Pre-Launch anxiety kicking in...Some Help Please:)

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Brandon Lamb

New member
Mar 17, 2011
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Hey guys,

Been a while since I've posted here. Been a lurker more than anything in the past to be honest, but I've learned a TON from this site from all the members.

I'm launching a website soon and I'm really trying to formulate a prelaunch tactic. I'm not doing a full blown launch but I'd like to run some sort of promotion/sale for the launch date.

I'm wondering what kind of promotions you guys have run in the past for your websites. When I say promotion, I mean for example a 48 hour, lifetime membership for a fixed price. Then after the 48 hours is up, the website returns to its fixed month to month membership rate.

I can give you some details on my site so you get an idea of the niche and what may or may not work etc.

My website is a social networking website for DJs. Combining aspects of live streaming and online music sharing, I think the site is definitely one of a kind in the DJ niche. The site will charge roughly $8.99 a month to join. (Other sites that have half our features offer $12.99 rates.) I actually run a more traditional Clickbank product in the Self Help niche so I know a bit about building an affiliate army. The DJ niche is quite different than say the IM or fitness niche where an insane amount of products and paid membership sites are available. In those types of niches, everyone wants to help everyone because in the end, both get paid.

In my niche, it's more like other DJ sites probably don't want to run a promotion like mine because I'd literally be stealing there customers/viewers or whatever they are doing on there sites. At this point, I'm not even going to offer an affiliate program. I think using the Netflix affiliate model may be the way to go where other website owners can apply to be an affiliate and I would approve them based on there info and how well it would match up. I could be completely wrong with this tactic but I think I'm going to roll with it.

To all you membership website owners, plzz speak up

Thanks!
Brandon
 


If each new user is not costing you significant money, make it free first. Then figure out money later. Nobody is going to be the first person to join a site AND pay money to do it. You could grandfather in the first 100 users as free users and have them promote you. You could also make the first 3 months free. But don't charge people right off the bat if there's a large social element to your site (it sounds like there is).
 
The Freemium model.
Offer a free subscription where you are giving them very basic but useful features. They must feel that subscription to your site is worth their time. You could give a week of premium features for every free user. At the end of week you can start the mail campaign.
 
chatmasta said:
If each new user is not costing you significant money, make it free first. Then figure out money later. Nobody is going to be the first person to join a site AND pay money to do it. You could grandfather in the first 100 users as free users and have them promote you. You could also make the first 3 months free. But don't charge people right off the bat if there's a large social element to your site (it sounds like there is).
Click to expand...

The cost of running the site currently is isn't too heavy. A decent size dedicated server because of the live streaming aspect of the site. With my blog writer, I'd say I'm throwing $300-$400 a month by running it. Still hurts the wallet I would say.

Thing with my site is that I have two usergroups, DJs and the Fans. The DJs are the users that are paid members, and the fans sign up for free. The fans have full access to the social part of the site but have limited option towards other features. I think I have enough value to start charging right away just because of the comparable sites on the Internet so far. I also think incorporating free members into the launch is probably the way to go, I agree with you for sure.

I've really been thinking of offering for free as well, especially during the launch phase. I could 'afford' to grandfather about yeah 100-200 DJ members.

My thoughts are maybe to run a week long launch where the first 48-72 hours, the memberships are free, then once that time runs out, offer my lifetime membership(which we won't ever be offering again) at a fixed, one time payment to run for another 48-72 hours and then after that time is up, finally set back to the normal $8.99 monthly rate.

The other way would be to not use a timeframe structure like that and do the first 100-200 users free, scale back to my lifetime membership for another 100-200 members, then finally go back to the normal $8.99 rate.

Blehhh, so many options...:rasta:
 
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