Comments on: New members feel special when welcomed

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:50:10 +0000

Animal – Just make sure that you pay attention to the introductions forum and encourage your existing members to do the same. Introduction forums are worthless if new members go there to introduce themselves but don’t receive any posts in reply!

By: Animal Crossing

Animal Crossing — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:07:09 +0000

Hey thanks for the tip. I have a site of my own and from experience it is hard for people to stay. This is a great idea because I don’t have a intro forum yet but will make it now. Thanks a lot, I’ll get back to you on how much my site improved in a week. = ]

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:58:08 +0000

Eric – That is a fantastic idea; if you have the time and energy, then setting up a dedicated member retention team can really help ensure your members stick with your community.

Just make sure you give adequate guidelines as to what these team members can and can’t do (you don’t want to be accused of spamming).

By: Eric Martindale

Eric Martindale — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:45:03 +0000

On RolePlayGateway Role Playing Games, we’ve put together a special team on our site called the ‘Member Retention Team’. Their job starts with welcoming members, but extends into contacting members outside of the site and establishing good and solid relationships with them. It’s working extraordinarily well so far, and we’ve increased our member retention by more than double, just by finding one of these evangelists and putting them in charge of such a team.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 15:15:45 +0000

Daniel – It’s great to have you back. I agree with you – by interacting with your readers (both old and new) you are maintaining and creating relationships.

When you have an established and on-going relationship with your readers, they are far less likely to want to leave.

By: Daniel B. Honigman

Daniel B. Honigman — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 13:15:23 +0000

Martin –

Haven’t been here in a while, with my new job and all. Love the new site.

Welcoming new blog readers also serves another purpose: convincing older subscribers NOT to cancel their RSS feed. If they see that you’re appreciative, they’ll be less likely to stop reading your site, and they won’t see as much fluctuation on your FeedBurner counter as they may expect.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 20:35:42 +0000

Smiley – I am sorry to hear about the loss of your database but happy to see your determination to get back on track! Good luck!

By: Smiley

Smiley — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 22:27:47 +0000

Yes, unfortunately I lost everything. Oh, I backed it up atleast 6 times a day ofcourse.. but found out I was backing up the wrong bloody SQL.

You should slap that into an article of yours somewhere, actually. It’s important to keep yourself organized and try not having all your important stuff scattered all over the place – I just learnt that the hard way, ha ha.

But I’ve bought a resellers and I control all my own stuff now, people are coming back, all it means is I need to work twice as hard to get the content up again, and provide new toys for loyal members to play with – I even bought them new chat software with emoticons, sounds, picture sending etc etc.

Dedication and work like that makes members feel special, too, because it rubs off on them and they know it’s all for them.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 16:45:55 +0000

Warhammer – I’m glad you enjoyed the article. Do you welcome new members to your site? Do you find it effective?

Eric Martindale – Thanks for your comment and for subscribing to my RSS feed. I will definitely take a good look at your site when I get a spare moment.

Smiley – Welcome back! Sorry to hear you had to change servers – did you lose your database in the transfer?

I have never used the cash mod, but it sounds like it is working well for you. Making your welcomes personal definitely helps, and results in your members feeling special and valued.

By: Smiley

Smiley — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 06:07:41 +0000

I’m back after a short absence! Had to move everything to new servers and got rid of chat-forum.com!

But yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I have a cash mod installed as I thought I owed it to my members to make it up to them for making them re-register etc etc, so installed a load of fun features for them to play with.

What I do is have a welcome forum and personally welcome all users – and I’ve found myself even taking your advice from an article a while back, checking out their profile BEFORE welcoming them, then asking them about an interest of theirs if they have put any, and I also give them “200 Smiley’s” as a sign up gift, so they can go off and play the quizzes or buy items from the virtual shop or play the virtual lottery or listen to music with it etc to get them involved with the other members.