How do I market a forum?

[kyro]

Right to the chase, my name is max and I recently opened www.corollaonline.com a discussion forum for the corolla. (5 days ago)

Now so far I know a few ways of how to market my site, add it to searchengines, banners and mouth to mouth.

Well I submitted it to searchengines and even setup a contest. (see the site for details). just hope this contest is going to work and ppl will join.

Well, i was wondering for other ways to get my site out there? any Ideas? This is a carforum so googlead's and banner advertising on other site wouldn't be costeffective.

thanks

[RWA]

You could try Google Adsense for starters, how about a classfied advertisment in a spe******t magazine? Those are the first 2 things that spring to my mind straightaway.

[phoenixdown]

As your site caters to a specific make and model, perhaps you can join other broader catagory sites and by participating spread your own site by word of mouth.

[kyro]

Originally Posted by phoenixdown

As your site caters to a specific make and model, perhaps you can join other broader catagory sites and by participating spread your own site by word of mouth.

Ive thought of that, but wouldnt it be considered spam?

[phoenixdown]

It all depends on the approach. If your a positive assett to the community, most sites wont mind you posting a link to your site once you've established yourself and most members wont instantly ignore it because of the repior you've established with them. If your just going to post 1 word replies along the lines of "hi, I love civics, come visit my site", then I am sure the site staff would be vexed. It would be a good idea to check out the forums policies first since some hold hard and fast to non-advertising of other sites while others are more relaxed about it.

[Lord Brar]

First of all Max, Welcome to PulseToday!

Second, I would suggest that you cut down on the number of forums that your board has (no matter how much you promote the site but if it doesn't look active then you will have a pathetic conversion rate i.e. the visitors who will register with your site )

Here are a few things you could do to promote your site -

1. Signatures in other forums (From Experience this provides extremely targeted traffic)
2. Public Relations (Give out press releases. Give interviews etc.)
3. Write articles about your topic and submit them to as many sites as you can.
4. Try and promote word of mouth (yeah, you have to ask people to tell others about your site )
5. Do some viral stunts which will help create a buzz about your site.

On a sidenote, I'd suggest that you read this article - http://www.sitepoint.com/article/turn-lurkers-posters

[nsusa]

You ask members of your site to use their signatures in other forums to help promote your own forum. Run a contest or offer money for postings.

Christoph

[QWEST]

Here's what I suggest for all new forum admins especially a good niche one like yours:

1) Of course start out your initial advertising campaign. As many forums as you can find and more importantly SE submissions and DMOZ. It's important to get this out of the way early because this is what will take the longest to produce any results in terms of actually getting listed. But don't focus too much energy on this yet. In fact don't even spend money on it (unless you just can't resist but that's your call). I'll explain why in #3.

2) Get those initial members first. Not only will they provide the posts you need to keep passers-by interested and convert them to signups but they will also bring in new memebrs through word of mouth. They are also usually the most loyal especially since they usually become moderators later on .

3) Once you have some content then you can step up your advertising campaign. PPC advanced SEO techniques, link exchanges, the works. Why did I mention this all in this particular order? Simple, you don't want to waste time and effort on promotion and SEO to attract members to an empty forum! Your signup rate and ROI will be a lot higher if your visitors actually have something to read when they arrive.

Find other related sites that aren't forums and pay for ad space.

The above formula (I like to call it my "forumula" ) has worked wonders on nearly every forum I've ever created. I own a lot of forums that I NEVER mention here on PulseToday just because of their level of success and niche, I don't want clones. But an example of one that I can talk about is in my sig. EnvoyForums is less than a month old and is closing in on 400 posts with an average of 1 to 3 new members per day and rising.

With forums it's an easy cycle..

content -> traffic -> more content -> more traffic

[kyro]

Originally Posted by QWEST

Here's what I suggest for all new forum admins especially a good niche one like yours:

1) Of course start out your initial advertising campaign. As many forums as you can find and more importantly SE submissions and DMOZ. It's important to get this out of the way early because this is what will take the longest to produce any results in terms of actually getting listed. But don't focus too much energy on this yet. In fact don't even spend money on it (unless you just can't resist but that's your call). I'll explain why in #3.

2) Get those initial members first. Not only will they provide the posts you need to keep passers-by interested and convert them to signups but they will also bring in new memebrs through word of mouth. They are also usually the most loyal especially since they usually become moderators later on .

3) Once you have some content then you can step up your advertising campaign. PPC advanced SEO techniques, link exchanges, the works. Why did I mention this all in this particular order? Simple, you don't want to waste time and effort on promotion and SEO to attract members to an empty forum! Your signup rate and ROI will be a lot higher if your visitors actually have something to read when they arrive.

Find other related sites that aren't forums and pay for ad space.

The above formula (I like to call it my "forumula" ) has worked wonders on nearly every forum I've ever created. I own a lot of forums that I NEVER mention here on SPF just because of their level of success and niche, I don't want clones. But an example of one that I can talk about is in my sig. EnvoyForums is less than a month old and is closing in on 400 posts with an average of 1 to 3 new members per day and rising.

With forums it's an easy cycle..

content -> traffic -> more content -> more traffic

1 question, how do I get those initial members? I have a few but they are only on there cuz i told em, they dont even own a corolla.

[Lord Brar]

Originally Posted by kyro

1 question, how do I get those initial members? I have a few but they are only on there cuz i told em, they dont even own a corolla.

There are a lot of ways you can do this -

1. Go find the corolla owners at other communities and develop links with them! Don't spam them about your site but mildly hint about it. A lot of them would join you

2. Write letters to the editors of the car publications with your site hinted in the signature!

3. Go Spam the chatrooms By spamming, I mean that you go join the discussions at Car related IRCs / Yahoo Chat etc. and while talking, mention your site's name in it!

4. Write good articles and give free reprint rights to them. Encourage people to reprint your articles. Include a signature with sales pitch and in your reprint license make it mandatory to include that while reprinting the article!

5. Don't forget to include your signature on all sites that you visit, like this one (you can setup your signature in the control panel)! Who knows there might be some corolla enthusiasts / owners out here who might be interested in your site!

BTW have you heard of post exchanges like those at TheAdminZone.com? They might help give you an initial activity boost to your site!