" in the store.

[Brian]

Have made a change to bring that up one level. Subscriptions is a software forced description, but maybe it is a bit more useful/visible now? Will see how I can fine tune it more. Thanks.

[Bruce Pennington]

I already like the "Subscriptions" label.  "Store" had always thrown me off because I think of buying things in a store, and there were never any goodies to buy in that "Store."

[Brian]

The forum software has the ability to go full store mode if we ever want to try that, like it was want to market books, shirts, mugs...anything at all. Would be nice to have some stuff to sell, but obviously the logistics are considerable.
But oneday we'll explore that further. 

[Rawa]

What about making some articles available only for long term subscribers?

Imo NCO 95 guide and some kind of oshigata compilation would do the trick. And I know some kind of guide is in the making.

@Bruce Pennington @Scogg have You thought about cooking something?

Slough’s second edition was printed 20 years ago

Edited January 7 by Rawa

[Scogg]

I’m working on a Type 95 patterns and variations document. Im not sure when I’ll be finished, and I have to be very careful to be accurate and factual. I hope to have some people proofread it before I call it “complete”. 
 

Whether or not it’s up to the standards of the NMB will be entirely up to Brian, though. We’ll see when we get there 

-Sam 

[Bruce Pennington]

2 hours ago, Rawa said:

oshigata compilation would do the trick. And I know some kind of guide is in the making.

Marcin,

That would be something more in line with Mal's - @mecox - expertise.

[Rawa]

1 hour ago, Bruce Pennington said:

Marcin,

That would be something more in line with Mal's - @mecox - expertise.

You have done a lot of research. I thought about combined work with all done in previous articles.

Like Slough’s Mantetsu pages.

Edited January 8 by Rawa

[Brian]

Yes...Gold membership articles are definitely a useful and likely outcome. Although people will likely share them anyways, it would be a very helpful thing. We just need some that would be enough of an incentive for people to take up the membership.
Sam, I'm pretty sure your document is going to be awesome. 
Currently we are saving up for the $500+ needed to pay for the major update to the software. But I think that is going to be an amazing experience for everyone once done.

[Bruce Pennington]

15 hours ago, Rawa said:

combined work with all done in previous articles.

That would be an awesome book, Marcin!  I'm just trying to imagine - All of Mal's articles on WWII smiths; the Mantetsu article; the Souvenir Article; Sam's Type 95 article; hopefully a Type 25 article from John.  I'd have to check with Akira Komiya, and Nick's wife, but it would be great to include Nick's sword articles.  Don't know if the Stamps doc would be too big to add.

Hmmm .....

[Scogg]

2 hours ago, Bruce Pennington said:

That would be an awesome book, Marcin!  I'm just trying to imagine - All of Mal's articles on WWII smiths; the Mantetsu article; the Souvenir Article; Sam's Type 95 article; hopefully a Type 25 article from John.  I'd have to check with Akira Komiya, and Nick's wife, but it would be great to include Nick's sword articles.  Don't know if the Stamps doc would be too big to add.

Hmmm .....

Sounds like quite the book 

Maybe it could be published, and some percentage of the proceed could benefit the NMB. (just thinking out loud)

Lots of work though... My 95 document alone is over 70 pages. 

I'd buy it 

-Sam

[MassiveMoonHeh]

Brian - monetising a site like this is a must - it is just to valuable to be a charity (Unless of course someone rich is willing to sponsor it) - but it needs funding!

 

1. Advertising via Google adverts is one way to go. Members get to view the site minus the ads.

2. Creating a members only area of high resolution blades as previously suggested would be enormously beneficial but that involves all members contributing and some may not be willing to list what they own so perhaps allow contribution anonymously - that is you get to decide if you put your name against your blade or not when you list it and blades uploaded anonymously do not have any tags back to the uploader.

3. Gold members do not need to pay a fee to list items for sale? Non-members get 5 free adverts but need to pay or become a member after that?

4. Gold members get access to sales items 12 hours before non-members is a great idea - if the seller is willing to do that?

5. Gold Member Dealers always have their posts at the top above non-dealers.

6. Dealers and Sellers regardless of membership should have a review status so that you can see if they are reputable.

7. Membership discounts to Gold Member Dealers so that we support our Gold Member dealers? This also becomes an incentive for getting dealers to become Gold Member Dealers.

8. Membership discounts to NBTHK membership or their publications? Has this ever been discussed with NBTHK? To try encourage more members going gold and get more NBTHK members?

9. Limit access to older posts in searches for non-paying members. That is they have access to 1 month of data but show them that there is data available but it is blurred out? Most recent posts are always free.

10. Free downloads section is only available to Gold members?

11. Deals with Gold member authors who are writing books to get discounts for their latest books for Gold Members?

12. Deals with museums who hold exhibitions to give Gold Members' discount rates?

13. Exclusive events for gold members - such as private viewings or access to swords at various museums, sword shows or private collections that allows gold members to a special event where those who attend are able to pick up some of the top rarely touched swords and view them properly. Now that would be exciting and worth the membership just for opportunities like this.

 

Most of these have been mentioned before.

 

I am not sure about a forum shop selling only merchandise is that valuable in terms of generating revenue unless you have plans to open a proper shop and sell things related to Nihonto - but that is not the business.

 

[robinalexander]

Well .... some really good ideas there Brett .... while others may be taking the Gold Member thingo to a whole new level, that may get really complicated.

 

But I love the way you think 

 

[Brian]

I'll try go through them point by point over the weekend. But some of them are excellent ideas, and others are limited by what the software can do, and I can't do it all manually.
Some of the stuff there can be done in the new software that I am waiting to update to, but we aren't making much progress towards the $500 that the major update requires, so a lot of it is pending along with a ton of other features people will like.
As far as hi res image hosting etc, that would likely also add another $100 a month to the hosting bills so I would need to make sure we don't go backwards. We already have a crazy number of attachment files hosted, well in the high hundreds of thousands, and most hosting comments have been "what the hell....you have allowed HOW MANY files uploaded??"
Yeah, 18+ years sure does increase the number of attachments, especially when they are fairly unrestricted.
The rest, I'll go through later, thanks for the comments.