Though it may not be true for all forums, there is a good chance that some of your members would gladly support the community financially, if you provided them with an attractive means of doing so. Ideally, this is something that not only acknowledges their contribution but also provides them with value for their money. In other words, it’s a win for all.
Premium memberships represent that sort of opportunity. In the Sponsored Brand Placement chapter of this book, we discussed the idea of sponsored accounts for businesses and those with a commercial interest in participating in your community. That is not usually what a premium membership program is about. It tends to be aimed at members, giving them an outlet through which to provide monetary support to the community because they enjoy it and/or they want the added benefits that a premium membership can offer.
There are many forums that offer premium memberships. For a few examples, see Web Hosting Talk, ScubaBoard and SeadooForum.
Using the permissions and/or user groups system of your chosen software, you will likely be able to put premium members into a special group that has specific permissions afforded to that level of membership. But, how do you tie in your payment system, ensuring that members are added to the proper group automatically and are removed when their subscriptions lapse?
While you can do some or all of this manually, that will only add needless work to the process. So, you should try to find the most seamless solution for your premium membership program.
For most, this won’t be a default feature. You will want to check out the resource sites available for the software that you use to see if any hacks or modifications exist. There is a fair chance that some sort of add-on does exist. Failing that, you may want to review available membership or subscription site scripts and look for one that will integrate with your software. aMember Pro is a popular option that has plugins for many widely used platforms.
The add-on that you opt for will likely define what sort of payment processor you can use. You will want to accept recurring payments, ensuring that your members can automatically keep their subscription up to date without manually sending a payment each time it is due for expiration.
Because you are handling money, you should also define your refund policy. It comes down to what you are most comfortable with and what you feel will work best, ensuring the satisfaction of your members. Some communities offer no refunds. Some offer pro-rated refunds, returning the funds for any unused time periods. Some offer no refunds for banned members, but more flexibility for members in better standing.
To minimize headaches for everyone involved, it may be best to offer pro-rated refunds and to automatically process them in the case of members that have been banned.
There are a lot of different benefits that you can offer your premium members. With most communities, as you work your way through the options, you won’t want to take away existing features that members already enjoy for free. This can lead to members being more likely to resent the program and may be perceived as a sort of bait and switch. For this reason, it should be avoided.
Instead, look at your premium membership program as an opportunity for members to gain addition features and functionality and increased limitations while supporting the community that they enjoy financially.
Supporting the community is, in itself, a benefit. You can emphasize this by making sure that people know that premium members are supporting the existence of your forums. People like to be recognized and you can showcase your premium members on a special page and/or with a dedicated username color, badge or rank image.
Your community is unique and you know it best, so you are in a great position to come up with custom benefits that speak to your members. That said; check out the list below for some ideas, which you can also use as inspiration as you come up with your own.
• Custom rank titles
• Increased avatar size
• Increased signature space
• Increased space for saving private messages
• Increased file size for attachments on posts or contributions
• Private, premium member only sections
• Exclusive content
• Premium member only giveaways, contests and coupons
• Discounts on community related extras, such as listings in a classified ad section
• Increased freedom in areas of your community that have limitations, such as advertising forums where you allow a member to only make one post for a certain period of time. For example, you could allow two posts in that same period for premium members
• Turn off some or all display advertising
• Physical goods, such as a membership card, stickers or t-shirts
• An @yourdomain.com email address
What should you charge? There is no one price that will work for all communities. It really depends on your community, the topic of your community and your members. For instance, a professional community that people utilize in the course of what they do for a living may justify a higher cost than a hobbyist community. Or it may not.
Many communities charge in the area of $3 to $10 a month and offer a small discount for yearly subscriptions. Some are more, some are less. Some only offer a yearly subscription and not a monthly option.
Whatever reasonable price you land on, you can always make adjustments later. If you raise your price, you may opt to allow existing members to keep their current pricing for a period of time or indefinitely.
For many, a single premium membership level will work. But, some may find it helpful to have multiple levels with different price points and benefits. Giving people more options can lead to more people becoming premium members, thanks to more flexible choices.
One of the biggest concerns with launching a program like this is that it may create a divide on your community, between members who pay for a premium membership and those who do not.
You can minimize this by treating everyone the same when it comes to the management of your forums. The general member guidelines of your community should apply to all members, premium or not. It makes sense that you might allow certain limitations to be raised, like the number of posts per time period in an advertisement forum. But, the guidelines that detail how members can treat one another and speak to the quality and environment of your forums should apply to all.
This should be clearly communicated to members in the messaging that you use to promote the premium membership program. Tell everyone plainly and clearly that the guidelines still apply and that a premium member will have inappropriate content removed, and potentially be blocked from the forums, just like any member could be. You never want people to think that someone can pay for preferential treatment from the staff – nor should they be able to.
This may not need to be said – but just in case, neither should anyone be able to pay for any forum related authority or management oversight. You can’t buy moderator abilities, for example. You are supporting the community and receiving recognition and some extra, bonus benefits for doing so. That is what the program has to be about. You will be treated with the same level of respect and expectations, whether you are a premium member or not.
In this section, we are primarily discussing premium memberships as an addition to a community that allows anyone to participate by signing up for a free account.
But, it is important to note that, while most communities offer some sort of free account, there are communities that are premium member only, requiring a paid subscription in order to view and/or participate in the forums. This can work, but to be successful, they must offer a strong value proposition. There are no extra benefits because you are either paying or you are not a member of the community. People don’t have time to develop an affinity for the forums before they make the leap to premium membership because premium membership is all there is.
This has some benefits – the biggest one being that they tend to be easier to moderate. Spammers tend not to want to pay to spam an individual forum, especially one that is private and not indexed by search engines. There are downsides, too. Search engine visitors represent a big portion of the traffic that many communities receive and if people can’t see what they are joining and see how great it is before they make the plunge, it is that much harder to explain the benefits of the community to potential members.
Due to this fact, these premium only communities tend to be launched by well established brands or individuals who have built up a strong network of people who know them and know that they offer value. While the development of friendships and relationships can make people want to stay, there usually must be recurring value in order to get subscribers to stay beyond the first few months of new information and excitement.
This can be done in many different ways. Offering regularly published, exclusive content, articles, interviews and live events is common, as is continued access to experts and respected individuals related to the particular space. If a community is started by a recognized expert, and people register because of them and expect them to answer questions, and then they disappear, that can lead to departures. So, it has to be an active process.
Offering a premium member program can be a great experience, allowing you to recognize members who are willing to make a financial commitment to your forums, similar to how they pay for their newspaper, television, cell phone or internet access – except that they likely have a deeper personal connection to your community.
You can give these members an outlet to support the community, which grows revenue, but also gives them benefits for participation to ensure that they get the value for their money and then some.
It isn’t without its potential pitfalls, but with the right discipline and proper execution, it can be a very rewarding way to monetize your forums.