Shawn Gossman
Community Explorer
Businesses succeed because they introduce strategy into their operations.
See, strategy means that you plan for an activity and set goals and objectives. This allows you to conduct your business in a certain way so that you can achieve the goals and objectives you set. With strategy, business activities, and random and based on luck, which is not very effective at the end of the day.
We should consider these same strategies without discussion forums.
By creating a forum strategy, you’re planning for success instead of being overwhelmed when failure occurs. Many forum owners quit because they have no real direction with their communities. If you make a plan, set goals, and uniformly follow your plan, you’ll start to see great success.
My strategy is simple. It’s realistic. It took three years to become a potentially profitable forum. And it goes something like this:
You can advertise and promote it here and there to obtain new membership, but focus on content the most. You might even do some post exchange with other forums to get more content and members. If you can afford to, try buying more posts and membership, as well.
Focus on creating the best content for your forum.
The best content is on topics that encourage engagement, debate, and answers. You should post controversial topics that often result in many replies. Also, post content that addresses your audience's needs, wants, and pain points.
By the end of the first year, your forum should have thousands of topics and replies.
This is where you need a budget and time to do things. You don’t need to be rich to have a forum promotion budget. You do need to be able to invest some time into promoting your forum at this point unless you can afford to hire other people to do it for you.
Try to focus your efforts on posting on niche-related communities, social media community development, and paid advertising.
Find other forums in your niche and post on them routinely. If you can have signature links, put your forum link on your signature; otherwise put it in your profile. Try to become a beloved member who is helpful and friendly.
Try to befriend active members on the forum and eventually invite them to join your forum.
Your next mission is to create a social media community. You can do this by consistently posting about your forum and engaging with your audience. Once you start to grow a larger following, it will be easier to convert your social media followers to forum members.
And then, you’ll want to move on to paid advertising and have a budget based on what you can afford.
Most of your ads should be bought from related forums that use the same software as yours because their members are interested in your topic and they already understand the software. You should also buy ads on social media where your audience is. Try to make sure you have a goal when buying ads so that it makes it worth accomplishing something relevant to your forum.
Do these tactics for an entire year while still creating excellent content, and watch your forum bloom!
By this time, you should have the content to back your forum up. You should also have a loyal audience to convert into customers. Now, you’ll just need to offer a product worth paying for.
It needs to be something that solves the pain points of your membership.
It might be a premium membership with specific features that help members with their biggest problems. Maybe it’s an eBook that addresses their needs, wants, and pain points. Whatever product or service you decide on, make sure that it actually helps members out with something they desperately need help with.
By the third year, earning a profit shouldn’t be that difficult on your forum.
Some will feel that three years is too long. In reality, it isn’t that long at all. With the saturation online and the number of users, it’s going to take a few years for any forum to get really successful.
Just keep at these tactics and you’ll watch your community grow and flourish in no time.
If you enjoyed this article, please reply and tell me what you think of it.
See, strategy means that you plan for an activity and set goals and objectives. This allows you to conduct your business in a certain way so that you can achieve the goals and objectives you set. With strategy, business activities, and random and based on luck, which is not very effective at the end of the day.
We should consider these same strategies without discussion forums.
By creating a forum strategy, you’re planning for success instead of being overwhelmed when failure occurs. Many forum owners quit because they have no real direction with their communities. If you make a plan, set goals, and uniformly follow your plan, you’ll start to see great success.
My strategy is simple. It’s realistic. It took three years to become a potentially profitable forum. And it goes something like this:
Year 1: Forum Content
The first year of your forum should be about content.You can advertise and promote it here and there to obtain new membership, but focus on content the most. You might even do some post exchange with other forums to get more content and members. If you can afford to, try buying more posts and membership, as well.
Focus on creating the best content for your forum.
The best content is on topics that encourage engagement, debate, and answers. You should post controversial topics that often result in many replies. Also, post content that addresses your audience's needs, wants, and pain points.
By the end of the first year, your forum should have thousands of topics and replies.
Year 2: Forum Marketing
The second year is about marketing your forum while also continuing to post new topics.This is where you need a budget and time to do things. You don’t need to be rich to have a forum promotion budget. You do need to be able to invest some time into promoting your forum at this point unless you can afford to hire other people to do it for you.
Try to focus your efforts on posting on niche-related communities, social media community development, and paid advertising.
Find other forums in your niche and post on them routinely. If you can have signature links, put your forum link on your signature; otherwise put it in your profile. Try to become a beloved member who is helpful and friendly.
Try to befriend active members on the forum and eventually invite them to join your forum.
Your next mission is to create a social media community. You can do this by consistently posting about your forum and engaging with your audience. Once you start to grow a larger following, it will be easier to convert your social media followers to forum members.
And then, you’ll want to move on to paid advertising and have a budget based on what you can afford.
Most of your ads should be bought from related forums that use the same software as yours because their members are interested in your topic and they already understand the software. You should also buy ads on social media where your audience is. Try to make sure you have a goal when buying ads so that it makes it worth accomplishing something relevant to your forum.
Do these tactics for an entire year while still creating excellent content, and watch your forum bloom!
Year 3: Forum Profit
The third year is about earning profit with your discussion forum.By this time, you should have the content to back your forum up. You should also have a loyal audience to convert into customers. Now, you’ll just need to offer a product worth paying for.
It needs to be something that solves the pain points of your membership.
It might be a premium membership with specific features that help members with their biggest problems. Maybe it’s an eBook that addresses their needs, wants, and pain points. Whatever product or service you decide on, make sure that it actually helps members out with something they desperately need help with.
By the third year, earning a profit shouldn’t be that difficult on your forum.
Final Thoughts
Thank you for taking the time to read through my article about having a three-year forum strategy.Some will feel that three years is too long. In reality, it isn’t that long at all. With the saturation online and the number of users, it’s going to take a few years for any forum to get really successful.
Just keep at these tactics and you’ll watch your community grow and flourish in no time.
If you enjoyed this article, please reply and tell me what you think of it.
